I recently read Linchpin by Seth Godin, and it made me remember some of the absurd things I witnessed while working in public libraries (which I did, briefly, between 2004 and 2007).

“Not my job”

In Linchpin, Godin is interested in who does the things that isn’t in anybody’s job description. He reckons that this is an opportunity for anyone wanting to make themselves indispensable: do these jobs, and effectively write your own job description.

One of the libraries I worked in had a caretaker, who retired and was not replaced. Previously, whenever there was a mess that needed clearing up, the caretaker did it. After he retired, nobody did it, so the library got a lot more messy.

I remember one time there was a particularly bad mess (I can’t remember what it actually was, but to make my story more colourful I like to imagine that somebody had done a huge turd in the children’s library). Everybody thought the turd was disgusting, but nobody was willing to clear it up. “It isn’t in our job descriptions,” they said. I wanted to do it myself, but was sternly told not to by my colleagues. Their concern was that, if one of us cleared up the turd, our senior management would use it as a justification for not getting another caretaker, since the library staff were capable of clearing up for themselves.

So the turd remained, for far longer than it should have. It was a health risk, it was unsightly, and it reflected badly on our service – but nobody was willing to clear it up.

In the end, the library manager – the most qualified, most experienced, most highly paid member of staff – got out a mop and a bucket and spent an hour or so removing the mess. I remember thinking how silly it was that somebody who was being paid a large(ish) amount of money for their professional and management expertise should be doing such menial work. I thought it was a waste of the Council’s money.

But after reading Linchpin, I’ve started thinking about this story in a different way. Perhaps our manager was the most highly paid member of staff precisely because he refused to be bound by his job description, and instead focussed on doing what needed to be done. Ultimately he was responsible for maintaining the good condition of the building – and perhaps, realising that he couldn’t rely on his stubborn staff, he thought it’d be best just to do the work himself.

Thinking about it that way, perhaps it isn’t a waste of money to invest in people who actually get things done rather than arguing about roles and responsibilities.

“It’ll never change”

At another library, there was a colleague who, every day, had to do a particular task using a special piece of equipment. One day, the equipment stopped working properly, which meant that it took my colleague much longer to do her task. Working in the same room, I kept hearing her moaning about how terrible it was that the equipment wasn’t working, and how typical it was of public libraries that this should happen.

I asked if she had reported the malfunction to our technical people. “Oh, that won’t do any good,” she said. “They’ll never fix it.” But had she actually reported it, I asked. “There’s no point,” she repeated.

At the time I was baffled. She was obviously annoyed that the equipment wasn’t working, but had taken no steps to solve the problem. I didn’t understand. But the longer I worked in public libraries, the more I saw precisely the same thing happen: people moaned about all sorts of things, but didn’t seem too interested in solving the problem. They used unconvincing excuses to talk themselves out of taking any action.

By refusing to change things, we can cling to the notion that we are unlucky and hard-done-by. This absolves us of any responsibility for our situation, since we can delude ourselves that it is external factors that have put us here. The way to change things is to see these obstacles as surmountable, since every problem has a solution as long as we are willing to try things out.

This has little to do with public libraries, of course, since we see this behaviour in any institution where people are hiding rather than working hard to stand out.

Thinking a bit more about error messages: I recently found the most irritating ever 404 (the message you see on a website when the page you’re looking for can’t be found).

Defra’s 404 starts by apologising that it can’t find the page you’re looking for, then proceeds to tell you that this is because the website has recently been “improved”:

Our website has changed – pages/documents have moved

In response to your feedback, we’ve redesigned and restructured the site to make it more user-friendly. The key navigation at the top of the page has been improved, making it easier for you to find what you are looking for.

That’s right: the reason you can’t find what you’re looking for is because the website is now “more user-friendly”. This error message even has the audacity to claim that it is now “easier for you to find what you are looking for”. Does anyone else see the irony here?

To be fair to Defra, the 404 page does explain that it wasn’t possible to redirect every page to a new location – and some broken links are perhaps inevitable during a site overhaul of this scale.

Nevertheless, whoever wrote this 404 message needs to realise that error messages are the point at which a website’s relationship with its visitor is most vulnerable. Now might not be a good time to be blowing your own trumpet.

Users will inevitably find error messages as they browse the web – either they filled a form in incorrectly, or they tried to view a page that’s no longer there, or a website is temporarily down.

This is OK, as long as the error message or page that pops up helps the user to solve the problem rather than making it worse. Unfortunately, I’m often frustrated rather than placated by error messages, so I made a list of what to do and what not to do when you’re writing an error message for your website.

DON’T give me technobabble.

Statements like “Search string is empty” or “Parameter value syntax error”, even if true, don’t really help me work out what to do next.

Whatever the real problem is, it’s essential to protect me, the user, from technical language.

DON’T try to be funny.

Your website isn’t working properly for me. Now is not the time to be making jokes.

Angelfire’s 404 error message is a good example of how smug and irritating a jokey error message can be. Try it then imagine that what you were looking for was something really important.

The error message is where your relationship with your customer is most fragile, so it’s best to take the problem seriously.

DON’T apologise “for any inconvenience caused”.

This is now such a cliché that it should never be used, in any circumstance. Apologising “for any inconvenience caused” or even “for the inconvenience” is lazy, insincere and non-committal.

It’s important to show me that you genuinely are sorry something’s gone wrong, and are not just going through the motions.

DON’T tell me I’ve done something wrong.

Even when I have done something wrong, like enter an invalid postcode, I don’t want to be told that it’s my fault.

Don’t tell me my postcode is “invalid”. Don’t tell me that action was “not permitted”.

On a website, that old cliché that “the customer is always right” is more true than ever. Don’t assume that I will intuitively understand how to use your website.

Help me solve the problem – don’t tell me off.

DON’T make me repeat my previous actions.

I’m thinking mainly of forms here. If something goes wrong on a form, the last thing I want to do is start from scratch and fill in all my details again. And yet, that’s often what I find myself having to do.

The error message should tell me what’s wrong and make it as easy as possible for me to solve the problem – making me repeat myself or take a step backwards is likely to frustrate me and make me give up altogether.

DO tell me in plain language what’s wrong.

Translate any technical language into words an average user will understand.

“404 Not Found” = “We couldn’t find the page you were looking for.” Ideally, you should go some way to explaining what’s wrong (rather than just telling me there’s an error), but do so in my language, not in yours.

DO tell me what to do next.

If I experience an error message, I appreciate some advice on how to solve the problem – refresh my browser; wait five minutes then try again; click on an alternative link; specify a different password.

Ideally, every error message should have contact details on it so I can bypass the error altogether and talk to someone. An error message should be a junction, not a dead end.

DO apologise.

Unlike apologising “for any inconvenience caused” (see above), a genuine apology can go a long way towards placating a frustrated customer.

If something’s gone wrong, I really appreciate an apology – even if it isn’t actually your fault. It’s just good to know that you’re on my side – you’re sorry I’m having trouble, and you want things to get better.

DO address the issue afterwards.

Your website should have a log of all errors so that you can see what’s causing problems and take steps to make things better.

If 10 users in a row enter an “invalid” username, maybe you’re not making it clear enough how to fill in the form correctly.
If 10 people click on a link and get a “page not found” message, maybe you should do something about it.

See, for example, Dean Frickey on creating a useful 404 error message.

DO say something!

Tell me something’s gone wrong – don’t just give me a blank screen or a string of code.

This is just the beginning – a summary of what can annoy or placate a customer when something goes wrong on your website. I’m sure there’s more that could be – and has been – said elsewhere.

Three classic children’s books have received very different treatment on screen.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The most celebrated adaptation of this book by Roald Dahl was 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder.

I was never hugely attached to the film, although I know people who are. I remember being impressed to hear that there were just two actors playing the Oompa-Loompas,the illusion being that there were hundreds/thousands of them.

The 2005 adaptation, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was apparently a hit, and I remember enjoying it, but I think the general consensus is that the 1971 version was the version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The Wizard of Oz

While Tim Burton had “the noive” to do a remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, nobody has yet dared the same with The Wizard of Oz. There have been loads of re-tellings, of course – The Wiz, Wicked, Lion of Oz, Life on Mars, etc. – but no attempt to update the 1939 classic.

I wonder why. There could be legal reasons, but I think it’s more to do with what The Wizard of Oz has achieved. In our collective consciousness, it’s simply the definitive version of the story – more so than the original book – and any attempt to subvert that would be foolish.

Alice in Wonderland

Conversely, there are loads of versions of Alice in Wonderland, and none that really stands out as definitive. I occasionally meet people who haven’t read the books but have seen the Disney version (which actually merges elements from both of Carroll’s Alice books) – but I’d say the books have yet to experience a truly successful screen remake.

When I heard that Tim Burton was doing a version of Alice, I was excited. But I’ve since realised it’s a sequel, not an adaptation, and everyone I know that’s seen it says it’s rubbish. That’s a pity.

The most famous (although not the best) song from The Wizard of Oz is ‘Over the Rainbow’.

Artists who’ve covered ‘Over the Rainbow’ include (thanks Spotify):

• The Blanks
• The Hawaiian Rainbow Singers
• Willie Nelson
• Eva Cassidy
• Frank Sinatra
• Patti Labelle & The Bluebells
• Sigmund Grove
• Melody Gardot
• Mads Vinding / Jacob Fischer
• Jimmy Scott
• Vic Damone
• Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra
• A-Moe
• The Innocence Mission
• The Popes
• Avenzia
• Celtic Woman
• Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
• … and loads more! (If I have time, I’ll add to the list).

I’ve written elsewhere about cover versions, and I’d quite like to listen to as many cover versions of Over the Rainbow as possible, to see how each one re-tells the original.

It might get a bit boring after a while, though – like when I thought it would be a good idea to make a whole album consisting only of covers of It’s My Party. That was a mistake!

Gem pointed out that the songs from The Wizard of Oz have a remarkably high number of half rhymes.

For example:

• With the thoughts you’d be thinkin’ / You could be another Lincoln
• I’d unravel any riddle / For any individdle
• But I could show my prowess / Be a lion not a mou-ess
  
• Just because I’m presumin’ / that I could be kind-a-human / If I only had heart.

Most of the time, the actors distort their pronunciation to make the rhymes work.

I like this quality. As well as making the songs inherently humorous, it also emphasises Oz as a predominantly pre-literate culture, where language is not fixed and can be moulded into whatever shape it’s needed for.

Googling around, I found a lovely blog post about pronunciation in The Wizard of Oz that doesn’t specifically mention half-rhymes, but is nevertheless interesting.

Recently whenever we've watched a film I've found myself falling asleep for between 10-30 minutes at some point during the middle.

I usually wake up again and can enjoy the rest of the film without really feeling like I've missed anything.

What does this tell you? Does it mean that there are at least 10 redundant minutes in all of the films I've watched? Or is it not really about plot, but something else – maybe I don't feel like I'm missing something, but really I am.

In any case, if I'm ever suffering from sleeplessness, I know what I need to do.

When I wrote ‘The Shrimp and the Radiator‘, I was thinking of Edward Lear.

It was ‘The Owl and the Pussycat‘ that made me invent a mismatched duo, gloriously happy to live outside convention.

But it was ‘There was an old man of Whitehaven‘ that made me avoid a happy ending for my odd pair.

When I first discovered Lear’s limericks, I didn’t like the fact that the final rhyming word was just a repetition of the first. The other limericks I knew were pleasing because they went somewhere; Lear’s didn’t. But I soon realised that this was the point. Tragically, the old man of Whitehaven gets nowhere, and ends up “smashed” by the people who decide what is and is not acceptable.

In my poem, it is the weather, not society, that defeats the Shrimp and the Radiator. But it seemed important, when I wrote the poem, that my characters should not succeed in their goal of living freely in whatever clothes they chose.

By its very nature, nonsense writing brings together things that do not, normally, go together. It therefore often seems an appropriate medium in which to explore the outcasts of society – or those who live on the edge of acceptability. I like Lear’s limerick because, for all its silliness, I recognise the truth in it.

This is the first kind of nonsense – the kind that actually does make sense, after all. The kind that, like satire, at first seems absurd, but in fact tells the truth.