01.09.04

Fall classes have started. I’m slowly getting used to the twelve hour day. I’m only taking two classes, both of which are asychronouse (?) using interactive video confrencing with the Norman campus. There will probably be a lot of busy work for both classes but otherwise I don’t think the workload will be that bad, that is as long as I can keep up with it. So far, I’ve already fallen behind on some of the readings.
For the past month, the two mornings I have off in the week have been spent at a physical therapy rehab center. I’ve been having some back and leg pain problems for quite awhile and decided to finally get it seen to. They’ve diagnosed me with something called the SI joint syndrome. My therapy sessions usually consist of a combination of ultra-sound, a funny electrical machine thingy that gives me prickles, stretching, massage and being placed in all kinds of contorted positions. Some days are better than most, although this past week I’ve done remarkably better than I have in a long time. Today the therapist said that if I continue to improve than I can start running again in a few weeks. I’ll be glad when it’s better since the pains have caused a lot of sleepless nights, discomfort and lack of motivation for anything that requires me to move from a sitting position.
It also makes me more cranky. I’ve had even less patience when dealing with rude people at work. In class yesterday we talked a lot about ethics in libraries and how important it is to stand by our philosphy of treating everybody equally, regardless of how rude they are or other quarky personality traites they might have. While I’m sitting in class, listening to this, I nod my head in agreement knowing full well how difficult it can be to do this in practice. For instance, a lady came up to me tonight upset that the copy she recieved from our photocopy machine in the circulation area had leaked ink lines all over the right side of the page. Her words were something like “I just wasted fifteen cents on this and look how terrible it looks. It’s awful.” So, I offered to make her a copy on the reference copier for free and called Matt up at circulation to find out what the story was on their machine. Matt thought that the toner was running out, at least that’s what our circ supervisor had told him. But to save money, I guess, she had decided to wait until the toner ran out completely before she was going to change it. Sort of understanding her perspective, I also realized that it was probably a bad thing to make our patrons pay for a copy that had a bunch of ink marks all over it. This lady apparently listened very intently to my conversation with Matt because when I hung up she proceeded to complain about him and how it should be his job to put up a sign that informs patrons to “beware because this machine is not working at a hundred percent” and how he shouldn’t waste time telling patrons what’s wrong with the machine but instead spend that time trying to fix it because frankly she “could care less”. I agreed with what she was saying. However, I just have a big problem dealing with people who are more interested in the act of complaining then they are in using the process of complaining as a way to help rectify a problem. Even after I repaid her her fifteen cents by making her another copy she was still determined to draw out her complaint, her dramatic “I just wasted fifteen cents on this terrible copy” by placing blame on my friend and very capable co-worker just because he happened to be behind the desk at that moment in time. Unfortunately, this is human emotion. Not many people have the talent to complain constructively without stepping on peoples feelings. The act of complaining usually comes from a situation that has aroused anger and frustration, both of which are emotions that are difficult for most people to control. Part of our job is to try and limit any possible situations that might cause anger and frustration but unfortunately, everyones boiling point is different. What I have noticed, is that the majority of complaints I recieve and most of the frustration our patrons seem to exhibit (at least in this area of the library) originate from some sort of problem with technology, ie. the internet is slow, the internet is frozen, a certain website won’t come up, I don’t understand how to navigate this website, this website won’t take my password, the computer kicked me off before my time was up, I can’t find any books on NAFTA in your library, I don’t understand how to look up a library book on the computer, this photocopy machine took my money, this photocopy machine keeps enlarging the wrong section of my newspaper and I’m wasting my money on its mistakes, this photocopy machine keeps spitting out the wrong paper size, etc. On a daily basis, about 60% of the patrons I encounter are uncomfortable with technology. I have at least one-three people a week who come up to me directly and say “I am computer illiterate. Please help me”. So, where am I going with this? I don’t even know. I guess, sometimes I wish we could just turn off all the computers, pull all the books off the shelf and throw them in a pile in the middle of the floor. It would just feel so liberating to consume information without a purpose and without a medium.