Okay, today officially sucks.

[whitereflection]

1. James was pissy, and I don't know if it's because he's truly tired, or if I've done something to piss him off yet again.

2. Saw a cat dead in the road as I drove in. Hello, MORONS!!! Omaha is a city of 400,000+ people with a hellofa lot of high speed traffic--the road I saw it on is 45 mph, with most going faster. You let your animals run loose in a place like this???!! Of course it's going to get hit!!!
I'm sorry. This is not a rural town; you can *not* let your animal run free here, or it will get hurt/killed. If not by accident, then by those sickos who like to try and purposefully hurt animals. If you have a pet, keep it fscking indoors, losers!! *FLAILS* I got so damned infuriated when I saw that--furious at the family who so carelessly let the cat outside (oh, cats just gotta roam, you know...NO they FSCKING do *NOT*! I have cats--they do not suffer from being indoors. They do not clamor to get outside.). So some family is going to be all sad 'cause their cat's gone (or worse, they won't care >< ), but it's their fscking fault for letting it out in a CITY!!
...yeah, I'm a whackjob for getting so worked up. *shrugs* Just makes me extremely angry to see such waste of life, not to mention incredibly depressed. I hate people. ><

3. Oh, library Fun!! ><;;;;;; Seems there was some sort of leak in the building--there was 8 inches of water in the mechanical room. No big deal, but the pump they brought in to get the water out has filled the library with extremely thick gasoline fumes. To keep the fumes from getting worse, they turned the blowers off. So we have no air movement, no cooling. It's getting hot, and stuffy (our table fans are not doing much to help), and it smells of gasoline. Lots of people, including my buddy Anj, have gone home. Except that the administration's not closing the building--so to leave means taking vacation time. I have *barely* enough vac time for the trips I want to take this year, so I have no extra time to take off.
My eyes are irritated, and my throat, but I dunno if it's allergies or a reaction to the gas fumes. But I can't leave unless they close the building officially--unless I wanna lose out on time I need for Akon/AnimeIowa/YaoiCon/visiting Mom in Seattle. Whee. Ohyes, and the water affected a trunk phone line, so we have no phone service here, or in any buildings on this west end of campus. Now isn't *that* dandy?

... Eh. Need to do work stuff. Trouble is, today I just don't care. *shrugs* Meh.

Comments

[mixmastatiki.livejournal.com]

One might almost think they were illegaly putting employees in an unsafe work enviroment.

Really though, maybe I just don't know enough about it but...it's a library isn't it? Just how much money would they actually lose if they weren't open for a day? O_o

Re:

[whitereflection.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what we were all saying. However, our supervisor of building operations said that environmental claims there were no health hazards. Yeah. Right. So many no health hazards that a third the staff took time off and left. Eh. *shrugs* At the least, they took the pump away mid-day, and so the fumes-smell finally faded.

It's not about the money unfortunately--being a university library, it's about the faculty and students having a royal cow if services are interrupted for any reason. They don't give a shzzit about what we staff have to deal with by being there, so long as they can have access. >_< Typical academia...

[mixmastatiki.livejournal.com]

Wait...people actually USE school libraries?

Wow...O_O

[kenjimurasame.livejournal.com]

UCF has one that's about 5 stories tall. I have yet to understand what the hell anyone could need 5 stories of books for, especially since it's impossible to FIND anything in the damn place.

"Excuse me, I need this book.."
"Well, the A's start on the first floor and it goes up from there."
"Ok, thanks."
*Fifteen minutes later*
"The book was nowhere to be found but it says you have it."
"What book is it?"
"This..."
"Oh, well THAT'S not a book. That's a bound periodical collection. It looks like a book, but it's not."
"..."
"It's a bunch of articles in a hardbound cover."
"So it's a book."
"No, it's not. Those are on the 3rd floor, and work down from there."
"..."
"Where are you going?"
"To my room. I'm just going to make something up instead. I hope fire claims all your ungodly souls."
"Thank you, come again!"

Re:

[whitereflection.livejournal.com]

Eh. Our Reference Desk is a bit better than that, but not Circulation >< (Circ has some "dead weight" that's still being culled out by a new supervisor). Our Ref folks are rather big on checking location before sending patrons off to find.

Though that still doesn't help the "it says you have it, but it's not on the shelf" thing. We have to constantly fight the mistakes in checkins/checkouts at Circ, shelving mistakes, larcenous patrons, larcenous staff (><;;;; I'm *not* kidding! *flails*), etc. *sigh*

[yashahime.livejournal.com]

First, about the cat--Shini, while odds are somebody let that cat out without thinking about the hazards (or without caring), I still remember the time my cat escaped and I thought she'd gotten out onto the street that was a feeder from the 405 Expressway. Or the street that had the Metro line on it. I did NOT want her out for those very reasons, and I had a nice fit of hysterics until I found her hiding in the kitchen cabinet.

Now. Onto libraries.

The University of Delaware library is supposed to be the largest college library on the East Coast--or at least that's what I was told when I was a student there. They can't KEEP all the books in one building. There are FIVE. The main location--Morris Library--has six stories and each floor covers half a freakin' acre. (Or so; I ran out of measuring tape before I ran out of wall.)

Surprisingly, it's quite easy to locate things on the shelves. IF, that is, you understand the DelCat listing...

Seriously. About the first three classes of Freshman English is taken up with how to use the U of D Library system. (Which includes DelCat, checking out books, finding books, etc.)

Re:

[whitereflection.livejournal.com]

Ah, true--I understand about the cat thing. I was in such a mood Friday am, that I was more willing to think badly of humanity than that it might have been an accident. Eh. >_<

We're a small campus, so it's a small library--but we're desperately running out of space, with no hope of expansion upward or outward. :p Bleh. Not to mention the building is ugly as sin, and horribly ventilated. But within the last couple years the U has instititued a Library 101 sort of class like what you mentioned, as well as seminars for professors who request them. Same sort of thing: how to locate books/journals/articles in the library, how to use online databases, etc. It's kinda cool stuff, actually. ^^

[yashahime.livejournal.com]

In Delaware, at least, they're supposed to teach that stuff in high school. But you know what? They never do.