I'm stuck in a pain flare right now. There's nothing new about this, unfortunately, other than the fact that I had a call at work today from a woman stuck in one as well.

She cried, metaphorically speaking, on my shoulder for about 15 minutes. She went on about all the things she wants to do, but can't, because her body is betraying her. She can't go out to walk because the cold hurts her too much. She can't get her fingers to move the way she wants them to. She wants to do all these things for her elderly father, but she's stuck in the house...

I heard myself in her. Now, I'm not quite as bad off as her, though I feel I have my moments. But I've gone through that process myself, all the "fuck this, I want to do x but my body won't let me!". Or "I'm going to be in massive pain, but I'm doing to do this regardless." I'm always profoundly grateful for canyonwalker at those times. Even if he doesn't gt it, he listens. He does things like let me steal all his body heat to make my body move the way it should, or pretend to listen to me rant about all my frustrations with everything. I seriously have no idea how I'd manage some days without him.

I'm positive that the woman I was talking with doesn't have someone who can regularly do that for her. Which is why she was so grateful I listened. Things like this is why I tell my employees that if we're going to give patients good customer service, sometimes we just need to let them vent. No matter how uncomfortable it might make us. It's still nowhere as bad as what they're going through.

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: bf, customer service, pain, patients, work

One of my (under 30) employees was doing some video game testing on Friday night. I'm not 100% sure why she volunteered to do it (extra money, most likely), since she seemed so discombobulated by the people she was testing with. She ran back into our office to grab a jacket after she'd started the testing, and started talking about how "nerdy" these guys were.

When I mentioned that I was a nerd too, I got a "No you're not!" She then recited all the tired stereotypes about nerds (stays in the basement, plays video games all day, overweight, male, etc) and kept being incredulous when I mentioned "I play games", "I read comics", etc. I finally asked her if she played any games other than the one she's testing, and she said "Sure! Taboo, Cranium, etc".

ROTFLMAO. I'm planning to use Pandemic in a few weeks to teach some of my employees about how teamwork is necessary to succeed. It'll be interesting to see what she thinks of actual board games, not party games....

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: games, humor, nerd, work

Things I hate:
1) My back, my knees, my shoulders, my big toes... basically every part of my body that can potentially throw out.
2) Narcotics. I do not enjoy being high as a kite, even if it does take away the pain.

Things I appreciate:
1) canyonwalker
2) My boss. I highly doubt she will actually be able to take care of everything tomorrow with me unexpectedly out - without having to call me - but I appreciate that her first instinct was to try.
3) Doctor's who know me, make sure I have prescriptions on hand "just in case", and then actually respond to emergency calls on a weekend.

Fuck you, back, and the horse that you wouldn't be able to rid in on.

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: 42, bf, doctors, hgttg, injury, medical, pain, work

We've been doing a lot of interviews recently, and I've started and let go a few people. One of the main issues I'm having is trying to figure out computer literacy. To wit, it's not just "Can you use Outlook?", but "Can you use multiple systems such as LIMs, Salesforce, Outlook, Excel, Word, and File Share Servers competently enough that I don't need to explain basics such as 'double-click'?"

At my last place of employment it was fairly easy - I'd make them figure out some citations and explain some search logic and figure out quickly. Here it's much harder - many of these are intrinsic skills you'd expect 30+ year olds to have figured out and it's a bit insulting to ask if they know how to.

That being said, I need to find out a way to do it. I'm getting sick and tired of hiring people that I have to practically start at ground zero with.

Any suggestions? I'm expecting crickets as response, but anything would be nice.

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: computer literacy, computers, poll, we live in a sad sad world, work

Dear LinkedIn,

Thank you for suggesting that I might want to connect with the ex-coworker who physically threatened me. I know you have a "no" button for the connection page. Do you have a "never, not even if I would never be able to earn money again" button that I can click instead?

No love,

Hawk

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: coworkers, harrassment, letters, linkedin, work
Mood: ugh

Tuesday I found a nasty bug in our database, and spent lots of time with my programmer debugging where it came from. Wednesday I started to come down with a cold. Coincidence? I think not!

I've been working from home[1] for the past two days. My stomach wasn't up for much today, so I made myself some beef broth with alphabet pasta:


Thisis what the perfect soup looks like; nice and hearty, with some, but not much, broth. Mmmm.... Made me feel a lot better.

Now, I still have my sugar cookie pictures to put up from two weeks ago. I better do that now, or verbicide will kill me. Seriously. She's been patiently waiting. I'm not afraid of her, per se. Except, well, when it comes to food related geeking. Then you better do what she wants, or you will regret it. Honest. Sorry, Kit, but she's way scarier than you. Please don't take lessons from her.

( So here are the cookies I made two weeks ago. Please call off the hounds, verbicide!Collapse )

talons / Rake your talons / Link

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Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, friends, pictures, sick, sugar cookies, work

When I purchase a photocopy via ILL I do not want to see things such as:

1) Your hands
2) Your jewelry
3) 1.5 inch black borders ringing the document

I'll cut a lot of slack when the library is providing the document for free; when I'm paying $40, I expect you to either:

1) Expand the magnification so that the article takes up the majority of the page, not half of it

or

2) Shrink the magnification so that 2 pages are on one.

Either of those tricks will remove the black borders. Black borders which, when there's pictures in the article, guarantees that they will scan in badly unless I spend a lot of quality time with the paper cutter.

I know it can take months & years to learn all the tricks for copying articles quickly & well. However, it only take a few days to figure out how to keep your hands, feet, and black borders out of your requester's photocopies. I've trained quite a few people in the art of photocopying. I promise you, these are easily picked up basic skills.

So, ILL departments, can we please teach the photocopiers the 101 level course? Seriously? Because having to spend an hour fixing the 84 page document you butchered strains my patience. If it wouldn't take another 3-5 weeks to get the article, I'd have contacted you and demanded that you supply a new copy. It really is always better to do it properly at first, rather than try and fix it on the back end.

Tags: interlibrary loan, work, wtf

At least, it's cleaning day at the office. As I sprayed my telephone for the third time with 3m Disinfecting Office Cleaner to get the keys back to their proper gray (instead of icky brown), I think of Douglas Adams.

And smile. Because, really, my phone does look like it could start spreading disease soon if it wasn't cleaned.

Tags: books, douglas adams, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, humor, random, work

A client put a book in a FedEx envelope to us, and didn't seal it well enough. The envelope got to us, but it was empty.

They were looking at a few hundred dollars of lost book replacements fees until today, when my guy went to pay for the book at the library it was borrowed from. He discovered that the book was somehow checked back in. He then went to shelf-check, and - it really was there!

Someone, somewhere, deserves a very hearty thank you.

Tags: clients, good news, work

Issue: I dislike the Spoons analogy.
Problem: Despite my dislike, it's still the easiest explanation I can make.

I don't like it for essentially 2 reasons:
1) For various reasons, I feel that I'm not "qualified" to use it. Which is absurd; I've got plenty of invisible chronic pain issues, even if I have (and will hopefully again) gone months or years without significant pain issues.

2) It's overly simplistic. Yes, I know that's the beauty of it. However, for me, there's two elements to my day to day issues: how much energy do I have & how high are my pain levels.

I can have significant pain levels, and plenty of energy. Conversely, I can have minimal pain levels and no energy. While they do partially synchronize, they don't always. I need an analogy that takes multiple vectors into account. I just don't know what that analogy is.

In other news, I think last week was my sweet spot in pain management; I'd been off my feet long enough that the left foot was barely aching, and the right foot was healed enough to not be hurting much. Unless I walked more than a half-mile, in which case I'd lose both my pain-free state & my energy level. Even so, it was pretty sweet.

Now... now the left foot is just hurting constantly. There's not much more I can do (without trying to get narcotic level drugs, which I'm not doing) to take the edge off the pain. And the surgery on the left foot isn't going to be until the 25th of March. I know BF & Corwin keep trying to remind me that it's only about another month, but that's not helping this time. I used that mantra over New Year's to make it through to the first surgery. It's not helping as much this time.

It's going to be quite fun for everyone when I go back to work full-time in about 2 weeks. I predict my crank level going up about 30 fold. If I like you, I give you my apologizes in advance for my crankiness.

Tags: hallux limitus, pain, surgery, work

I'm cleaning out old bits of my email, and I found a link to a CCC video on copyright. A bit odd, but very useful in delineating basic rights.

Tags: copyright, libraries, work

Look, Amazon sellers, I know that the book is from 1999 so that there's really no "new" option. Buyer beware, and all that, if I buy using the "new" option.

However, if you list as "new", I expect it to be in pristine shape, not with permanent marker writing on the inside front cover. My client wants to give this book as a gift. This is unacceptable.

*bangs head on desk a few times*

The other Amazon seller that I bought a "very good" quality book from, sent me one that looked awesome - except for the fact that the cover was completely separated from the rest of the book. That's not "very good" quality, that's just good. At best.

*bangs head on desk a few more times*

Tags: amazon, books, work, wtf

BF's company has their holiday party every January, to coincide with the quarterly Sales Meeting. It was this past Friday, and this year's entertainment was to take us all to the Improv in downtown San Jose to see some comedian's.

The evening might have been enjoyable if there had been more comedian's.

I don't recall the first or second acts, just that they were local names & they actually had some humorous moments. Most of which was self-deprecating humor, but at least it was still humor.

Norm... ah, Norm. See, he's an SNL alum so I expect pretty poor comedic timing & humor. I was told by others in our group that no, he really was either drunk or drugged out on stage. He would start a "joke", forget his lines, and then drunkenly stumble into something else.

He (literally) seemed to not know what state or area he was in, or he probably would never have attempted any "joke" that bashed on how useless things like calculus and other sciences are in high school. On top of that, he spent a lot of time making "humorous" observations about the differences between men & women. Comments such as how women's sports are waste of time, that if a woman was that good at sports she'd be in the NBA, etc. I walked out to use the bathroom & never came back. One of the sales people was so appalled at the show that he tried to complain to the manager.

After the show BF & I went out with the CEO & a few other people - all of whom were also appalled at the show as well. I did tell the CEO that one good thing came out of this evening - this holiday party's entertainment managed to finally bump the horrible magician they'd hired years ago into the #2 spot for bad entertainment choices.

Why the hell do people deliberately go and see crap like this?

Tags: bf, comedy, norm mcdonald, sexism, work, wtf

I've got a requester who's absconded with an ILL copy of Principles of Criminal Law.

*head hits desk*

At least they try to amuse me with their mofoness, no?

Tags: humor, interlibrary loan, work, wtf

Dear client,

I don't care how old or young you are, if you're job title is scientist or executive admin. U do not use twitter/text writing in ur professional writing. It's stupid, and makes you look like an idiot. I don't care how rushed you were, because YOU didn't check your spam before deleting it and somehow managed to get the emails we sent you in your spam box twice. That doesn't remove from you the obligation to interact with other professionals as an adult.

Period.

Now go away and let the adults work together.

No love,

Hawk

Tags: idiots, letters, rant, work

A lot of companies donate their paper collections to Universities. I've got a requester who wants 4 technical reports from the collection.

No problem, says I. Let me page them, look at them in Special Collections, and get them copied for you.

No problem, says Special Collections. We'll have them for you Wedensday after 10 am.

Except today, it's problem. The company donated the reports. Anyone can view them. But to copy them.... To copy them, you need permission. And, of course, they do not give contact details in the boxes.

What. The. Fuck?

If you're donating them, give up the bloody right to know whose copying them!!!! If you want to keep that level of control, don't put them out in a publicish library. Certainly give the Special Collections people contact details. And what happens if you go out of business? Your restrictions don't go away. So you have "For Eyes Only" documents at the library that no one can have a copy of anymore. If you want that to happen, just let the bloody things get tossed when you go out of business.

Argh!

*sigh*

At least the client will pay handsomely for me to get their permission. At least, they will if they want me to get it for them.

Tags: libraries, rant, stupidity, work
Mood: annoyed

I was changing water bottles in the kitchen when I had a discussion with a co-worker, who's had surgeries in the past.

Co: *gives me weird look as I lift the big bottle from the ground to the table*
Hk: "What? I can't do this because it's "heavy"?" *as I rip off the top and turn it over onto the water cooler*
Co: "I'm just surprised you're risking it with your shoulder."
Hk: "My shoulder's fully healed."
Co: "I just wouldn't risk hurting it again."
Hk: "My shoulder's not like your knees. It can fully heal."

And this, readers, is why people don't fully heal from injuries. Do your Physical Therapy, do your strengthening exercises, get your range of motion back, and then go ahead and use the previously injured muscle/bone.

If you always coddle it, you will NEVER have full use back. If you make sure it's healed and strengthened, and then continue to use it (while continuing to strengthen it) you will have full use back.

Seriously. Any time I've heard from someone who's not fully healed from an ankle injury, shoulder injury, broken bone, etc I've asked them did they do their PT & strengthening. Invariably the answer is no, and that explains why I have no problems recovering and they do.

Tags: psa, shoulder, surgery, work
Mood: awake

List of things I do not need to see at work:

A) Full color pictures of nasty dermatologic face wounds in color. Nasty.

Things I'm sure people don't want to do:

A) Have such a fascinating case study for nasty dermatologic face wounds that their doctor wants to take pictures and write a study using them.

Tags: dr, ick, work
Mood: squicked

Today's word for the day is "Arşiv" aka Archive in Turkish. Brought to you by the letters A, the number 3, and the journal "Kulak Burun Boğaz İhtisas Dergisi", which is a bloody mess to find when you're a non-native speaker of Turkish.

Tags: random, work

I need a document from Iraq, which I can't locate anywhere. I'll need to contact the Iraqi National Library. It feels... wrong to contact them for something so (seemingly) trival as an article from a geological journal.

I just spent the past few minutes checking the head of the library's old online Blog, which leaves me feeling even more selfish. However, it's amazing what they've done with as little as they have, and with as much fighting as is going on all around them. Kudos to them.

Tags: random, work
Mood: disturbed

Dear snowstorms,

Despite semi-decent weather where I am, you have stopped work in many areas where my clients are. So it's a slow day. For once.

Thanks for all your help!

With much appreciation,

Hawk

Tags: humor, letters, work
Mood: semi-relaxed

I was sitting at my desk the other day, with a plastic hawk sitting on my right speaker. Underneath that right speaker was a small Pirate Booty bag filled with delicious Pirate Booty.

As I reach out to the bag to get some Booty, the hawk leaps off the speaker and does a perfect 10 Point landing on the bag. It's almost as if it was saying "Mine! Go and get something else, meatbag." Unfortunately for the hawk, it is small and made of Chinese plastic & I am big and made of meat. Hence, I got Booty and it got put back on the speaker.

Tags: hawks, humor, work
Mood: bemused

Dear everyone who cites,

"A famous study done by..." is not a citation. The fact that I had to do various searches for approximately a half-hour to find any new information rather than the phrase "A famous study done by..." and the exact same charts tells me that people cribbed all the information off of one person's badly cited paper. Because it if was a truly famous paper? It would not have taken me so long to track the bloody thing down.

Everyone, learn to cite. And stop cribbing from your neighbor's paper.

Disgustedly,

Hawk

Tags: letters, rants, work

Dear (not so) potential employee,

It would behoove you to pay attention to the fact that this is the third time you've applied for the very same job description at our company over the past three years, and not continue to send in resumes where you have already been rejected multiple times. In fact, we brought you in for an interview and almost immediately said no. Does the clue bell not ring for you?

Please stop sending us resumes unless you'd like us to start mocking you.

Seriously.

With no patience,

Hawk

Tags: letters, resumes, work

So if it's the American Psychiatric Association conference, why is the OCLC catalog record in French?

Tags: humor, library, work
Mood: puzzled

As I have a few open positions I have recs out to fill, I've been starting to go through piles of resumes. A few (general) suggestions to those prospective employees.

A) When it is stated "cover letter required", a hiring manager really means "a cover letter is required". This is not just to make you jump through hoops. A cover letter helps show numerous things. Firstly, one can mention relevant interests or experiences that relate directly to the type of job one is applying for, but which should not (for various reasons) be placed on the resume itself. It also shows that one knows how to follow directions. While I do not want to hire a drone, I am NOT hiring someone to just do what they want to do. They need to know how to follow directions. Finally, it is a chance to show off your writing and grammar skills. I know that not all people are very well versed in these matters; however, it is a chance to wow me with your erudition. As I work at a library company, being literate and well-written is always a bonus.

B) Job codes, like cover letters, are not things that are put in ads just for the hiring manager to see themselves in print. We receive a lot of resumes. If you don't put on the job code, it won't be read.

C) Personalize each resume and cover letter for each job. It doesn't have to be personalized much; however, one should make the effort of at least making sure the objective is, for example, relevant to the type of job you are looking to be hired into. Additionally, the objective of "Finding work" or "Looking to gain better understanding of self", while honest, is not an acceptable response.

D) Unless you have 10+ years of experience, you do not need to have multiple pages for your resumes. One page will suffice. Resumes are not an expression of self, but an expression of keywords and experience to attract potential employers to bring you in for an interview. Attempting to force employers to read five page resumes for someone who has only four years of menial office job experience will not get one in for an interview. It will get ones resume sent to the "no" pile.

E) While during an interview I will attempt to draw out of you what your hobbies and interests are, to get a fuller understanding of you, I do NOT care what they are on your resume, unless they are directly related to the job that you are applying for. For example, I have written "copy-edited for friends" on cover letters that are applying for editing jobs. I have not put that one for jobs that do not involve writing. Nor shall I do so.

F) Presentation is key. Let me repeat that - PRESENTATION IS KEY. I prefer all resumes to be sent to me in .pdf format, as that will ensure that any formatting that has been done, will remain exactly as one wished it to look like. However, I realize that not everyone has access to full adobe or uses Macs (where one can automatically create a .pdf file). I also realize that not everyone has access to MS Word or some other wordprocessing program. However, one should take advantage of whatever text tools they have, and create a clear, legible, and ONE PAGE resume to be sent to the prospective employer. We do not want to see:

o 16 pt font cover letters, with good portions of the cover letter either bolded, underlined, or both.
o Cool looking fonts, in 20 pt font, in the resume. Latitude is given to non-nationals obviously not used to US traditional resumes. There is, however, a limit to latitude and it shall not be extended to those who send me resumes in 20 pt, with Cursive fonts, take up three pages, and have not bothered to format it other than to use a "cool-looking" font.
o A "resume" that's 6 lines long, and obviously cut and pasted from another job email you had sent out previously.

G) Note that there's always a good chance robots are reading this for keywords. Keyword the hell out of this. It is better to have too many keywords, than too little.

H) Unless you are green or do not have a college degree, I do not care what High School you went to, what your GPA was, or what year you graduated. Remove it.

I) Repeat after me: "References are available upon request". References should not mar up your beautiful 1 page resume. They go on a separate page, with an explanation of who they are (friend, ex-coworker, ex-supervisor, etc) and they are not given to the prospective employer until asked.

Just follow these basic rules, and you too can have a legible looking resume that won't make a hiring manager glance at it, cringe, throw it in the rejection pile, and then use it for humor fodder while talking with colleagues.

ETA: To clarify, these are rules for US resumes. Resumes might be put together differently in your part of the world.

Tags: idiots, rant, resumes, work