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geneology suck (years of suck)

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  • geneology suck (years of suck)

    There is one patron who emails requests to us for obituaries. This has been going on for 2-3 years. A few months after she started these requests she got a cousin to request also. At one point she would request 10 obits at one time until we told her we would only work on 5 requests every month. Same with the cousin.

    She isn't the only person we look up articles/obituaries for. Sometimes we get other requests before we receive her monthly requests (or a previous request might take us a long time) and we work on those first. Once she sent an email with requests and added, "Blah Blah library use to return to me my requests fast. Now librarians are taking a long time. It must be because of Ike!"

    Of course, when she receives one obit, she gets names of survivors. So she does some research to find date of deaths (dod) of the survivors. So next month we spend time looking up obits for a previous obit's survivors.

    sometimes she doesn't have a date of death so we use Rootsweb or Texas Death Roll to find dod. One time we look up a name and found a person who died in Italy. She argued that that person did not die in Italy. This was a weeks-long thing of arguing with us. I think she just gave us different dod for the person and of course we find no obit.

    Then the most annoying thing is when she re-requests the same obits. Ugh. Sometimes, though, she requests the same name with different dod and finally we find the obit.

    Recently she got another cousin to request obits. So I try to find previous requests and make sure we don't redo requests.

    This month she sent by mail (because her computer is down) a request, and this second cousin sent a request. It's done by computer. It is the same exact format and both end with "please send replies to Susanah Triceph". Uh-huh.

    I work on the cousin's request and took two weeks to do it (I was busy with other stuff, though) and mail her (Triceph's, even though it was from the cousin) that I found 4, the price is $13. I decided to work on Triceph's request in Nov.

    Sat. Mrs. Triceph calls and talks to a cw. She says she realized she already paid and had those obits. Ugh.

    Today she calls, asks for her requests. One of my managers talks to her and calls me in the workroom.
    manager: m
    : me

    m: dmfan, did you work on the Triceph's obituary?
    me: no, I did work on her cousin's. They both requested that I send them to Triceph. I was going to work on Triceph's in Nov.
    m: can you work on it now?
    me: I gave it to Joe (a cw) since he requested that I give them to him. (He is the one who works on the requests from Triceph and her cousins by email. I'm the person who works on all mail-in requests).


    Latter, I go to Phone Reference to do my shift and I see the manager again.
    m: hello dmfan.
    me: hi manager.
    m: she requested this back on Oct. 1st or 2nd.
    me: yeah, I just wanted to wait to do it in Nov.
    m: I know her relative requested it, but let's consider them 3 seperate people.
    me: It's a lot of work to do in one month.
    m: Well, let's consider that as long as she pays we are doing ok.
    me: That's the thing, she does't pay. I know she called on Sat. and told Joe that she already requested this before, and she already had them. So I did the work again but she didn't pay for it.
    m: hmm. Well, we'll bring it up in a meeting latter on.

    I can figure the managers don't know how to tell Susanah Triceph that only one request per family. That she might have a fit. But it's a lot of work, there are other requests, and she complains if we take too long (because we really dont' want to do these; it wasn't until recently that Joe decided to do all her and her cousin's requests).
    Also, one cousin is always the one to pay for them and asks them to be sent to Susanah. But now we get mail in requests, with the same return address. I think if the obits are going to one address, then that should be counted as one person.
    Time! Time! Time is what turns kittens into cats.

    Don't teach me a lesson; all I learn is that you are an asshole.

    I wish porn had subtitles.

  • #2
    What do they want with all those obits?!

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    • #3
      Are any of the websites you use avaliable to the public?
      Can you point her in the direction of them?
      It's both helping her out and getting her out of your hair.

      Comment


      • #4
        Sounds like she’s researching her family background, and has found a way to do it for free, or virtually free. Heck she doesn’t even have to do that much research, she’s got the DMF’s company doing it for her.

        Is there any way you could up the price or start charging each “family” member for repeated searches. Otherwise from the sounds of it your doing work for someone else with no recompense. Unless you like looking up dead people you have no connection to.

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        • #5
          Can't she do this research herself? Why is the library using their limited resources (you) to do something for a pittance ($3.00). They should be charging a LOT more.
          A lion however, will only devour your corpse, whereas an SC is not sated until they have destroyed your soul. (Quote per infinitemonkies)

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          • #6
            New library policy, credit card required before any work is done and every request is billed.
            Interviewer: What is your greatest weakness?
            Me: I expect competence from my coworkers.

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            • #7
              damn, tell her to take it to ancestry.com, or better yet, DO IT YOURSELF.

              you have other things to do than run this lazy shit's legwork.
              look! it's ghengis khan!
              Sorry, but while I can do many things, extracting heads from anuses isn't one of them. (so sayeth the irv)

              Comment


              • #8
                Since I work for a public library run by the city, we have to go through hoops (city council maybe) to up the price. sigh.

                This woman lives in La, while we're a city that hosted that infamous Superbowl that had a 1/2 time show where there was a "wardrobe malfunction". Though one of her cousins lives in Tx, but not near here.

                What do they want with all those obits?!
                Like KitterCat said, to find relatives. Most people want to find out if they are related to famous people. Or they want a huge-ass family reunion. Or they have OCD.

                I get paid doing obits or not doing obits. It's just frustrating to redo work and not get paid. Granted, the City is not getting paid the $3.

                Oh, and there are stupid cw who will do the work for free. Yes, I know. Person writes in and gives a sob story (or not) and if one person (let's call her Sam) spends a long time on it and finds it a few weeks latter, she will send the obit to the person for free because she took so long to find it.

                Or one time a patron got pissed at me when we were talking on the phone (sshe wanted to pay for the obit then without doing the work yet but I told her we have to do the work first to see how much it is; she assumed it would be just $3) so she calls back and bitches to the management and they gave this obit and the next obit to her for free. We charge $2 a citation and $1 page. So an obit can be $3, unless it's long and we have to copy it in 2 sections. So that should be $4 if we copy it in 2 sections, but I have cw who will still charge the $3. I'm a cynic. I believe if we charge them a lower price once, they will bitch when we charge them the correct price latter on.

                Oh, and ancestery.com will give date of deaths, but not an obit from the local paper.
                Time! Time! Time is what turns kittens into cats.

                Don't teach me a lesson; all I learn is that you are an asshole.

                I wish porn had subtitles.

                Comment


                • #9
                  As a genealogist, this actually makes me kind of angry. It's people like this who give genealogists a bad name. In response to why she wants all the obits, its proof. Genealogy is all about getting proof about your ancestors' lives. I personally spend hours in dusty courthouses looking at birth records, death certificates, and land deeds and records. I also spend A LOT of time in libraries looking for obits in microfilms. The difference here is that I do the research! Half the fun of genealogy is the adventure. I just can't explain in words how exciting it is to find an article about an ancestor. One of my FAVORITE aspects is walking through cemeteries looking for graves and getting a rubbing of the inscriptions. If anyone has any questions about genealogy let me know
                  "I hope we never lose sight of one thing, it was all started by a mouse" --Walt Disney

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Most of the people these women look for died in this century. I'm leaning to the idea that they want a huge-ass family reunion.

                    I can imagine the thrill they get when we mail them* the obit and they look up the names of survivors and try to find out the dod. Most of the requests from them do come with a date of death, so I figure they must have ancestry.com.

                    *lately we have been telling people that we will email them the scanned obit, but these women want both a scanned obit and want us to mail them the copies. We don't charge postage. sigh.

                    There is also a genealogical library in our system. They don't have the microfilm for the newspapers, so that is why we do obit. One story I heard was this woman claims she is the real Queen of England, and all the genealogical libraries are erasing the truth, so she can't prove she is really QoE.
                    Time! Time! Time is what turns kittens into cats.

                    Don't teach me a lesson; all I learn is that you are an asshole.

                    I wish porn had subtitles.

                    Comment

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