You're Barred!

Got banished from the Strathclyde University library today, after having the gall to attempt to meet my M.D.P. group for our team project. Here’s what happened:

I went up to the sign in desk (for students who don’t have their student ID card with them) Only to find out that this “service(?)” was no longer available to me as I had “abused my privileges”; having previously signed in on paper an excessive three times this academic year! 

*Somebody phone the Police!!! :/. One thought to oneself… (Unfortunately, that was exactly what they did do a little further down the line; The Library Police that is…)*

However, after observing the expression on the small highly agitated woman behind the desks face, I deemed it best to discontinue my discussion with her for the time being and instead to simply accept this absurd ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy. However, all was not lost as during her little escapade/ lecture on library policy –a subject I had no real interest in, I had formulated a plan. One I was convinced was full-proof; one for which I felt there need not be any plan B… (Little did I know it would be this very plan that would later lead me to my demise...)

So I bit back on my tongue and politely went on my way…  

The plan was simple. I would just borrow one of the other members of my assignment groups’ student cards and use that to swipe my way past the barrier. Whilst he simply took the hit and signed himself in; as he was yet to use up his ‘privileges’ --- Oh how privileged I felt being allowed to use the Library the Government/SAAS pays hundreds of pounds to the University each year to entitle me to… ---

The plan went smoothly… Everything appeared to be running like clockwork… Or so I thought…

But little did I know. Exactly who I was dealing with. To my dismay it turned out that the man behind the security desk was none other than 'Captain Jobsworth' himself! Who was on top form indeed. Exclaiming boldly to my friend that he wasn’t “letting anyone get past on his watch.” –Would appear the Library Staff are cracking down HARD on any students with the audacity to try and sneak into the university library.....

He wasn’t kidding; he’d “smelt something fishy” and wasn’t going to let it go without a fight. Questioning my friend as to how ON THE SAME DAY! He had managed to swipe himself in using his student card and then somehow managed to lose it. (Why he cared about the reason/ how he had the energy to take things further I’ll never fully comprehend…). At this point, after hearing the animated remarks of Captain Jobsworth from the roughly 10metres away that I’d travelled I knew it was make or break time and I had to do something; it was a group project and I would be no use on my own! So I immediately U-turned and casually strolled back to the barriers, where my friend was currently being forcedly kept at bay, at which point I conveniently “found” his student card in my wallet which I “must have accidently picked up as well as my own after our tutorial.” Pleased with my efforts and convinced this would be enough to satisfy even Captain Jobsworth himself, I handed over the card and strode off jubilantly to join the rest of my group on level 2. But when 10 minutes passed and my friend (Nathan) still hadn’t returned I began to fear the worst… I could tell from the deep, dark bags under the security guard’s (‘Captain Jobsworth’s’) eyes and the lethargy a mere look at his glum features could instil within one, that he must have lived up to his name… he must have been a ‘real life death eater’ (as I call them) as I had suspected. Distraught, I darted back up the stairs and dashed down to the barrier, to find Nathan looking almost as glum as Captain Jobsworth himself; like any real world death eater, Captain Jobsworth had successfully drained all the life out of him, leaving Nathan looking almost as lethargic as he himself: If only jobs worths like him would realise that they cannot replace the life they lack themselves with that of others!

Scared Captain Jobsworth might kick me out as well, I fled, head over heels, across the room and back down the stairs to the floor my group was on (without looking back… Nathan was collateral damage, there was nothing I could do for him anymore- a lost cause). 

Trying my best to put the haunting memory of what had happened to Nathan behind me, I settled down again with my group. However, just before we could start getting any serious work done in bounded the Library Police like the Spanish Inquisition; ‘No one expects the Andersonian Library Police!’.  And truly I didn’t.

Immediately they confronted me, someone had obviously tipped them off as to my whereabouts, at which point they ruthlessly demanded I grab my things quickly before they escorted me out the building. After the highly amusing spectacle we had surely created for the other students in the library, whilst we, as a group, paraded out, I vowed to myself that this wasn’t over! Just like 'Harry Potter', it was going to take more than a gang of Jobs Worth Death Eaters to stop me from getting my group assignment done before the deadline (resiting M.D.P. again in my second year; the most trivial, pitiful nonsense ever stated as being an elective was not an option!) So Nathan and I; as he had also been barred due to his collaboration with me (Despite my protests that I had in fact: “borrowed his student card without his permission, having snuck it from his back pocket when he wasn’t looking”); decided to proclaim to the death eaters that we wished to appeal to a higher authority. To which they replied we would have to wait until 2.00pm for "The Librarian" (dum, dum, dum!) to return; it was 1.30pm at this point. Subsequently we mutually decided to cut our losses and resign ourselves to waiting; we had little choice and were intending to be in the library with the rest of the group considerably longer than half an hour anyway.

However, once again my intuition had failed me and as I should have predicted, the leader of the death eaters revealed themselves to be Voldemort himself!! Or one of his horcruxes at least! –trans morphed into the form of their notorious ring leader Jacqueline Ryan. Who initially exclaimed that there was “No Way we were gaining access to the library that day. We were Barred.” This seemed so extreme to us both; both being legitimate students at the university; that we decided to not give up so easily. Eventually, after some protest, she decided to let my accomplice Nathan off the hook and let him join the rest of my group (better than nothing I thought; at least there’ll be one more member of the team to successfully breach the fortified defences of the relentless Library Police of the Andersonian Library). I was not so lucky though. It wasn’t until after an extended discussion over the phone (as I had been barred from the premises (and, hence, the means of direct communication) and had been forced to "use one of the library’s internal phones if I wished to contact them further"; which obviously I did; although it was some time before I actually managed to find one of fore-mentioned, elusive devices with which to contact them –seemed a very strange way of communicating, but hell when in ‘the Andersonian do as the Andersonians do!’) that we eventually came to the compromise that if I got a new student card (which cost an extortionate £12 –it’s a bit of fucking plastic!) they would grant me entry. However, I interjected, reminding them that just moments earlier I had been told by another jobs worth (well maybe not in so many words…) that I wouldn’t be able to use my student card that day as they took 24 hours to process. ---Hence, why I hadn’t went and gotten one in the first place.--- After some amount of huffing and puffing ‘Voldemort’ informed me that on this occasion they would let me through even if the barcode wasn’t activated. 

*Wow an almost reasonable compromise on their behalf one thought to oneself…*

 Pleased with this result I offered my humblest of apologies and thanks and set out on my expedition to retrieve another student card. After being redirected to about three different offices in another building, retrieving receipts and an 'emergency student loan' (I didn’t have enough smash on me to afford the student card) I finally managed to obtain the card. ---Although, I still don’t understand why they didn’t just allow me to sign in a fourth time; by the usual method of providing photo ID, giving them your student reference number and details as proof… Oh yeah, I forgot, I had already “abused my privileges” –how could I forget… ---

Upon reaching the library AGAIN. Another half an hour later (around half 2) I once AGAIN went and found an available 'internal phone' with which to contact them; still being barred from direct communication with them of course… And I ONCE again phoned back ‘Voldemort’ to tell him that I had completed the quest he had assigned me with great prowess. 

Only to be told bluntly that because of all the "Staff Time I’d wasted", they weren’t going to let me in that day after all.

Apparently my reply that “they hadn’t really wasted their time, so much as done their job” was rude and the conversation consequently came to an abrupt end.

Only. In. Fucking. Strathclyde.