11 - 12 noon

What I'm doing between questions: barcoding new books, keeping an eye on the weeding that I've farmed out.

[We've been closed since last Thursday: there were five carts worth of books in the bookdrop this morning, and people are swarming the building today.]

* [phone] Multipart question:

1. "You know all that stuff going on in Asia? What language do they speak there? Because I thought English was the universal language now..." [well, and thank God you're on the phone, lady, so you can't see my face]
2. "What's the difference between "Crown Prince" and "Prince"? [dictionary.com]
3. "Where does Monaco get all its money?" [WHAT??]

[Circ Supervisor tells me that the pages shouldn't be working together because they're chattering too much; I tell her I'll talk to them. I do: "What did you do to piss off [Supervisor]? Try to pretend you aren't working together..." There; I talked to them. We all roll our eyes and go back to work.]
* [phone] reserve books 5 and 6 in the Lemony Snicket series
* pay for print jobs [although I can barely understand her]
* SAM isn't allowing this poor woman to log back in after she went to the bathroom [the tech is called. Evenually we just delete her and reenter her in SAM and all is well...]
* the copier is saying "1-2-3" and flashing [yup, go ahead and make copies--it's insane]
[the pages have been sent to me because they need something to do; they are all caught up shelving...they can weed, since my slave-for-the-day (offspring) has disappeared]
* patron wants the fish video she returned last night [much hilarity ensues because she's a little on the weird side and the tech and the pages all go into slight hysterics after she walks away]
* [phone] annual CPI for 1999, 2002 and 2003 in Chicago [thank God for the Internet]
* Fish lady wants "Christmas stories" [we go to the 394 section and she starts getting weird again--I leave before she causes me to get hysterical]
* Career section from Sunday's paper [we forgot to grab it out of the paper this morning, so I send him upstairs to look for it]
* three temporary SAM apps in a row [two of them for "I never saw him before in my life" brothers who are absolutely gorgeous]
* patron with wall eyes needs a "big piece of paper" [I get her a legal sheet out of the copier]
* Career guy asks for the state manufacturer's directory, kept behind the Ref Desk
* pay for print jobs and needs a few more minutes [what the hell, why not?]
[pages are leaving, so they tell me what they've accomplished on the weeding]
[Librarian N arrives for his shift--I tell him about the "Asia" woman because he speaks 3 languages. one of them from that region...]

Whew!
Number of books barcoded: 0