Thursday, May 26, 2011
The day I dreaded has finally come
We got some bad news that so many others have heard before us, and they are two dreaded words: budget cuts. This will make the next fiscal period interesting, and seeing that it's only a month away until that starts we have little time to prepare. So more bad news this will further delay our intentions of expanding the library and we'll now have to keep the money we saved up to cover our losses, boo. I was quite looking forward to the expansion talks and ideas.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Can this week have a reset button?
What a terrible week this has been, it's coming to the end of the fiscal year, you know the time where if you spent money correctly you can purchase some things you might want for your library. Well no that money is now going to go into emergency repairs to the ventilation and antiquated cooling system. I can thank the power company for somehow losing 1/3 of the power to the building and thus burning up 2 of the motors that run our entire system. In a sign that I've been in the building too long I first noticed something was wrong when I went to pour my first cup of coffee on Monday and everything was too quiet, I decide to check the basement and there was nothing but silence. At this time I decided to reset the system to see if it would turn on, well it kinda did but then one of the motors started to smoke so off it went. Call heating/cooling guy and wait.
Yay, he actually came on the same day, he does his fancy looking around with his flashlight on his head, and about an hour later he tells me there's no power on the 240 line and to call the power company. This then turns into a 20 minute conversation of me explaining to a power company what partial power loss meant. They show up the next morning while I'm not in, and tell me it's an internal problem, but hey we now have power coming in to the building on all three lines, go figure. Call the heating/cooling company and he tells me to sit down, this from a person who once handed me a $15,000 bill and didn't tell me to sit down for that. Uh-oh! Well he tells me both motors are fried and need to be replaced the small one is $1,000 and the big one between 8-10,000 this is all without labor costs! The small one needed to be replaced immediately and I signed off on the work, FYI libraries without any air circulation start to smell "funky" really really quickly, so this became an emergency do it now type repair. And I now have to decide how much air conditioning is worth to the library.
This is the same day I'm doing expense reports of the non-resident card fees and see a strange anomaly, I thought it was a clerical mistake, where the one year card that was supposed to be $30 was a 13 month card sold for $20. Turns out I have a wonderful staff who decided when the patron only had $20 that it was ok, because that is all he had on him at the time. I have a blank stare on my face and asked to hear it again, same story. I really do wish she worked at some of my favorite stores now, but she saw no problem with what she did, and that turned into an interesting conversation.
This was immediately followed with a talk with an employee who after numerous reminders that we don't give copies for free decided to test that murky water again with me, and after a bad day my gentle reminder was not so gentle. Her response was I didn't know we weren't supposed to and ran away.
Dear library gods, please have mercy on my poor little library and staff, I offer to you my sanity for this little gift. I'm not sure how much sanity I have left to offer but what is left is yours for a peaceful calm rest of the year. I can deal with my car getting hit in the library parking lot and not even getting a note of sorry from the driver, I can deal with rude patrons, but please keep the building from falling down and give the staff some common sense.
Yay, he actually came on the same day, he does his fancy looking around with his flashlight on his head, and about an hour later he tells me there's no power on the 240 line and to call the power company. This then turns into a 20 minute conversation of me explaining to a power company what partial power loss meant. They show up the next morning while I'm not in, and tell me it's an internal problem, but hey we now have power coming in to the building on all three lines, go figure. Call the heating/cooling company and he tells me to sit down, this from a person who once handed me a $15,000 bill and didn't tell me to sit down for that. Uh-oh! Well he tells me both motors are fried and need to be replaced the small one is $1,000 and the big one between 8-10,000 this is all without labor costs! The small one needed to be replaced immediately and I signed off on the work, FYI libraries without any air circulation start to smell "funky" really really quickly, so this became an emergency do it now type repair. And I now have to decide how much air conditioning is worth to the library.
This is the same day I'm doing expense reports of the non-resident card fees and see a strange anomaly, I thought it was a clerical mistake, where the one year card that was supposed to be $30 was a 13 month card sold for $20. Turns out I have a wonderful staff who decided when the patron only had $20 that it was ok, because that is all he had on him at the time. I have a blank stare on my face and asked to hear it again, same story. I really do wish she worked at some of my favorite stores now, but she saw no problem with what she did, and that turned into an interesting conversation.
This was immediately followed with a talk with an employee who after numerous reminders that we don't give copies for free decided to test that murky water again with me, and after a bad day my gentle reminder was not so gentle. Her response was I didn't know we weren't supposed to and ran away.
Dear library gods, please have mercy on my poor little library and staff, I offer to you my sanity for this little gift. I'm not sure how much sanity I have left to offer but what is left is yours for a peaceful calm rest of the year. I can deal with my car getting hit in the library parking lot and not even getting a note of sorry from the driver, I can deal with rude patrons, but please keep the building from falling down and give the staff some common sense.
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