Hooo boy. I hope you caught the sarcasm in the last paragraph. Sometimes pain dulls my wit. Or sharpens my tongue, such as it did tonight:
As I was stumping around the back room, copying 50 page journal articles for inter-library loan (why don't these bastards just ask for the whole damned journal? 50 pages! The radiation from the xerox machine has probably pickled my insides)some angry Chinese guy (Chinese-American, thank you very much) crossed the mythical yellow line to harrangue me. Here is a heavily edited and re-written transcript of our conversation:
ACG: There's no reference librarian! How can I do research without one?
Me: Well, sir, it is after midnight and they do have to sleep sometime, you know.
ACG: But I need help!
Me: (thinking: whatever he needs, I could probably help him with. It's not that hard to search worldcat for journal articles, a trained monkey could do it) Well...what do you need help with?
ACG: I need someone with a college degree to help me, not some yokel! (Okay, he didn't say that, but that was the jist of his statement. I wasn't qualified to help him. I absently brushed my hair back with my right hand, which happened to have my Brimstone University ring on it, just conicidence, you understand, if the light happened to catch the ring at just the right angle, it was sheer coincidence)
Me: Well, then I guess you should probably come back later, when someone who is fully qualified to run a basic boolean search on OCLC and request an ILL ASAP is here. (insert monkey noises here, I mean, really, it's so freakin' easy)
ACG blinks and walks away since I have dismissed him. Is that the end of my story? HARDLY!
Twenty minutes later, I am STILL XEROXING and ACG comes back.
ACG: There's nobody in the microfilm room to help me!
Me: Well, it is after midnight, you know, and student workers aren't allowed to work after midnight. And as for the reference librarians, well, we already had that conversation.
ACG: How am I supposed to use the microfilm if there's no one to help me?
Me: (thinking that this guy must need someone to wipe his ass for him. I continue to ponder...I do know how to use both the microfilm and fiche machines. I know how to copy from them, shrink or enlarge and find journals and gov. documents. But, this guy thought I was some inbred hillbilly hired to keep the chairs warm while the reference librarians were off having a smoke somewhere. Should I offer to help him? Share my boundless knowledge? Hell no.)
Me: Well, I guess you should come back tomorrow.
ACG: Thanks for not helping me. (all sarcastic-like)
Me: (bright and cheerful like) No problem, it was my pleasure!
Yarg. I don't think I made him sound ass-holish enough. But I certainly was super-sassy. I really did say most of that stuff, you know. It never fails to amaze me how much Brimstone University students live in a bubble, where everyone in their little world lives to serve them 24-hours a day, waiting with baited breath for the student to need them.
Kid: Mom, I need help on my homework
Reference Librarian: I'm sorry, Kid, but Angry Chinese Guy is going to need me in about 15 minutes down at the Library of the Underworld. Get your daddy to help you, I've got to drop everything and get there before he's inconvenienced!
(Reference Librarian...AWAY!)
Why the hell would there be a reference librarian at a library after midnight? They're here until 10p.m., that's their commitment to academic excellence and I don't fault them for it. As for the microfilm...well, the library actually does have someone here who is trained to use it until closing. Me. But that guy was an asshole and I wasn't about to go out of my way to help him. I get paid $7.50 an hour, I don't get asshole bonuses.
