Monday, November 11, 2013

Miss Information's adventures in car ownership

Miss Information's car is 2 years old and a couple of weeks ago she took a day off to have it serviced. The service people assured her that everything was fine. Perfect, they said. They mentioned checking all the fluids and things and stuff and junk. Miss Information isn't clear on those sorts of things. Because it was suddenly teeming rain, she went right home. 

The next day, she went to the gym. After that she had plans to drive on the highway for awhile, because she likes that sort of thing. Shortly after merging on to the highway, a warning light appeared on her dashboard--an exclamation point inside square brackets. Miss Information has seen this one before. Something is off with the tire pressure. She exits the highway and goes to a nearby parking lot where she looks at the tires. It is now pouring rain. They seem fine enough. Is that driver's side one kind of low? Hm. Maybe it is. 

Miss Information drives to a gas station to check the air and put in more. (Miss Information does not have a working tire gauge but she's been driving around with a completely useless one for as long as she remembers. It's tradition.)

At the gas station, thanks to Miss Information's ridiculously literal interpretation of the car manual's picture showing where the location of the tire information sticker, she has no idea how much air should be in her tires. Not one to let a detail like that stop her, Miss Information puts a little air into the tire that seems low. 

The next day she goes to a local garage that is open on Sundays to get them to check the tire, because, well, the tire was fine on Friday at the dealership, it must have a leak, right? The garage is busy and tell her to come back another time. She hates that place, why does she always go there?

Miss Information spends the rest of the day anxiously watching her tires. On Monday, she starts to think that one of the tires on the passenger side seems low. Because it's raining again, she goes to a gas station and puts a little air in that tire. Please note, Miss Information now has found the sticker that tells her how much air to put in the tires. Also note that the air hose at the gas station doesn't have a working gauge. Once again, Miss Information guesses. All the tires seem the right shape. Phew. 

Miss Information decides to go shopping. She thinks about when she last saw the warning light. As she recalls, it was right before she took her car for its one year service. So, about a year ago. In fact, Miss Information remembers that it was exactly a year ago, practically to the day. She checks her records. She'd picked the car up at 3 pm on October 26, 2012. The warning light went off at exactly 1:15 on October 26, 2013. Miss Information clues in that warning light might be less of a report of an actual problem and more of an annual reminder. 

Miss Information goes into the settings menu. It wants to know if her tires are ok. She says yeah. The warning light goes away. 

Miss Information makes a note not to panic next year. 

Saturday, November 09, 2013

Miss Information is nice to someone. See how that works out.

The customer at the desk is looking for something. Specifically she is looking for the book she reserved. She tells Miss Information that after she'd taken it from the pick up shelf, she'd put it down somewhere and now it's missing. Miss Information is mighty impressed that the woman successful picked up her own hold because most people can't manage that. This woman must be a rocket scientist. Miss Information doesn't think finding the woman's hold will be brain surgery. How many places could it be?

The woman has already retraced her steps. She's even looked on the pick up shelf in case it may have found its way back there. Miss Information continues to be impressed with the patron's ability. She offers to check the circ desk in case the book has ended up there. It hasn't. She checks the bins of books being shipped to other branches just in case it wound up there. She also checks the pick up shelf, looks on the trucks the pages are shelving and asks around. The book cannot be found.

The woman takes the bad news philosophically. Miss Information marks the book missing, because well, the book is missing. She assures the woman that it will turn up and that the library will call her back. The patron thanks Miss Information and goes to the children's department.

In about ten minutes the woman returns, missing book in her hand. She explains that when she'd retraced her steps earlier she'd forgotten about going to the encyclopedias! Then she remembered and there was the book!

Miss Information is delighted. She hates mysteries. The woman starts to walk away. Then she stops and comes back. This time she doesn't seem so happy.

"You know," she says. "You've been nice to me. Really nice. And I'm an idiot. The public transit department treats everyone terribly. You should be more like them. You need to stop being nice. Stop it. Stop it right now!"

Miss Information chuckles but the woman glares at her. "I mean it!" she says. "Stop being so nice!"

Um. Ok, then. Miss Information will never be nice to anyone again. Frankly it's a big relief.


Saturday, October 12, 2013

Miss Information is annoyed at work

Miss Information isn't having too bad a time at work this week. She arrived at work for the Tuesday morning shift to discover that the entire department had been reorganized the previous evening and no one working the next day was familiar with the new organization. The patrons were similarly clueless and much screwball comedyesque bumbling occurred.

Miss Information always finds that these situations give her a nice chance to bond with the patrons. When someone comes in to complain that they can't find the DVDs, Large Print, or Non-fiction, she is able to do her best version of Joan of Arc and complain that she "just came back from vacation and has no idea what's been going on!"

So everything was pleasant until Thursday when a woman came in looking for the "new DVDs". It was right after Miss Information had shelved a copy of The Great Gatsby which had been released about a month earlier and still looked pretty fresh to Miss Information. She pointed it out. The patron looked at her like she was an idiot and said, "I meant the new movies," enunciating each word carefully as if she were speaking to a 5 year old. 

Listen lady, this is the drill. DVDs are released. The library gets them. The library puts them on the shelf. People who are nearby take them out within seconds. This happens for about a month or so until everyone has seen whatever movie is big right then and stops caring. Unless you are very, very lucky, you won't get one of the newest releases until you no longer want it. For example, Miss Information was unaware the library even had the Great Gatsby until 5 minutes ago. (Ok, if she'd thought about it, she would have realized. She doesn't care for Leonardo Di Caprio.)

"But where are the new movies?" the woman persisted.
Other people's houses.
"Should I look upstairs? Do they have the new movies?"
Sure. Go look upstairs. 
Miss Information wishes the woman luck but tells her not to get her hopes up. The library is not Netflix and does not have an unlimited supply of these things.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Miss Information is annoyed away from work

Miss Information is having the most annoying vacation ever. She wanted to have a little time away from the library, read books in coffee shops, go to the gym and generally regroup.

Here's what she did instead.

Monday: spent the day waiting for the phone company guy to come and fix her phone so it can receive, not just make, calls. At one point the phone company guy needed to go into the basement and look for wires, which turned out to be inaccessibly buried in the ceiling. While they were looking, Miss Information noticed that the hose-thing that attaches the hot water tap to the washing machine was leaking so...

Tuesday: Miss Information spent the day trying to remove a very corroded nut from the end of the hose-thing. The nut, which has probably been there since the Salem witch hunts, has a crack (hence the leak), but resists any effort to remove it. 

Wednesday: see Tuesday but with added swearing and more toxic material

Thursday: Miss Information is woken up by the dudes who are going to waterproof her basement. After they'd dug everything possible to dig, they packed off and Miss Information headed to the cafe to do some reading. It went well. She did notice a wasp flying around where she was sitting and wondered briefly about capturing it and taking it to freedom. Then she thought briefly about it maybe not being a good idea to leave her bag open on the window ledge. Then she read her book and forgot about the wasp and the bag. Eventually all good things come to an end and she decided to leave the coffee shop and head to the grocery store. She reached into her bag for her car keys and, don't say you didn't see this coming, was stung by a wasp. Miss Information has been bitten by many things but this was her first wasp and it really hurt. By the time she finished her grocery shopping (because a little insect bite isn't going to slow her down), her finger was swollen up like a cigar. Oh, and because Miss Information had felt like going to her favourite out-of-town coffee shop she was now way far from home and in pain. She did manage to get home where she spent the rest of the day with a baking soda paste on her finger. Fortunately, there was a Breaking Bad marathon on so it wasn't like she wasn't entertained. 

Friday: Finger is no longer swollen but still hurts. Oh, and good news! The construction guys have found some other places to dig! Unfortunately one of those places was a bee-home. Bees have been living under Miss Information's front yard for years and now their hive (?) has been destroyed. Miss Information feels terrible about this. She worries quite a lot about colony collapse disorder but never thought she'd be directly responsible for homeless bees. Although Miss Information knows that bees don't usually sting, they do seem to be quite annoyed about this development and are flying around looking menacing.

Fortunately, Miss Information returns to work on Tuesday and gets away from all this peaceful home stuff.

Monday, September 09, 2013

Miss Information is annoyed by bad directions

Miss Information works in a complicated library. Before she came here and she worked at branches that only had one floor, she used to discourage people from coming here. If they insisted, she gave them quite specific instructions about how to find what they needed but given the way people come into the branch, she now realizes that those instructions were a complete waste of breath and that she should have spent her energy trying to become psychic instead. 

Miss Information has a line of customers and is in the middle of something. A young and impatient woman tosses a question at her as she passes. 

"Where do I pick up my hold?" she asks.
"Over there," Miss Information replies, pointing in the general direction of the pick up shelf. The reality is that picking up a hold is far more complicated than that, but the woman didn't seem to want to wait her turn, so let her figure that out. 

She does figure it out pretty quickly and comes back. Fortunately, Miss Information is now free to spend some time working it out. There are many reasons why a hold might be in the building--somewhere--but not on the pick up shelf. It just takes a bit of effort to figure out which reason it is and where the book might be.

"Let's see," Miss Information begins. "Did you get a call from our automated system or an email? Or did you maybe call us today and talk to someone here?"

The woman, who has the air of someone parked illegally, is impatient. "I was at Colossus Library downtown. They called here. They said it was going to be at the desk! It's probably behind you on that shelf! Look on that shelf!" 

It's true, Miss Information has a pick up shelf right behind her. The books on this shelf are usually the ones that have been left by people who have forgotten their library cards. Still, Miss Information looks. Nope. The only books here are picture books.

Miss Information explains that the book might still be on the originating floor and if the woman might give her a tiny hint about what the book is, she will direct her to the correct part of the library.  What sort of book is it?

"Computers," the woman snarls. 
"Oh, ok, most of the computer related books are on the 3rd floor but some are not. Was it a particular software or program?"

The woman seems really incensed now. 

"Jeez!" she says. "Autocad! It's autocad for Christ sakes!"

Miss Information knows that autocad books are, in fact, on the 2nd floor but she is annoyed with the woman's attitude and decides to look it up in the library catalogue just for fun. As she is typing, the woman speaks again.

"Oh, for God's sake! They told me it would be at the desk on the second floor! Isn't this the second floor?"

Um. No. The floor with the entrance is rarely, in Miss Information's experience, the second floor. She directs the woman to the stairs and she returns to her other customers. 

See, there's a lesson here. If you are told to pick up your book on the second floor, the only question you should have when you enter the building is: how do I get to the second floor? This would have saved the woman so much time and would have ended up being way less annoying for Miss Information, too.




Miss Information is annoyed

Miss Information returned from vacation last week. Her first day back was the day after Labour Day, so it was a complete disaster. Many of Miss Information's co-workers had taken the day off because they had bothered to look at the calendar and realized that no one should work on the day after a Monday closure. Clever bastards.

The next day, Miss Information was almost killed on the commute by a psychopathic taxi driver who thought it would be a smart move to change lanes on top of her. When she got to work she learned that much of the surrounding areas were without water which meant there was no coffee at the coffee shop. Miss Information has a supply of tea bags but she was stuck on the desk until 11 am and the entire day was a write-off by that point.

Thursday, August 08, 2013

Miss Information is in hell

Ok. First it's August. Lots of staff members are on vacation. Then there was a holiday on Monday and clearly all the patrons spent the day coming up with new ways to be annoying in the library because there has been no end to the idiocy this week. Not to mention that it's some kind of open house with balloons and screaming children. Also, today is World Cat Day and Miss Information is here with the annoying people and their screaming children and their balloons instead of being home with her awesome cat.

This sucks!

Miss Information was all set to write about the man who was angry about the lack of a fax machine or the woman who couldn't follow simple directions but then this afternoon a woman who should have been at home playing with her cat or just at home won the Most Evil Patron contest. Everyone else can stop trying. And go home. Please. Go Home.

Miss Information is helping a woman order opera DVDs when another woman arrives. She sighs. She puts her laptop down on the counter and sighs some more. Lots of people bring their laptops so they can get help with eBooks and most of them sigh, so Miss Information isn't too concerned.

The woman is frustrated, it's clear. Miss Information cleverly deduced this from years of careful observation and her innate understanding of human behaviour. Also Laptop Woman was pounding on the desk. Pounding On The Desk. Many less knowledgeable people would have missed this subtlety.

Opera DVD Woman made a hasty retreat leaving Miss Information alone with Laptop/Desk Pounding Woman. L/DPW is upset because the library wifi is slow. Yeah. That sucks. That certainly is a good reason to start pounding on the library's desk, except that it isn't. Unless you are an 8 year old. Even then most 8 year olds would be more philosophical than this twit.

Fortunately Miss Information was relieved by another staff member because she had a meeting to attend. Her colleague later informed her that the woman never did get her wireless issues worked out but there was no further punching of furniture. 

Happy World Cat Day to all. 

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Miss Information spends some time on the dark side

It's Friday and a beautiful summer night. Not too hot. Gentle breeze. No sign of rain. There's actually some kind of culture fair in the square near the library. It has food, music and little shops. Miss Information imagines that people are dancing in the dusk but doesn't know for sure because she's trapped in the library until 8:30. Still she is fully aware that there are other places to go and other things to do in the world--things to do that don't involve being in the library.

Of course there are patrons in the library. There are other people who are not patrons exactly. One man is sitting in the lounge area making phone calls. A couple of women are chatting. It's all perfectly acceptable before the library's power goes out for no apparent reason.

It's about an hour before closing and people do not leave. This baffles Miss Information. She would leave if she weren't being paid to stay in a place that is getting darker and warmer because air conditioning runs on electricity, y'all. Come on, people. It's like a sign that you should be out doing non-library-related things. And ok maybe an awesome cultural event isn't for everyone. Maybe people would rather be reading. There is enough light coming in the window to see. Miss Information would like to point out, however, that it's also light enough to read at one of the many local coffee shops--places that still have electricity, lights, air conditioning. Sigh.
  
Miss Information's favourite black out patron was a woman who wanted to know how to look up Chinese movies in the library catalogue. Miss Information could demonstrate if only the library catalogue wasn't electricity based. The woman lurked around and when the power came back up, she ran to Miss Information's side and asked if she could look up her movie now. Too bad for the woman that the power was on for only about 30 seconds before it cut out again. Really. In the time it took for the lights to flicker on and off, the woman had bounded over to Miss Information. 

She must really want that movie.
http://miss-information.blogspot.com/
miss-information.blogspot.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2013-48
56184
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:ZZNF73ADEM6PCZ5UIKPXRRGMPWJXB7YF
<urn:uuid:f1fdc7a6-baaa-43b8-9e42-e2508966faa3>
2013-12-05T17:07:36Z
74.125.29.132
sha1:T5RF7MF4WCUVL2BDPYFFG6GXZESGJMEF
<urn:uuid:924dbf42-c96a-481b-9809-c1ffc4b55aaf>
http://miss-information.blogspot.com/
length
response
<urn:uuid:1b760c76-dfdb-4ff9-b765-28ef216d1590>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2013-48
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for Winter 2013
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf