15 May 2010

A Day in the Life of Madame Manager: Saturday Morning Edition


I knew that the ripped up Justin Bieber magazine on my desk should have been a harbinger of the shittiness of this Saturday.
9:15 Roll on into the branch. Surprisingly, there is no one waiting outside. I hope that today might be productive: that I can finish my book order without having to take it home, clean out my desk, and finish branch schedules for managers that can't seem to do them the correct way, even though they're been branch managers for 30 years.
9:23 5 people materialize. I can only imagine that they're anxiously waiting outside to grab a book to read when the doors open.
9:27 6 more people materialize. Great. Let the race for computer time begin. Of course, Coughing Guy is out there, coughing, looking sleezy, wearing a Florida Gators hoodie when it's 70 degrees outside. I guess crack makes you cold.
9:40 A computer goes down. Of course it does. Computers only break on Saturdays because there's no one here to fix them. I can probably give up my dreams of productivity now.
10-10:30 Constantly tell kids to turn down their music. I'm starting to feel like I should be wearing a pleated skirt and a chain on my glasses.
10:33 I'm going to blame this on Justin Bieber.
11:04 The man that comes in here and swears profusely on his cell phone decides today's the day he needs help, so of course, he's as nice as pie to me. I wish I had some pie by the way. Maybe some cherry or key lime. Pie would be great. But, I don't have pie, I just have needy morons. Hope of productivity are completely dashed and I decide I'm going to blog my irritating day.
11:06 Trudge up from the desk to go to the copier. Make one damned copy and then the toner runs out. The toner can never run out when I'm wearing black. It has to run out when I'm wearing pale pink. Take out the near-empty toner cartridge so that no one can futz with the copier.
11:10 Root around in the staff room for toner. So help me if I have to take out the toner and shake it to get the most out of it, because, surely, I will be covered in soot and my shirt will be ruined.
11:12 Find the toner, come back out, see an old man standing at the copier (despite toner and box sitting on top of it), feeding it dimes, and pressing buttons. Because I'm a bitch, I look at him and ask if those copies are working out for him. He looks at me stupidily and I tell him to please take a seat, its out of toner, which is why the cartridge is sitting on the copier and the copier is off. Nevermind the fact that your damned dimes keep falling through the machine...
11:16 Fix the toner, restart the copier, and amazingly, don't get any stupid toner on me.
11:21 Bullshit fine story. This guy has $275 in fines and wants me to waive them so he can get DVDs. He said that his card was lost. Then he was in prison. Then his card was stolen. Then he missplaced it and someone "might have" checked out materials on it. What's your story? I know mine: I'm not forgiving any fines because you're lying to me.
11:33 Someone came up to me, was honest about her $125 in fines, paid $30 to get them down, and didn't give me a bullshit sob story. Amazing. In fact, I was so glad she told the truth that I knocked $5 off her fines. See, I'm not a heartless bitch when people don't try to play me.
12:13 Some guy has been sitting in the same spot for 45 minutes, staring at people using the computers. He's not waiting for them. I'm not sure if he's a creeper, retarded, or just wants to shit in a chair. Or, maybe he's mad because our issue of Tiger Beat with Justin Bieber on the cover has been destroyed.

7 comments:

  1. HOW did I not discover you sooner? I used to work at a community college. Same crazy shit, except no Tiger Beat mags. Lots of porn, though. Most of my job was chasing people off the computers because they were looking at porn, or screaming at the IT people that their filters were for shit.

    Oh, the humanity.

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  2. Who the hell is Justin Bieber?

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  3. I often lament my days of working in the university library, quietly schlupping through stacks of professor requets, making fun of students at exam time, and telling people "No Keggers in the Library." Oh, the good old days.

    Justin Bieber is Usher's little toadie. He's a 16 year old white kid from Canada. His mom is about 28. He thinks he's black. He's like this generation's version of Donnie Osmond, but more irritating. I don't know much about Donnie Osmond, since I'm only 31, but that seems to be right. Maybe it's the hair thing.

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  4. Well I can't name a Donnie Osmond song or a Justin Bieber song, so I guess ignorance is bliss!

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  5. Go with it. Embrace the ignorance. Although, you might have Bieber fever and not know it. You could be scanning through radio stations, hear a catchy tune, and end up unknowingly humming Bieber all day. Think of the horror!

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  6. I hate always having to be the inforcer, don't you?

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  7. I kinda relish in it now. Like, my inner bitch can escape at work and then I'm peach and cake at home. Ok, maybe not peach and cake, but definitely not a raging bitch like I am at work!

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