At roughly 12:30pm…thirty full minutes before the library is to open…there is a gaggle (a full-on gaggle) of nerds hanging out in the lobby waiting for the library to open. It’s a gorgeous day, 70 degrees and mostly sunny—yet here these nerds are—sitting and waiting for the doors to open.
Even more unnerving; between 11:30 and 12:00 six different nerds…let me rephrase that, half-a-dozen of the smartest students in the world…who have been admitted to the most prestigious technical institute in the known universe, all wander up to the door.
The lights are off.
The doors are closed and locked.
The sign on the door clearly says we don’t open until 1pm.
Yet, each of these six future-bazillionaires finds it necessary to tug and yank and pull and bang and rattle the door.
When that yields no satisfactory results, they begin pressing their faces up against the glass to peer in at me as I’m counting the money in the cash box. They then pound on the glass and usher me to come and let them into the library; which is usually when I die a little inside and walk away…
Now, correct me if I’m wrong but libraries aren’t that cool. I mean I love my job and I love my coworkers, but if it’s a gorgeous Saturday afternoon…and let’s be honest, by mid-October, there aren’t too many gorgeous Saturday afternoons left…who in their right mind is going to choose a library over any other venue.
I mean seriously…let’s look at this objectively:
-Books
-Guns
-Gambling
Just looking at those two lists makes it very hard for me to even fathom why one would not only choose to spend their time here, but to show up well before the place opens and beg to get in. The library is not a swank nightclub. The library is not a hot new bar.
The library is not even a Chucky Cheese with a ski-ball table. It’s a library and as such, it’s not worth knocking down the door to get in. We rarely reach capacity, there is no VIP list and if you show up after the doors have opened you don’t even have to wait.
Now, if you’ll excuse me…we’re closing in about half-an-hour so I need to go ready the cattle prod and mustard gas to get these nerds back out the door.
[...] here’s the first scenario. Perhaps you’ve heard this one a time or two before: there were roughly a dozen people waiting in the lobby for the library to [...]
By: My Last Saturday (pt. 1) « Blank Stares and Blank Pages on December 12, 2009
at 4:23 pm
[...] quick search of my archives reveals a whole big butt-load of situations wherein patrons yelled at me, called me a liar, bitched [...]
By: Library Life: It Could Be Worse « Blank Stares and Blank Pages on December 6, 2011
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