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.
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.



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

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.
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