I am a fan of the you know you (are a child of the ’80’s, a ghetto child, or corporate ghetto) jokes. And being a library type, I was overjoyed when I saw this group on Facebook:
You Know You’ve worked in a library if…
I am not really sure who the actual creator is but I will credit the Group Officers
Megan Tripp, Raquel Ortiz, and Brandon Bushnell.
I deleted some of the you knows cause quite honestly they were not funny or didn’t apply to me.
No apologies ’cause that’s how I roll!
So here goes…
You know you’ve worked at a library…
-if you’ve laughed at ‘Unshelved‘. Best comic strip about work outside of Dilbert
-if you totally want to pimp out your bookcart. See above
-if you know what it would smell like to cook human flesh (b/c you’ve smelled all the homeless people in the library…)
-if you will never looked at a homeless person the same way again. Compassion, but for the grace …it could be me!
-if you’ve managed to hurt your wrist at work when most people consider your job a ‘desk job’. These are the same people who tell me how lucky it is I can read books all day!
-if you despise people who take up residence in random dept’s (thereby making shelving or shelf-reading in that area impossible). Don’t these people know I have work to do! What do they think this is? A library!?!
if you’re sick of imitation Oreos, imitation Sprite and those nasty wafer cookies. The dollar store gets lots of my money!
-if you know patrons by name.
-if you know patrons life stories and criminal histories and sexual orientation
(These are to be discussed loudly at the circ desk)
-if you know the the storylines of each Harry Potter book. (Duh! And Inkheart and Twilight!)
-if you amuse yourself by trying to find celebrity look- alikes among the patrons (I’ve seen a Richard Gere, a Pam Oliver and a Tim Russert!)
-if you find yourself with a little free time (say about four hours worth)
-if you tell a patron who is blaming you for computer problem that it is the computer’s fault when actually it is their own, while still advising them how to get the most out of the computer (for example “use the mouse might be more effective than yelling at the computer”) –no comment!
-if the way you greet your co-workers is by saying “What are you doing you lazy mother- effers!?!” To Margaret with love!
-if your dept. is both hot and cold at the same time (ie mag room is cold and comp lab is hot although both are in serials).
-if you try to convince yourself that the person staring at you breathing heavily has a breathing problem and is not actually just a creep.
-f you heard (or set off ) the alarm more than once in one day.
-if you only shelf-read your section twice in the entire year although it supposedly is to be reviewed every month. (Yeah, the 800’s look awesome. The other sections, not so)
-if you know how to pronounce ‘library’ ‘serials’ ‘circulation’ “Internet” and ‘reference’ even though all the patrons say: “liberry”, “surreeuhls”, “cirkalation”, “innanet”, and “refrene”. (I dated a guy who used to repeatedly say “I like the Liberry Lady.” That used to grate my nerves! )
-if you sign up someone for a reservation for the computer on pc reservation and even though you’ve told them their wait time they come back to complain about the length of their wait.
-f patrons ask you questions about words when they’re surrounded by dictionaries (or asks you to help them do their kid’s homework!)
-if a patron complains about ’empty computers’ when you have already explained that they have reservations on them.
-if you go to work happy and come out with a tired soul.
-if people ask you to clear them of fines just because you work at a library. (the real reason that I started working at a library!)
-if you find yourself with ‘library envy’ (envious of the library down the street). I liberally borrow ideas from other libraries!
-if your record has a double digit amount of checkouts: all new releases that looked so good and had to be checked out.
The last one is mine!
-r
No Comments