h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[p]

the correct collective noun for library staff should be "A Quire"

Stopping dogs from barking is difficult, but it can be done without the collars. I find making the dogs sit or lie down if they start barking helps to get them to stop. The hard part is praising them when they are quiet, you have to time it just right so that they *know* they are being quiet when they would usually bark. You may need your neighbors' help - have them make some noise on the opposite side of the fence while you stand ready to praise or reprimand.

Particularly singing librarians...

A "shelf of librarians"...absolutely perfect! A library war, however is not a good thing. Small skirmishes are fairly common, but general warfare is to be avoided whenever possible.

You have your innerdepartmental skirmishes, which are realtively easy to deal with. These normally involve an overlapping of duties - the old openers vs closers constant whine that the other shift isn't doing as much of the work as they should be. I normally resolve this by making them trade shifts for a month. They come away with a better appreciation of how much ~both~ shifts truly suck.

Then there are the interdepartmental sorties. The classic confrontation here is between the circ staff and the catalogers. I have too small a staff to have someone whose sole job it is to type labels and put jacket covers on books. So, the job falls to whichever department has time. This is usually the catalogers, but sometimes they are inundated with an extra large shipment and the labeling and jacket covers falls to the circ staff. The point being, of course that neither of them want to type labels and wrap books. So they find reasons not to have time.

(Yes, I know my cataloging software will print out the labels for us, but I prefer the way they look when they're done the old fashioned way. )

At this point, when they are glaring at each other and making snide remarks, I fall back on the oldest trick in the book. I unite them in harmony by giving them a common enemy - me! I search around for the most unpleasant job I can find and tell them that as soon as they are finished with the books they can start a new little project for me. Now, they are arguing over who gets to type labels rather than over who has to type labels. Sometimes I love my job.


And when all else fails, I simply remind them who the real enemy is. We are all shipwrecked seamen clinging to life in our rubber dinghy, cast about on the waves of public ignorance and insanity, trying desperately to bring a glimmer of hope, a moment of understanding, a tiny ray of light to the darkness that is everything hillbilly.


Mr. D., what is a bog house? I understand bog as in peat bog. And bog as in toilet. And bog as in bogged down in something. I don't understand bog as in house.

I think it may be a big house with a slight finger-slip...

Our war is an inter-departmental one. The heads of department have been skirmishing for some time, but all-out war appears to have been declared. The smoking gun was a collection of theology books which were somewhere other than the place they are meant to be. Luckily, my job is one where I can just hide in my office and get on with things most of the time, but various people who have caught the bullets have been coming to me and pouring out their woes. and what a lot of woes there are.

You're right David, it *was* supposed to be 'big house'.

Most likely my last day of posting for a week, backlog is gonna suck, can I request a pass in advance Lil?

I'm sorry to hear that, because my imagination was running away with the image of a bog house.

I like "shelf" as a collective term for librarians, too.

Kelli's suggestion of a water pistol for curing dogs of mindless barking is excellent. Perhaps it could be used on mindlessly noisy children, as well.

Can I have a spare one for students, as well?

Sorry to have ruined everyone's flights of fancy regarding bog houses. Please feel free to ignore my post and make up your own explanations.

An ~~~~advance~~~ pass?

In a slight alteration to my previous post about online gaming I'm very happy to say that Warhammer Online is back in development!

Gosh you lot are chatty today.

It is definitely a little cooler today. I am so pleased. I don't do hot. I do chilly and big woolly jumpers and big woolly socks. You can always put more clothes ON. When it is hot I run out of clothes to take OFF.

Shelf of librarians. Cool. We used to call ourselves reams of librarians, but I think I prefer shelves.

Am applying for another library job. Please wish me luck. I am sick to death of rejection leters and my poor ego is now only yay big *holds finger and thumb about half an inch apart*.

There's a poetry archivist job going at Leeds Uni library, if that's any good to anyone.

I'm having difficulties with my portfolio career. A bit of it had been advertised externally so admin are insisting, as they are wont to do, that proper procedures are followed. Thus I must have a formal interview and supply three references. Unfortunately, they've ruled out one of my referees because she 'introduced' me to the post - that is, she forwarded the pertinent email . This normally wouldn't matter but it's the conference season so nearly everyone else I know in academia has sugared off to foreign parts.

, Amy

>When it is hot I run out of clothes to take OFF.


On my way on two weeks of vacation - sans Internet. We're off to Sweden, Mrs SG V along with 12 and 9 are picking me up from w**k in a wee while and yeehhaaaa, we're off

See y'all towards the end of the month.

*notes Lil's answer and does not for an advance pass of anything *

Best of luck to Ag and Amy Have a loobrush each

Well this is it. Going to be leaving work soon and heading off to parts furrin (Nodnol) for the meet tomorrow. Hope to meet some of you there and to those not sorry and I do hope we can eventually meet up somehow.

Good luck!

*hot and grumpy and still trying to decide whether or not to go to the Meet

I managed to pull a muscle in my back this morning - so no gym today - and I'm desperate for some exercise, hence the grumpiness.

Spent most of the morning sorting out G's finances. Silly bu**er had all the DDs coming out of one account and all his pay going into a different one, resulting in nasty letters and charges from the first bank when there wasn't enough in the account to pay his outgoings.
*sigh
I've made it a condition of baling him out that he deals with all the various pieces of paper, currently littering his bedroom floor, and files all his financial statements sensibly.

to the job applicants

I will be happy to give credit where credit is due, and I thank you for introducing me to fxckwit, Kerr. I've already used it several times this week.

I loved the little ginger stripey kitten, too. Kittens are .

It's supposed to be a hot one here in Montana today. 95°F and climbing! Yikes! There is no way my supervisor will let me sit in the nude. Our office AC is on the fritz, and sporadically blows out warm air in an effort to keep things interesting. That is, when it blows out anything at all.

I sent Lil some Art thanks to art.dom's artPad, but now that I look at it again it seems really trite. I will try to do better with another submission.

Btw, the image I had of the bog house was something akin to an igloo, only made from bricks of peat. Thanks for ruining it for me.