Help! I'm having a Collections Emergency!

Help! I'm having a Collections Emergency!
Today I called someone at work and her voicemail said, "If you are having a
collections emergency, please call my pager." Hee hee.
Help! The collections have turned on us! They just devoured a bibliographer! They're moving toward the staff break room! Sweet God, it's a collections emergency!

Troubled patrons?

Crazies 101
My employer is holding a workshop:
"Trouble or Troubled: Dealing with Difficult Patrons
This workshop will describe the various kinds of patrons who create problems in the libraries. It will provide information which will assist you in determining the difference between a "patron with a problem" or a "problem patron." The workshop will then provide information on what to do as well as how and when to access resources such as the police."

Judo class to follow. Seriously, there's a pretty wild thread going right now in the forums on the subject of crazy patrons. Our workshop folks must have an entire Crazy Patron taxonomy going, since they will be specifying the "various kinds of patrons" along with, I assume, their Latin names and feeding habits. I'm looking forward to it.

I actally talked to a patron today. I was locking up the office this evening when a woman using the OPAC stopped me and asked if I had a pen. I did. No need to thank me, public service is my middle name.

Might as well start smoking...

Might as well start smoking...
Charming young men with vacuum cleaners are currently sucking up asbestos that has fallen from our office ceiling. If anyone cares to offer me a job right around now I am in a very receptive mood.

You are your Spam

You are your Spam
I just got the strangest piece of spam. Apparently someone thinks I might be interested in a "Museum quality display case!"
What kind of uber-dork mailing list have I gotten myself onto? Is this because I bought that copy of The Social Contract off Amazon last year? What is it about me that screams to marketers: This woman has things to display! Important things! Things that require 10mm tempered glass mounted on a very solid base! Things that requre Total Visibility and Multi-Axis Modularity! Should I take this as a compliment? If I had this display case I would probably use it to store my collection of antique paperclips, liberated from the rusting vertical files of my last job. Vertical files don't like paperclips, even if they are really cool and circular.

Me-mail

Me-mail
I got this email from Erin this morning. I'm all ego-y now. Once in a while I get a letter like this, an occurrence which pretty much defies reality and constructs a nice illusion of me as some sort of e-persona, which I suppose I could be if I worked on the website once in awhile instead of staying up until 4am reading "Sewer, Gas & Electric" by Matt Ruff. Dangit. Curse you Matt Ruff and your seductive prose!
Erin writes:
at the YMCA tonight I saw...
an awesome girl in a "librarian avengers" t-shirt.
I was like, "Aw na, hell na-- that's awesome! Erica Olsen is like my best friend in the world."
she was studying to become a librarian and generally thinks of you as an extraordinary genius.
I am beaming with pride!

Would you like cream cheese with that?

Would you like cream cheese with that?
I had my first New York (State) moment yesterday on the way to work when a squirrel ran by me carrying a bagel. I can only assume he had a cup of coffee stashed somewhere.