Welcome Food!
As I cleaned the main floor of a local library, I was struck by the fact that eating was allowed. The crushed Cheetos and coffee stains were annoying to clean up.
“Welcome food!” exclaimed my disgusted coworker in his heavily accented English.
“I know, right!” I responded, sympathetically. We’ve cleaned up much worse, so it was the location and not the substances, themselves, that made the cleanup so annoying and it offended me as if a sacred space had been desecrated.
The library was one of my favorite places as a child. I learned the value of words and saw places I had never been on page after descriptive page of the countless books I consumed. My own children still reminisce about their favorite libraries and librarians. The Highwood library, small, dark and dank, as if it housed ancient mysteries and collectors items, overseen by librarians with the identical names rewarding curious minds with seasoned guidance. The Cook Public Library before its atmosphere-ruining renovation. Cafe-like and social, it had been a place where international book consumers and students were guaranteed satisfaction. My family speaks of the staff at our community library by name in our daily conversation. My youngest laments the trend towards libraries doubling as youth centers, despite her age group being the target of the new trend.
Libraries have traditionally been a safe community space. That aspect is not new. Part of that was the standard of behavior required to be a member. Each librarian enforced the standard, sometimes with just a glance. Everybody knew the rules and everybody was expected to abide by them. Now, it seems as if libraries are being dumbed down, devalued. I have thought this for a while, but as I vacuumed the Cheetos, I realized that at the library I had learned to consider others. I was trusted with property held in common. I learned to take care of the books for future use by someone else. Clean pages, free of marks and bends, I denied myself a candy bar so someone else could enjoy this book as much as I had. I controlled my musical tourettes and made an effort to whisper, even though I do not possess that volume level, so others would not have their experience marred by my peculiarities. It wasn’t about me at the library. It was where I was taught how to behave in a community; subtly, gently. It is not the only place, but I am convinced, an underrated one. In a sense, I held a public trust. And I wanted to be worthy.
I mentally ranted for a few days, pondering how the degradation of libraries is affecting our society. Is my experience even possible anymore? I wondered, especially, about public servants. So many seemed to lack the amount of consideration necessary to navigate public spaces, let alone hold a position that serves the public--entitled driving practices, no regard for the people they affect, no awareness of what is actually going on in the space they are occupying.
I was taking a mental break from library thoughts in the restfulness of my apartment when a young man and woman exchanging expletive laden insults in the front hall of our apartment complex brought the subject to mind, again. They seemed to be competing to see who could be the most foul. Initially, the female seemed to have the advantage. In hindsight, I think that’s because she was willing to go all out, right away. Calling him everything, but his name, she kept coming back to his apartment door to harass him as loudly as possible. As an all female household, my daughters and I cringed as she started to insult, not just him, but his four-year- old child and the mother of that child, both absent. She said things to him, you only say to someone when you know krav maga or are carrying a gun. That was when it became obvious the young man had been holding back. We were collectively grateful for his physical restraint. There was no way that could have ended well. Once he got through informing the whole complex, in detail, what sexual services she had rendered and how,I almost wished he had just hit her. It might have been less painful. He was terribly creative, like a poet whose vocabulary is limited to aggressive obscenities.
“Was he purposeful in that or had he never been exposed to words better suited to his obvious ability?”
He was proud and loud in his delivery and the young woman retreated just long enough to convince her intellectually disabled brother to pay the young man an armed visit. Fearless does not even begin to describe the response. With words, alone, he sent them packing. You could hear how proud he was of his verbal creativity. He kept rewording his last line. Like a writer trying to get it just right.
“Just one good library. One smiling librarian. Anybody.”
Later, when the police departed for the third time, the young man stood in the hall and told all us neighbors what he thought of whoever had called the police. I found it curious that this was an issue for him. If he had any library experience, at all, he would know that they had been way too loud and he would know that he had a responsibility to add to the standard of living experienced by those around him, not detract from it.
It seems that what’s going on in our libraries is a symptom of larger problems and libraries can only do so much to solve those problems. Unwelcome food
Twilight Shift
RUBY JIRAFA·MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2016
Twilight Shift
Shift Manager says the load will be significantly smaller today. I hope they manage our time better. I hope they manage MY time better. My usual running buddy is absent. It is her scheduled weekend. I see the Epsom salt-apple cider vinegar lady, though. I am simply the Epsom salt lady. She insists on the combination of the two. Her daughter was a dancer and she swears by it. I used all my Apple cider vinegar in a fruit fly killing mixture. I’ll have to get some more. Eyeing my gloves, she says they made her take off her special, fingerless, arthritis gloves and wear the company issued ones. I have cut holes in the tips of my gloves. My finger length to hand width ratio makes fitting me impossible. I can choose to get my hands caught in a conveyor because my gloves are not snug or I can safely wear a size small with the fingertips removed. Safety first! There is enough work to keep us busy for three of the possible five hours and then it’s time for busy work. I don’t believe in busy work. The lack of actual work, and therefore, purpose, makes time crawl. I am thankful when it’s over. Not thankful enough to join the stampede, though. I’m the person who leaves the movie after all the credits have rolled off the screen and the traffic has left the parking lot.
I see Darius. He is as unhurried as I. He relates his shift to me. He was a few lines down, learning a new job. Cross training is highly encouraged, but not mandatory. You just let your manager know if you are interested. If one learns to do all the jobs while being paid the same base wage, one can apply for a permanent position when and if one becomes available. Turns out, Darius didn’t actually desire to learn this new job. He learned it as a matter of survival. On Darius’s prior shift, one of the manager’s flexed on him and when Darius articulately, politely pointed out the discrepancy in what he was being told and the guideline posted on the wall, a tinkling contest ensued. The manager, then, loudly engaged his nearby fellow managers about said discrepancy. Later, Darius, familiar with the nuances of white-male-supervisor-to-black-male-employee relationships, tried to reassure the manager that he had no problem with his authority, just the discrepancy. Too late. Next shift, Darius was assigned a new job and then evaluated throughout the shift by several different managers-one of them now calling him “Troublemaker”. Although unfair, this would not normally have been remarkable or even a problem, as Darius is a seasoned black man and excellence embodied; but not one of those managers saw to his training and Darius had expressed no interest in doing that job. He was set up to fail, by management and then rigorously evaluated on his performance by those same people. As I listen to him I wonder if they have succeeded in shutting him up. It takes courage to speak up knowing those with power to change what’s wrong would prefer to get rid of you and will you use their authority to do so. To speak up, knowing you will most certainly be labeled a whiner, disloyal, or one who incites disorder is courageous indeed. Whatever size the stage, media or no media, during slavery, post slavery, in a system designed to squelch even the smallest sound of intelligence uttered from black lips, speaking up can be costly. That much has not changed.