Free for all: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library > Rexroad.com

I have not been reporting on the books I have been reading lately. Largely because I don't think too many of you would be interested. However, I just finished a great book.

Sitting in Savory the other day I read this book review in the SF Chronicle about Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert. Borchert lives in Lomita, CA and still works in a public library.

This book made me laugh out loud several times. He has great stories about some nutty people that he has had to deal with in a public library. People running a meth operation out of the bathroom, a guy that blows an air horn inside to signal when he is there to pick up his son, and how the staff deals with fines. He even has a story about two moms fighting in the parking lot. This is a great book that does not take long to read.

Here is the one passage that really got me. It is about going to orientation and getting briefed on the city union.

I never brought the green membership card back. Eventually they made me a union member anyway, signature or not. I was called a courtesy member. It was a solidarity thing. A solid wall of vigilant, united workers against an unforgiving wall of oppressive management. It is an adorable, romantic notion that neither side seems to believe. These days there are no membership cards, no pleading and boasting and hectoring to the new employees. You work for the city -- well, congratulations, you just joined the union.

This is the way many employees feel about public employee unions.

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