Reader Appreciation

Greetings, dear readers!  It's your friendly neighborhood prison librarian here with a very important message:

THANK YOU!!!!!! :-)

I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to read my blog, especially when there are many blogs out there in the world to read.  When I first started this blog oh-so-many years ago, I was super excited when I got 5 views in a week, and most of those were probably my mom, haha.  Now, I am pleased to report that this blog has more than 19,700 views!  Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought that this little coping mechanism blog that I started to help people learn what it was really like being a prison librarian would appeal to so many people.  Also, I have FIFTEEN followers!  That's more people than my prison library employs!  Simply amazing.  Thank you all so much.

Because you make reading my blog a priority, I am going to make writing more blog posts a priority too.  So, for the next month, I promise that I will post new blogs at least two times per week.  Also, I have been getting many emails to my askaprisonlibrarian@gmail.com email address, so it seems to be a great way to connect with you about questions specific to your situation.  Keep them coming, I want to answer questions YOU want to know about!

Until next time, which won't be as long as last time!

On Common Courtesy

I have a new minion, whom I love.  She is actually an intern.  I shall call her Min-tern. Min-tern has been working with me for a little over a week now and she is fitting into prison life perfectly.  Today as we were walking out, she to leave, me to drop off mail we were saying goodbye to each other and it went something like this:

Me: "Have a lovely afternoon!"
Min-tern: "Thank you and I hope you do as well!"
Me: "Thank you, I am sure I will!"
Min-tern: "I love that we are so polite!"
Me: "Our mothers raised us right!"

Now, in addition to having the Best Moms, the politeness of this exchange could also be due to the fact that Min-tern and I were both in the Bartending Brotherhood, where one uses courtesy to both build rapport with customers and ensure good tips.  Generally, I try and be courteous to everyone I encounter in prison because that is just good practice for life, but unfortunately, not everyone shares the same view point.

A little later in the afternoon, I was calling the units to notify them of library closures this evening and normally my conversations go like this:

Me: "Hello!  It's me in the library!"
Unit Staff: "Hello Me in the Library!  How are you today?"
Me: "I am lovely, and yourself?"
Unit Staff: "Fine, thank you.  How may I help you today?"
I can then impart my message, ask my question, or take care of any business I need to and everyone is happy.  However, future prison librarians, not everyone has such great phone etiquette unfortunately.  Today my conversation went more like this:

Me: "Hello!  It's me in the library!"
Unit Staff: ".... AND?"
Me: "Uh, um, I was just calling to let you know the library is closed tonight."
Unit Staff: "K." *CLICK*

Now, maybe they were crazy busy in the unit and didn't have time for niceties.  I try and give people the benefit of the doubt because you never know what battles people are fighting, sometimes literally.  It could also be that with the para-military mentality in prison, people don't believe in wasting words.  Just give them the message and let them get on with their mission.  I don't know.  They could also just be jerks haha.  But the takeaway lesson today my future prison librarians, is that even if people don't return it (and frequently they won't) common courtesy goes a long way towards building good rapport with your fellow human beings, especially in prison.  Until next time!