Since it’s Halloween and my peeps from the library keep on feeding me Tales of Grendel, I figured I’d add some new ones. This one happens to be my personal favorite.

Grendel sends this email to the masses…

Subject: Happy 20th!
Importance: High

Today I’m celebrating 20 years at the Library. Enjoy my cake in the staff room! Grendel

Then she sends out…

Subject: RE: Happy 20th!

Thank you for all the kind words of recognition. I’m glad people enjoyed the cake I brought in and my balloon I bought for myself. Laughter is the best therapy! Grendel the self important ass-hat.

Seriously, who does things like this? She might as well have thrown herself a surprise party. I can’t believe she brought not only a cake, but a damn balloon. A balloon!

What I want to know is A) Did she bring it in on a Thursday, when all full time staff was there and could partake? And B) Was it late enough in the afternoon when the night employees could have some? (Her 2 pet peeves).

More Tales tomorrow.

PS: If this kid doesn’t stop crying for no reason, I’m going to shoot myself in the head. That is all.

–>

I just got a Grendel story in from Anonymous Coworker 2 (AC 2). Now AC 2 has worked with Grendel for YEARS. God, I don’t know how she does it. Anyway, the whole department probably would fall apart if not for AC 2. Besides being there for a long time, she really knows what she’s doing and even though she is part time, she helps out a hell of a lot.

Now that we have that background, you need to know that Grendel sets the department clocks 5 minutes ahead. This way she can get people out early when the library closes so she rush home and sacrifice goats or whatever she does. As long as AC 2 has worked there, as long as I ever worked there, basically since the beginning of time, the whole department has always gone by the clock that hangs directly across from the desk. So one day, that time piece says 1:00, time for AC 2 to go home. She gets her stuff and leaves and all is well, right?

WRONG. The next Grendel says, “Why did you leave early?” And AC 2 is like, “I just went by the same clock we always do.” Grendel says, “You are paid to stay until 1:00.” Then AC2 comes back with, “I’m also paid to work from 9 AM until 1PM, and I always come in early. But if I get paid to stay until 1 then I get paid to come in at 9. I’ll come in at 9 from now on.”

Now Grendel tries to argue she needs to come in early enough to get the department ready for the day (i.e. turn on computers which takes 30 seconds at most). This really isn’t in AC 2’s job description. So AC 2 talks to the assistant director about the problem, and she basically tells AC 2 to do what she needs to do.

I hope AC 2 sticks to her guns. Grendel needs to know that random harpiness will not be tolerated.

Actually, I hope AC 2 leaves, because then Grendel will really be up shit’s creek.

And we will all laugh and laugh.

–>

I was lucky enough to go back home for a visit for a while. I was even more lucky to able to lunch with the lovely ladies who still work at my former place of employment (and we partied, partied, partied! Too bad nobody brought balloons for the party!). My lovely former coworkers were abound with Grendel stories. Here’s one:

The person who has replaced me at my old job (I’ll call her A) is also a really good friend and she had lunch with us. I warned her just how bad Grendel was before she got the job, but she had no idea just how bad Grendel was. She had this story to tell…

A was doing a chess club program. Chess is definitely a unisex sort of game, right? So A made multi-colored fliers promoting the program, just as her job requires. Some of theses fliers were green, blue, red, purple. Grendel leaves A a note attached to a purple flier with the words, “Too feminine?” written on it.

WTF??!!

Now A couldn’t figure out if Grendel meant that purple paper would turn boys off to the program or that girls would not be interested in chess, so don’t bother to put out fliers in feminine colors. Either way, Grendel’s logic was just totally messed up. So A resolved the problem by making a ton of bright pink fliers! He-he, how’s that for passive aggressive, Bee-yotch.

Way to go, A! Fight the power!

–>

****I had to change initials*****

When I heard about this I laughed and this image immediately came to mind:

Complete with internet gamer slang. The story was sent to me by my homey Anonymous Coworker 1 (AC1), but first I have to give you all a little background info (even though you may get a hint as to where I’m from, I’ll risk it). A few years ago there was a horrible fire in hometown that killed a lot of people. It was terribly tragic, but Grendel seems to think that any sort of reference to flames, fires, burning, etc. will conjure up images of this tragic event. Now this may have been true right after it happened, but this occurred YEARS ago. Still she freaks at the flames.

Now for the story: My homey, Anonymous Coworker 2 (AC2), was doing displays of new books and puts out one called The Fire. Grendel sees it on display and freaks. She goes on about how it is not appropriate and blah, blah, blah. Keep in mind that the fire in the book is a totally different kind of fire and no one dies or anything. Homies AC1 & AC2 decide it would be funny if the book shows up on display again. Grendel goes into another tizzy, now blaming the display on the new night shelver. AC1 & AC2 agree to display the book now and again to drive Grendel crazy because as AC1 said, “Passive-aggressive can go both ways, bitch.”

Way to go guys!

Don’t forget about that great display of bipolar disorder books!

–>

And by stinky, I mean stunk so bad we all got ill. Seriously. I’ll never forget the first time she came into the library, I walked in from lunch and said, “Eww, what smells like feet?” I didn’t know that a person could smell that bad. Now that I think about it, it didn’t smell just like feet, it was like a combination of unwashed va-jay-jay, cat piss and just ick. That’s the only way to describe it.

Stinky Lady’ stink didn’t disappear when she left the room, either. It permeated the entire library, (two floors, not a small building at all), for hours. I am not joking, it was the stank that wouldn’t end.

Now it would be understandable if Stinky Lady was homeless or something, but I don’t think that was the case. In fact, she drove a rather nice SUV. Apparently, she came into the library to burn DVDs or CDs or something. She would go into the small quiet study room and do her work. Woe to the poor employee who had to go into this confined space and assist her in any way. I think someone actually vomited at one point.

Anyway, the stank got so bad that we would practically use up whole cans of air freshener to fight the odor. Patrons would get up and leave as soon as she walked through the doors. We were at wits end. We didn’t have a smelly patron policy, so we couldn’t tell her to leave. I was seriously tempted to pay a surly teenager to say, “Yo, lady, go take a bath.” But no one would let me.

Finally, a smelly patron policy was created and the glorious day came when our assistant director took Smelly Lady outside and told her she could no longer come into the library if she continued to smell. Smelly Lady took it quite well. We found out later that she had been kicked out of other libraries and business establishments with Wi-Fi because of her raunch.

You’d think she’d get the hint and bathe.

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