Passive, Aggressive, Passive-Aggressive

A kid, maybe five, asked me where Peter Pan was--the "girl one." I told him to ask the librarian. He came back and asked me where the pirate books were, the ones about real pirates. I showed him where they should've been, 910-somethingorother, but there weren't any there. Then he asked me if I'd seen Hook. I said yeah. "Is it scary?" he said. "No. It's more funny than scary. But it's more stupid than funny." "Is this the one you saw?" I looked up from my shelving to see he had the DVD in his hand. "Yeah." He walked away but his little sister (three, I guess) filled the void, went, "Pss." "Yes?" She rubbed the corner of her mouth, where there was an orange streak curving toward her chin, then pointed at her head, on which was one of those layered-foam headpieces. "I have a hat. It's an owl." She turned and left as I was trying to compliment her stylish headgear. Then the dad of the bunch asked me, "Where are the Bar-bar books?" I couldn't help correcting him. "You mean Babar?" Blank. "The elephant?" "Yeah." "They're under 'Brunhoff'," but I knew I was wasting my breath and just walked him over to them and pulled them out a little ways from their neighbors.

No telling how the cart-tagging scheme is working yet. I was the first shelver, so naturally I took #1. Rebecca was the only other associate. She shelved the following hour, taking #2 out before I got back. Rebecca, scheduled to shelve for two hours, finished the cart (fiction) in 1:20. I'd since re-designated the carts, raising juvenile fiction/non-fiction to the top. But, instead of pulling that cart out to the stacks, Rebecca sat on a step-stool in front of the adult non and began sorting that cart. That done, she took a long break to round out her second hour. What could I say?

Tara was at an Excel class, so I was left with Julie and Scott for overlings. That means Julie found an overdrive gear for complaining, mostly about Scott, her favorite object of scorn--he should do this, he should do that, I'm tired of him always..., I wish he would.... And the one that got her engine really whining: He left all his discharges on the counter for the next backup to clean up. It's his habit, and it annoys all of us to have to spend ten minutes of our hour filling the carts with his discharges instead of discharging. The thing is, he didn't use to do it. It seemed to have coincided with my reconfiguring the carts in order to better facilitate their loading. For 13 years the carts had been lined up in a row across the back of an alcove with metal shelf units for walls. Only the outside of the carts on each end was accessible to place books on without shoving at least one other (usually two) aside. It took me two years, but I finally realized it didn't have to be that way. I visualized the new configuration for a couple of months, until, one morning last fall, I made it real. I arranged all carts equidistant from each other in that alcove by pointing two out from each side wall and one from the center of the back wall. Suddenly, there was room enough to walk between all the carts. I hadn't warned or asked permission of anyone, but everyone seemed to like it--except Scott. For a couple of weeks I'd return from shelving or come in in the morning to find the carts de-configured to the original arrangement. I thought it was Rebecca who was resistant and asked her. She said she had no problem with it, but that Scott blew up at her as she sorted a cart--"Who did this? Put it back now!" This from a guy who'd just as soon not have the responsibility of authority over anyone. That's when it seemed he stopped putting the books on the carts. Anyway, Julie fired off an email to Tara today complaining about it. It's not the first time, so I don't think anything will change, since Tara doesn't confront anyone but sends out a general email to all circ staff that's really meant for one person, stating "we" have a problem with such-and-such and let's all try to do better--that kind of thing.

On the median on Knotts was a twenty-foot trail of bumper pieces and hubcaps. In the middle of all the plastic and styrofoam lay a duck, flat, dead, dirty and bloody.