Monday

What I'm doing between questions: first hour or so, downloading orders done last week while I was out. Next up, catching up on emails. Then peruse listserves (delete most) followed by ALB so I can check our catalog against the backlog I've developed in my feedreader for that site.

9:00

• Ownership-stamp and distribute today's papers to their spots
• "Can I take the jobs folder to a table?" [technically we're not supposed to, but sure--and he does bring in back in 20 min or so]
• Guest pass
• Pencil
• Help with adding money to print account
• Question from shelver about Spinjitzu DVD; is that what she's holding? [yes]
• Printer not working right [works for me, but the guy moved to another one and now he can print...?? Note to tech ppl]
• Look up card #; help with color printing
• For some reason the Scan/Fax station isn't logging in this morning; Librarian Z is dealing with it because I didn't even notice

10:00 [children's dept.]

• 2 girls and then mom arrive; mom asks for the author of the Gregor the Overlander series [Suzanne Collins--"oh yeah, the Hunger Games author"]
• R.L. Stine books 
• Mom + daughter here getting DVDs and books and doing a decoration for our "gingerbread" house

11:00 [children's dept.]

• Mom looking for the R.L. Stine kids
• People looking at school district art show [the mom (grandma?) is the lady who served my dinner on Christmas Eve--I love small towns!]
• Mr. Pols stops on the way out to chat about the holidays and we have a nice rambling convo--love this guy
• Bathroom key

1:00

• Help with Excel formatting
• Very loud noise from computer bays in the middle of Reference
• Five minutes later, lovely older woman comes to say that it was the guy next to her, and he's drunk and smoking; I go suggest he leave...he's not with it enough to understand or remember
• Another regular (usually drunk guy) comes in to schmooze; the boss comes out in 10 minutes and "reminds" the ACTUAL drunk guy to go [I feel bad--dude's a mess, and it's really crappy outside, but yeah]
• ...and in he just came again [so we roust him again--"I thought you just wanted me off the computer"--uh, no]
• Regular not-drunk-today guy asked for fireplace to be turned on
• Announcement from boss that we're closing early today, at 5
• Friends board member mentions he's addressing envelopes and can't figure out some of the zip codes--because the previous librarian gave him 1997 phone book to use to look up streets [I pull the zip code directory and show him how to use it so he doesn't have to Google 35 addresses....jeez]

Wednesday Evening

What I'm doing between questions: Crazy Cat Lady is on her 73rd vacation of the year--ok, not really, but she's gone SOOOOO OFTEN....--so I'm holding the fort tonight. Reading reviews, checking end-of-year Best Books lists against our catalog, and hoping all the weirdness happened in the 5-6 hour (pages fainting, DVDs returned dripping in some sort of oil/lotion, people battling over study room use, etc.

6:00

• Tutor wars have commenced; first chore of the evening is to remember to go boost one of the people in a Study Room in 10 minutes so next person can use it...yay
• Look up library card number for internet usage ["[Librarian H] would have made me show ID"--and the patron is probably right, but we all know her so that's just stupid]
• Next tutor is her for her room
• "I can't get online" [her card # isn't in the system anymore; there are three other people with her name in town, and none of them have the same birthdate, so she's needing a new card...]
• ...and Circ thinks she got deleted by accident so rather than issue a new card, they're looking for her original application [!!] to reenter
• [phone] Phone number for Good [...] Hospital in [city near us] [dude was JUST HERE--I watched him walk out 10 minutes ago after playing today's chess game online...wth]
• Walk-through
• Tutor needs headphones for her charge
• Dirty looks issued to girls goofing off at the table behind me [wonder of wonder, it seems to work]
• Dude uses pencil on the fly and almost literally flings it back on the desk when he's done

7:00

• Group home folks arrive [they're late--usually they arrive about 6:20]: first request is tractors for the usual guy
• Life insurance lackey is back--he's here a couple of times a month--to fax two patient's data forms to the company; $12 later...yikes
• And he starts pumping me for info about who does our wellness stuff for insurance...sigh 
• Walk-through, and double-check that everything's ok at circ [they never found the card app for the missing account from the last hour--very weird]

8:00

• "Do you loan laptops?" [not even]
• [same woman] "Do you have headphones?" [she manages to miss the point that I have some for sale for a buck, but otherwise no]
• Reference printer is "very low" on black ink so I retrieve a replacement so we aren't running laps when it finally goes. Oh, and I refill the paper while I'm over there
• Walk-though, pick up strays and do a quick head-count
• Waiting on two stragglers: one reading the paper, the other zoning out in a study room EVERYONE ELSE IS GONE
• 8:58 and they are headed toward the door...finally