Big story

It is my hope that I post this story in its entirety as fact and not opinion, to convey what has gone down. If it is my opinion, I will state it as so. Names have been changed to further avoid conflicts. Please remember that this is all my personal point of view and is therefore swayed by my opinion, as much as I try to leave my opinion out. If anyone has any problems with me or what I wrote, please e-mail me directly, do not comment anonymously mean things or the comment will be deleted. Thank you.

"Our new boss, “Chris”, arrived in early november having moved from out of state. He was very talkative. We were told to hold off programs until January in which we hoped he would settle in and be more comfortable with procedure.
For the first month or two he spent most of his time suing a used car salesman, using the library's phones for personal use, as well as the computers. He even went to another library and used the reference computer for his own personal use. He was very distractable and very forgetful. Often when sitting at the desk he would forget to pay attention to the patrons, instead looking things up on the computer or talking to one of us, who would ultimately help the patron while trying not to be rude to the boss.
He did try to be helpful when he was dealing with patrons, though he tended to disbelieve some while completely believing others. One of our best patrons, always ordering things, returned two DVDs. I wasn't there that day, but “Chris” handled the situation which was not that hard to deal with. That saturday our patron came back in and wanted to know why he was getting called about a fine. “Chris” was at the desk at the time and at first didn't remember the patron. (I don't know if it makes a difference, but this patron is black) He then checked the card and didn't seem to listen to the patron when the patron stated he had in fact returned the movies, instead wanting to know where the movies were.
I happened to see the titles of the DVDs and remembered seeing them on the hold shelf. Sure enough, they were on the hold shelf and they hadn't been checked in. So I picked them up and tried to show the boss, who ignored me for the first two times I said, "These are the DVDs." Then he was surprised. I told him he should just back date them, so he clicked on the return items button, which won't let you back date. You have to go to bookdrop for that. I had gone back to sorting books at this time and I heard him say that it wasn't working, that it wasn't letting him back date. He checked one dvd back in, which resulted in the fine still being on the patron's card. So I went back over and told him he had to use the book drop for that. So he clicked on the book drop and put in the date, but then he scanned the barcode into the date box. It came up with an error saying it was the incorrect date. He tried the same thing twice after that and wondered why it wasn't working. I told him that he had to pick the date again and then he scanned the barcode in again. We finally got it straightened out and our patron had his fines cleared.

Lincoln's birthday was a school holiday but not a county holiday. This was also before I got keys to the library. I was scheduled to come into work by 2, but I got there at 1:30. There was no one there. I waited until 2 and called the regional manager who told me that “Chris” had been in a meeting with him until 1:30 and that I should wait until 2:30. If he was still not there at 2:30, call the regional manager again. I had tried calling “Chris”' cell number but no one had answered. I had also forgotten which numbers were my coworkers (which one was supposed to come in at 3) so I couldn't call them.
So at 2:30 I called the regional again and he said that he would try to find out where “Chris” was and to give him 20 minutes. 20 minutes later, he calls back and says that “Chris” is on his way. 5 minutes to opening “Chris” pulls up and opens the library, all the while ranting about how it wasn't his fault. How was he supposed to know it was a school holiday? Nobody told him. Except that I had and so had the school librarians. Besides that, it isn't the school's responsibility to open the public library so that just doesn't cut it. He was also griping about the fact that he got in trouble with his boss and how it wasn't my fault (but I found out later he did indeed blame me). He never actually told anyone how he felt about them. He would say one thing to one person and then turn around and talk bad about them behind their back.
He talked crap about the regional manager, calling him evil and malicious. I don't know about any of you, but I've known the regional for a lot longer than I've known anyone at my library and I have never had any problem with him. He is a really nice guy even when he's chewing you out or firing you. He doesn't raise his voice and he shows that he actually cares about how you feel. So to hear “Chris” talking crap about him just made me really not like “Chris”. I hadn't even known who they were talking about until they said his name and it kind of shocked me. I know he's not perfect, no one is, but he's twenty million times better than “Chris” will ever be.
For those of you who don't know, the regional manager was only recently promoted to that position. He's the branch manager at my mom's library and that library is getting ready to move into their newly built huge library. There are three other libraries that he has to pay attention to now, including mine, so that's four libraries he's regional to and one he's branch manager to. So he has double his share of meetings to go to and three times and many people to deal with. And so he had to deal with “Chris” in the middle of all this.
“Chris” on the other hand was bad mouthing him and saying how he was out to can him (as if he had some sort of ten year unjustified grudge against “Chris”) and making it sound like you should pity “Chris” for having to deal with such a tyrant. To me he sounded like a baby. He sounded like a highschooler who just didn't want to grow up and take responsibility for his actions. Nothing was ever his fault. Out of all that time spent at our library he learned seemingly nothing about SERSI and continually screwed up patron's files.

He was enthusiastic about the YA and Children's programs and he did a program (yeah he pretty much took my job there, oh well) for the teens on guessing famous to not so famous anime characters. We had about 28 teens come for that. He also helped the children's librarian with story time and crafts.

The last saturday he worked, I think he knew he was going to get canned and I could tell in my opinion anyway, that he blamed me. He was certainly bitter about something that day and he took it out in his own way on me, verbally being politely abusive? Saying things such as, "Kudos to you for figuring out something yourself. It really helps." In a tone that makes you feel as if you have never done anything. That line and the way he said it ticked me off.
Perhaps not as much as when we were alone at the desk together and he was whining about how he was probably going to get canned and he told me that I was his last hope, his only hope and could I paint a nice picture to the regional for him? He told me, "You know I gave you a good review" and told me how he gave me all E's... insinuating what? Trying to guilt me into saying something nice or just trying to get pity? What about that last saturday when he told me, quite emotionally, that he just let this couple use his card to get onto a computer because that's just the kind of guy he is. That he likes to do nice things like that. And he was bragging about it in a whiny high school emo way.
I'm just still a little incredulous. He called me the other day (apparently an accident) and then proceeded to tell me that he was going to sue the library for $15,000 for traveling expense and that he had talked to some lawyers and they thought it would work...

I know this should be chronological, but the way I type it usually flows together preventing me from editing things in. Oh and I'm being lazy because this has taken so long to type.
Before he had met mom, I thought I had told him about her, but either I hadn't or he'd forgotten. Anyway, she had come over for one reason or another and it was busy, so we ended up getting called away from the desk leaving mom there to work it. “Chris” didn't even question this strange woman working the desk. He later told her, "I figured you knew something about libraries." As if that made it all better. He never seemed to care about the rules, as if they never applied to him.
Oh and he never could do our schedules correctly. I went in one saturday and foudn that the schedule was a complete opposite what he had told me the previous day. I had thought I had monday off, but then I found I didn't and no one had told me. Mom and I had started planning to go to the beach that monday and if I had called in sick saturday, I wouldn't have known that I was supposed to work monday, which would have screwed SO many things up!

And so that's pretty much it. I may delete this post later, as it wouldn't even be up had I not gotten so many requests.

Rachel