What PITA catalogers talk about

Once again the Ponytail has struck. The man simply must have PMS. I'm going to start charting these outburts to see if they happen on a lunar cycle!

[I've ONLY edited these to protect names of people and places/organizations]

In my mailbox this morning, from yesterday....

To: ALL
Subject: All right folks, clean up your junk...

There are almost NO empty review files today. Many of the ones in use have been occupied by data that has remained unchanged for several months, at least one is more than a year old. I thought we were not going to have this problem any more once [R----] left, but it is still with us. Please take a moment to clear out your old review files.

To which I responded, to ALL:

Yo, [Ponytailed One], in the future would you mind sending emails like this "wide" because catalogers are NOT (believe it or not) the only people using review files. One of our reference librarians has about 6 of 'em going here at [my library], for example. And I believe [the Gs] are using them as well for non-cataloging purposes. And then there are those that used by the public, which kills about 25 of them (assuming every library is using their allotted numbers). Yes, I know I've got a bunch tied up. I'm using 'em, even the one from April 04!

I agree that they need to be cleared out regularly, but jeez! ;-)

And he wrote back, to me:

I figured catalogers would pass on the complaint. Since we switched e-mail systems I no longer have access to the full addressbook that resides on the … Outlook server. Hopefully they will export that sometime in a form we can use, but at the moment, I only have what I have.

A month or even two isn't that bad. Some of those lists had been occupied by the same file since dates in 2003!!! The New Books listings are of course exempt, but … those are wasted unless updated regularly. [One] had not been revised in over a year. Looks downright embarrassing to me.

[The Gs] and all directors get the Cataloging list, so I figured the word would get around if I just posted there. Actually, any of the other lists would reject my message because I'm [no longer have a consortium] address, as I've already learned.

THEN...
To: me
Subject: MIGFG headings!

Oops. Two titles added by [my library] without removing MIGFGs.

b20761039 Racing stripes [videorecording]
b20766129 Kingdom of David [videorecording]

To which I responded, to him:

Thanks. They're fixed up now.

THEN!!
To: ALL
Subject: 653 and 654 subject headings (again)

Well, folks, another 14 records were added to [the database] in the last week or two without removing these useless and confusing headings. This really isn't that hard. Just delete them.

Here are the ones where I could identify the (apparently) responsible library:

.b2073427x … ME
.b2074884x … [other library]
.b20753871 … ME
.b20754632 … [other library]
.b20764248 … [other library]
.b20764327 … [other library]

Please take a look at these to see what is being overlooked, and delete the 653 or 654 subjects. Thanks.

To which I responded:

Mine are fixed. So glad someone has the time to check up on all of us.

You will note that I didn't use the words "putz," "dork," or (Robert's favorite) "fuckwit" in any of my emails. Although some of the recipients at least thought about using them. I should think they did, anyway.

So, in a nutshell, my problem is...? Tone. It's all about tone.