I completely and totally failed the NaBloPoMo challenge. I lasted maybe four or five days. It’s not that I didn’t have things to write about, I just didn’t write. *sigh*

Yet another example of today’s best and brightest and the completely brilliant questions they ask occurred yesterday. A student comes to the desk and asks while staring blankly at the sign that lists our hours: “What time do you close tonight?”

Why is it so hard to understand that a library does not sell textbooks? We have a limited amount of textbooks that can be checked out for use in-house, but we do not sell them. At all. The only books we ever sell are ancient ones that have been weeded from the collection. Even after telling a student this, she still insisted on knowing how much she could buy it from us for.

What’s worse is that she called a few minutes before coming in, and was told by my co-worker that we do not sell them. I finally convinced her that the book she wanted was not for sale and pointed her in the direction of the bookstore.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened unfortunately. Usually it’s much earlier in the semester and they are not quite as persistent (read: oblivious). And these people are all college students…. *sigh*

So I was sitting at one of the computers at the circulation desk a couple of days ago when this lady comes up and asks the last question I expected to hear in the course of doing this job: “do you work here?”

This tops what had been until now the best (read: stupidest) question I had been asked thus far: (while standing right in front of the sign on the desk that stated the operating hours, literally only a few inches from it): “what time do you open in the morning?”.

What are the best questions you’ve been asked while working?

A guy comes into the library looking for his class.  This is a pretty common request on the first day of the semester.  He was told that it was on the fourth floor of the library.  Our library only has two floors (three if you count the basement).

His class was actually at Library Square campus which is so named due to its proximity to the main city library.  The campus is located downtown, about a twenty minute drive when traffic is light and at least a half hour during rush hour.  The class was due to start in ten minutes.

I just hope his professor wasn’t one of those that closes and locks the door when class starts…

Just a few minutes ago, two giggly girls came up to the desk. One of them has a crush on this guy who’s studying nearby with a female companion who is either his girlfriend, study partner, or both. So they write a note that probably declared undying lust love for this guy they’ve never met and a cell phone number. Of course they were too scared to deliver it in person. Unfortunately they decided that I should be the one to be the go-between.

After a bit of internal angst about the likelihood of a non-happy ending for this situation and a helluva lot of begging from the girls, I gave in. Definitely “against my better judgment…”, but it was quite different from the requests I normally get and it provided a entertaining distraction from an otherwise slow day.

However, Never. Again.