What I'm doing between questions: endless lists of dead people, dead subject headings, dead links...it's all death today (including three emails regarding wills and Power of Attorney and closing bank accounts I've sent this morning).
Two people on vacation this week and I'd picked up 3 hours on-desk. Now the Children's Librarian is sick with strep/tonsillitis, so I'm up to 4. And my bloody eye won't stop twitching!!
9:00 a.m. [in the children's room]
- Mom & son arrive; son is probably 6ish and being a total butt to his super-patient mom who finally gets him online, then wanders out of the room...wth...holy shit, this kid needs a lengthy time-out (but they're gone now)
- It's nearly 10 and I've seen two or three other women walk through to collect things for kids and
two three staff members doing random work-related stuff (fillings holds, feeding fish, checking for roof leaks)
10:00 a.m. [in the children's room]
- Volunteers arrive. Librarian C is trying to find things for them to do since Librarian MR isn't here to make a list for them.
- There are a couple of people ensconced for 15 minutes now in the AV section...both adults. Not sure what's going on there.
- Librarian M, who is covering for Librarian MR, is searching for the nametags she sorted out for today's 10:30 baby program; aha, they were on her desk (where all things end up)
2:00 p.m. [in the children's room]
- I'm dying in here. There've been people wandering in and out, including our Fish Tank Person, but no one stopping to chat. I can barely keep my eyes open...
5:00 p.m. [in the children's room]
- No clue. Somehow I didn't fall asleep permamently
What I'm doing between questions: marking items that have won awards in our catalog, currently the ICBAs from 2009 and going backwards
11:00 in the children's room
- Stuffed animal meeting in the comfy chairs! And they came by train, which is waiting there...and no one puts any of it away when they leave
- Mom with baby and toddler arrive looking for Splat the Cat books [got 'em]; toddler hits the iPad station, of course, while Mom does some printing with a slightly crabby baby and needs help printing [not enough hands with the carrier with her]
- Chat with shelver about my son's newest tragedy [bedbugs], which is on point because he and the toddler have the same name [though mine has 20+ years on this fellow]
- I have over an hour to go and I'm starving....sigh
12:00 in the children's room
- Yawnsville. I'm not even sure the phone rang (main desk calls ring here too)
2:00 in the children's room
- Lengthy discussion of weird patrons and our local criminal justice system that spirals wildly, with Librarian C
3:00 in the children's room
- Cleaning dude comes through to do bathrooms and needs to tell me his Jimmy Buffet story from a decade ago. ...
- There's literally been two mom/daughter combos here in 90 minutes, plus the cleaning guy and a (different) shelver
- As soon as I leave to use the restroom, someone comes in. Natch. And needs the train set to play with.
4:00 [Closing hour is usually hectic at the main reference desk, and I didn't have time to do this at work, so I'm back-filling while a kill a few minutes at home.]
- Librarian C is maniacally trying to get stuff finished before she goes on vacation next week; running back and forth past the desk multiple times
- Librarian AB comes through with her ESL conversation group to see our Peeps display
- Aaaand, Librarian KT comes to check in about the young adult section because she's leaving at 4:30
- Someone comes and takes nearly half of the neatly cut stack of scratch paper that I just put out; says not one word
- Tech is working on getting some of the dead internet stations back up again before he leaves at 4:30
- Quick survey of the area via cameras and then eyeballs shows that people have been moving furniture (and not putting it back) again, so I go take care of that and do a census
- Closing announcement
- Mom(?) and son(?) arrive; she is clearly very ill but they wave away my offer of help
- 4:47 Zooey walks in. The computers are supposed to shut down automatically at 10 till closing. She's got her usual pile of bags, is disorganized, has to scan something, and THEN realizes her card won't work logging her into the internet because it's expired. Now it's 4:53 and I tell her that she's out of luck online anyway. "But it's my timesheet!" [dear God....but the computers are OFF, Zooey!]
- Meanwhile, most people have filtered out. I grab today's newspapers and put them away
- Help the sick-looking mom place a hold on a book we don't own
- Shoo out the people in the study room
- One more circuit, turn off the scan/fax/etc machine and time to leave!
