Weird patron encounter of the week:

Yesterday, I changed the paper roll in the self-check machine. This always produces a chunk of extra paper as the machine automatically makes an initial cut to give the roll a nice straight edge for its next receipt. So, I crumpled up that bit of paper and, as I passed the upstairs public internet stations, tossed it into the recycle box next to those stations. And the lady at the terminal next to the box got seriously pissed off. Apparently, what I'd done was "inappropriate", although God knows how. She said I should have kept the paper and thrown it in the recycle box in "my own area". Um. Yeah. It's a public box lady. Anybody, including staff can use it at any time.

I uttered a couple of "sorries" but I don't think she believed me. Which is fair enough, because I didn't really mean it. I'd done nothing wrong.

For the next 10 minutes or so, when I wandered anywhere near that area, to assist patrons with something or other, she just glared at me.

Oooookay.

Look who's been remiss in his blogging. That would be, oh, me.

Finally feeling much better after more than a week fighting off a nasty cold and likely an infection of some kind. Still coughing a fair bit but not as often or as long. It's actually nice to get back to work after being home sick for a week. Especially today.

We played video games at work. Really. A bunch of us attended a workshop on video games and literacies. A couple of women from the University of Victoria gave a little talk on how video games are not bad for kids. And are, quite often, good learning tools. Then, for the second half of the workshop, we actually played games for a while. The verdict: I might do okay on the Wii with a little practice on the controller, I'm half decent at Dance Dance Revolution and I suck pretty badly at Guitar Hero.

So, all in all, a pretty good day to return to work. Plus a few of us went to Japanese Village for lunch. Nice.

We won. We actually won. The library lock-out is over. And we got what we were asking for. Well, mostly. More than I thought we'd get anyway.

Monday evening, our union local met at a nearby (for us) school gym and presented to us a package worked out by the employers and our representatives. Then we voted 85% in favour of accepting it.

We got pay equity. Not exactly the pay equity we were asking for. We were going for equity with Victoria city hall, but ended up with an average of two other municipalities' city halls. That's still a big improvement over what we had and is, in essence, still equity. And it's retroactive to the beginning of last year!

Management has agreed to creating a number of "senior page" positions. This will be a page position that is full-time and permanent, which means benefits. Just like a real job!

It was certainly not a perfect package, but it's a huge step forward, especially considering that we didn't lose anything we already had. There had been talk of changing Sundays to a regular work day, rather than an extra day, but we ended up making no concsessions.

So, I'm back to work today. Just a half day for today and we won't be opening until Tuesday, but we are back! And it mostly comes down to our union members' strength during this last couple of months and the huge public support. Don't mess with library patrons or employees!

This morning, I finally finished the third and final part of the futuristic role-playing Xenosaga video game series. The series' story-line is massive, epic and, to be honest, rather too complex for its own good. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed playing the series. It looks great, it's got a huge amount of (mostly) fun side quests, the characters are likeable (if a little melodramatic).

However, the story is so deeply steeped in mythology, Biblical scholarship and the works of Nietzsche (yes, that Nietzsche), it's often difficult to figure out exactly what the hell is going on or what the characters are going on about. Although I enjoyed it, I won't be going back to play these over again. Guess I'll turn in the volumes I own for credit at EB Games.

The Xenosaga series will certainly go down as winner of Most Bizarre Video Game Plot Twist of All Time. One the main characters, KOS-MOS is a hot, kick-ass blue haired android who regularly pulls out massively oversize guns to take down enemies:

The bizarre twist? It turns out that KOS-MOS was built to be the re-incarnation of... Mary Magdalene. Mary. Magdalene. Whahey?!

Day 612 of the library lockout. ... Okay, maybe it only seems like day 612. At least, today it does.

In reality, we are closing in on the end of the second full week of the library board and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association's depriving the city of their libraries. And, so far, an end to it seems awfully far in the future.

I've mostly been pretty positive during all this. Certainly not happy, but generally hopeful that things will turn out, especially given the overwhelming public support. But, for some reason, today... Today, I felt cranky and just generally annoyed at the world. Lynn says it's probably because I didn't sleep well last night, and she's probably right, but I was still grouchy. I hope the mood passes.

A random thought about the situation:

While spending four hours walking back and forth in front of the library, I'm reading a bit here and there, working my way through The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson. It tells the story of, well, the last days of Krypton: the events leading up to Krypton's destruction. Superman's father Jor-El, as the story has always gone, tries to convince his world's ruling council of the danger threatening them all. The council refuses to listen, burying their heads in the sand, desperate to maintain the status quo. Gee, sounds like a certain library board I can think of...

A little after 3 PM on the second to last day that the library is open before a lockout...

"It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE!!!!"

Just a little on the busy side, then.

Today's my last day at work for what could be a very long time. Actually, nearly all of us at the library are having their last day today or tomorrow. We're being locked out.

I've mentioned our labour problems here a couple of times and now things have come to a head. After 5 months of asking the library board to return to the bargaining table and trying to not strike completely, they've decided they'd rather shut us down.

What's really got a lot of us pissed off is that their official press release has this passage:

“We do recognize and value the contribution of employees and would urge employees to ask their union representatives to return to the negotiating table to work out a fair collective agreement that meets the needs of all parties.”

Um, what?? They're doing their best to make it look like we are the ones who don't want to negotiate, despite telling them repeatedly that we would stop any and all strike actions if they would return to the table. Dickweeds.

Lynn and I expect to be okay, as long as the lock out doesn't last more than a few months; we've got a decent amount saved up right now. But a lot of folks are going to suffer because of the board's petty and small-minded actions.

Now, back to that last day.