“This totally sucks.”
Robert Niemyer was beside himself yesterday when he found the check-out counter at the National Library in Berlin closed.
“This totally sucks,” he repeated. “I even checked the opening hours of this place. But that’s not good enough. You got to check the subsection for Saturdays, then check the subsection for check-out.”
Even though Mr. Niemyer, 54, is a regular user of the Staatsbibliothek, or Staabi, as it is affectionately known, he never realized that the insanity of business hours in Berlin would go this far.
A long time resident of this nation’s capital, over the years the New York native has finally grasped the fact that the library is closed all day Sundays, alternate Thursdays for re-shelving, Monday mornings for conferences or "Rundtischgespräche," the third Wednesday of every month for cleaning and polishing, Tuesday afternoons for internal systems control, and the second Monday after the first Tuesday of every month to undo dog-eared pages.
But being unable to check out his books this Saturday afternoon clearly put Mr. Niemyer on edge.
“It’s like they want to test you to see how bad you want to read those books. Like how many times are you willing to make the haul to this place?”
Mr. Niemyer explained that the New York Times had recently come out with their “100 notable books of 2008.” He was pleasantly surprised to learn that a couple of these had already become part of the Staabi collection.
“It was awesome when I found that out. So I immediately ordered Netherland and Factory Girls. They’re sitting right over there, on the shelf under my user ID, right behind that locked turnstyle,” he added dismayed. “Now I’ll have to come back on Monday.
“Wait a sec. They’ll be dog-earing then.”
The General Director of the library, Barbara Schneider-Kempf, stated that “the check-out hours have been extended to make books more accessible.
“We used to be closed all day Saturdays because we thought that no Berliner would want to waste his time coming to the library on the weekend, when they could be home watching Spongebob Schwammkopf,” referring to the ever-popular television cartoon show.
“But now, out of dedication to our clientele, we have employed one person to sit at the check-out counter on Saturdays for three hours.”
Other European countries stipulate sensible business hours for public institutions in order to accommodate the general public, but Germany has long held itself apart from the norm.
Exactly why this should be the case is unknown. But recent speculation among sociologists and skinheads alike has it that German workers are more efficient than their European counterparts, and able to accomplish in a three hour window on a Saturday morning what a French worker, for example, would require a normal eight hour shift for.
Amazingly, city halls , community centers, post offices, schools, universities, swimming pools, and train station information centers have all been able to defy human understanding in their ability to conjure up oddball business hours.
Even soup kitchens are closed for lunch.
When pressed for a reason as to this irrationality, often times bureaucrats have responded by saying, “That’s the way it is here,” “I don’t think these hours are unusual,” or “We have to eat too, you know.”
But bureaucrats are now hopeful that with the current speculation riding on the “hard-working German,” criticism of their user-unfriendly business hours will be deflected.
Mr. Niemyer noted that while the general check-out counter was closed, the in-house reading room check-out counter had two workers sitting idly at their posts. He added that he overheard them complaining of missing that day’s Spongebob episode.
Robert Niemyer was beside himself yesterday when he found the check-out counter at the National Library in Berlin closed.
“This totally sucks,” he repeated. “I even checked the opening hours of this place. But that’s not good enough. You got to check the subsection for Saturdays, then check the subsection for check-out.”
Even though Mr. Niemyer, 54, is a regular user of the Staatsbibliothek, or Staabi, as it is affectionately known, he never realized that the insanity of business hours in Berlin would go this far.
A long time resident of this nation’s capital, over the years the New York native has finally grasped the fact that the library is closed all day Sundays, alternate Thursdays for re-shelving, Monday mornings for conferences or "Rundtischgespräche," the third Wednesday of every month for cleaning and polishing, Tuesday afternoons for internal systems control, and the second Monday after the first Tuesday of every month to undo dog-eared pages.
But being unable to check out his books this Saturday afternoon clearly put Mr. Niemyer on edge.
“It’s like they want to test you to see how bad you want to read those books. Like how many times are you willing to make the haul to this place?”
Mr. Niemyer explained that the New York Times had recently come out with their “100 notable books of 2008.” He was pleasantly surprised to learn that a couple of these had already become part of the Staabi collection.
“It was awesome when I found that out. So I immediately ordered Netherland and Factory Girls. They’re sitting right over there, on the shelf under my user ID, right behind that locked turnstyle,” he added dismayed. “Now I’ll have to come back on Monday.
“Wait a sec. They’ll be dog-earing then.”
The General Director of the library, Barbara Schneider-Kempf, stated that “the check-out hours have been extended to make books more accessible.“We used to be closed all day Saturdays because we thought that no Berliner would want to waste his time coming to the library on the weekend, when they could be home watching Spongebob Schwammkopf,” referring to the ever-popular television cartoon show.
“But now, out of dedication to our clientele, we have employed one person to sit at the check-out counter on Saturdays for three hours.”
Other European countries stipulate sensible business hours for public institutions in order to accommodate the general public, but Germany has long held itself apart from the norm.
Exactly why this should be the case is unknown. But recent speculation among sociologists and skinheads alike has it that German workers are more efficient than their European counterparts, and able to accomplish in a three hour window on a Saturday morning what a French worker, for example, would require a normal eight hour shift for.
Amazingly, city halls , community centers, post offices, schools, universities, swimming pools, and train station information centers have all been able to defy human understanding in their ability to conjure up oddball business hours.
Even soup kitchens are closed for lunch.
When pressed for a reason as to this irrationality, often times bureaucrats have responded by saying, “That’s the way it is here,” “I don’t think these hours are unusual,” or “We have to eat too, you know.”
But bureaucrats are now hopeful that with the current speculation riding on the “hard-working German,” criticism of their user-unfriendly business hours will be deflected.
Mr. Niemyer noted that while the general check-out counter was closed, the in-house reading room check-out counter had two workers sitting idly at their posts. He added that he overheard them complaining of missing that day’s Spongebob episode.
hehe :)
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