Friday

What I'm doing between questions: Library Journal and Booklist Starred Reviews (what don't we own--and omg Booklist 39 pages?). Figuring out my annual vacation, because we're due for massive snow this weekend and I want to be anywhere else. A girl can dream, no?

11:00

• Guest Pass for internet use
• Help with local paper's mystery photo of the week [last week it was the Boost Mobile store, and another staff member helped him; today it was the Walmart sunburst, so this will make his 3rd week if he 'wins' again]
• Children's Librarian 'steals' Consumer Reports Auto book [her car is being dumb--and oh, yeah, you CAN get pulled over for not lighting your l.plate (she had no idea!)]
• Bandaid
• Verbal directions for printing for guest pass lady
• Bandaid lady is on her last smidgen of patience and what she wants to do I don't think is possible with a .jpg file on our public computers, so she's going to go home and not think about the fact that she's not getting her "paycheck" (Social Security) this month if D.C. doesn't get its act together
• Perfume Collector [we don't own, I place a hold and she asks about ebooks, so I go through that with her]
• Notary? [Circ desk staff, at least two are here today]
• New card: how to use internet [blah blah blah but he's kind of a woke good ol' boy, so...]
  "Have you read any good books lately?" [30 years in, and this question still makes my brain freeze--I finally suggest The 100-Year-Old Man... and a couple of others]

12:00

• Finding Your Feet [I reserve it for her]
• Local storyteller's books [patron's hearing is going, holy crap she's loud and has that weird midwestern twang going on at 150 db)
• She's back for her sunglasses, left on a shelf somewhere
• Former babysitter arrives with her baby-daddy and we chat due dates while he does internet things
• Earbuds and Purell
• "Do I need to do anything when I'm done online?" [I show him how to log out]
• Scissors [and back]
• Purell lady can't get DVD to start on her 'puter [done]
• Tax forms have arrived

2:00 [in the children's dept.]

Friday

What I'm doing between questions: collection development stuff, for the most part (audiobooks, 200s and budgeting the rest of my money for the FY). Also, reading blogs/email/etc. (er, "professional development") and watching the critters in today's zoo. Or maybe I'm the zoo animal being ignored by all the visitors....

11:00 a.m.

• Lots of back-room discussion of a survey HR has asked us to fill out explaining what we do all day. It's 16 pages long and meant for use in all the jobs in the city, so it's completely out of sync for librarians. Everyone's freaking out.
• Bang my left hand on printer case hard and my index-finger knuckle starts bleeding, because of course it does
• Circ Manager comes to collect all the change from all the coin machines back here and to restock us with dollar bills for change
• Pen? [just borrow mine to sign your doc lol]
• [phone] Circ asking if we have iPhone chargers to borrow in-house [not anymore; they've all been stolen, but I do have a couple of Android chargers...]
• How to log into the internet
• Don't have my card #/don't remember pword [card is expired, so I reset the exp date and the password and tell him this is his freebie--he'll have to update next time]
• [phone] Info on Choctaws for doing genealogical research on her family [I suggest she do some checking online with Ancestry--she can do that here--or contact a much larger library, or one nearer Oklahoma]
• Guest pass for Hispanic couple visiting from town to the n.e.
• Guest pass for woman who shares her name with a college acquaintance of mine (tho she's easily 30 years younger!)
• Guest pass and questions about how to get a library card (and she's homeless, dear God...I hate our system) [I tell her to ask at Circ but she probably can get a card if the local shelter is willing to let her use their address as a mail-drop]

12:00 noon

• Shelver stops to chat
• Hispanic husband guest-pass-user returns pass to me and thanks me by name (yay, nametags)
• [phone] Beyond Blessed [nope, not in system, but I do up a request slip for it since it came out this week and it's in my buying section]
• "Why can't I get logged in?" [because the computer is "loading settings" so I reset it and move her to a different computer] The guy next to that one said, "Yeah, I couldn't get on there either, and she says, "You could've told me!" I don't think these two even know each other. WTF, babe, WTF]
• Help logging on and registering for a meeting online [I get him started but someone else comes to the desk....]
• "Is there anywhere besides the study rooms where we can work on a group project?" [rooms are full, so I send him upstairs where no one cares how loud you are
• [MAYHEM because shift change is approaching]
• One of our regulars wants to show me his cousin's photo in this week's local paper, and the fact that he won the weekly photo contest, and then asks for help with next week's contest
• Two guys walk in and need guest passes--both of them went to school with my son so we catch up [omg, they are adorable!]
• Online-meeting-guy needs help; he has no email addy, so I use the library's so that he can get sorted out, and then help him print his ticket [for a library program?? Well, at the library, not sponsored by us
• Log off all my email and other accounts
• Tell h.s. dudes (ok, they're not even close to h.s. age anymore!) to pipe down as I walk past headed to lunch.

3:00 p.m. [children's dept]

• Super-late arriving oops
• Patron asking the difference between Juv AV and Juv Storage [KT goes off to find what she's looking for in the storage room because she "needs the steps today]
• Patron looking for "any more" Fly Guy books besides the one in her daughter's hands [uh, yeah, we might have one or two (dozen) more....]
• Currently (3:36) there is one dad and one pre-schooler in here with me.....zzzzz
• As soon as I typed that, a shelver appeared, and then a grandma with two boys who plonk down at the iPads
• [phone] Looking for a book that we have in the adult section so I transfer to Reference
• [phone] Help with ebook returns that are disappearing too soon [try to transfer to Ref, but no one answers, and the patron gives up before I get back to her]