Well, we are short two staff members today due to illness (flu, not COVID) and one other who is celebrating Naw-Rúz, so the hours are cobbled together by random other staff, including the director who agreed to "cover lunch if necessary." He's such a help. /s I will be on-desk for 6 hours out of 7 we are open today.
10:00-11:00 [Reference Desk]
- Pre-opening: newspaper are out, scanner-station is on, printers have paper, tally sheets ready (I haven't opened in months so who knows what I'm missing)...
- The regular crowd shuffles in ... and settles at computers [one of whom mutters all the time when he's working]. Fully 1/3 of our public computers in the adult area are full by 10:20
- [phone] Curbside [shunted to circ]
- Driving directions to hospital in nearby town
- How to print a disabled Word doc
- Cleanup on PC#7 [we wipe down each station after use], and of course the phone rings
- [msg] Commiserate with my kid about his work bête noire and I suggest I come sit in the store and glare at her all day on Monday (day off)
- Cleaup on PCs#1 & 18
- [Librarian KT comes back to tell me about the patron on the phone who is panicking about her stimmy check not arriving--this patron has been in twice this week already and it sounds like she's on the phone with her bank at least daily as well and now thinks her bank is stealing her money]
- Help with scan-fax
- Cleanup
- Oohing over pictures of therapy dog at work with her foster mom when she was in training
- Cleanup
- [phone] Disney's Soul DVD [not out yet, placed on hold for patron]
- Wipe-down Reference area prior to Librarian KT's arrival
- Wipe-down front desk area because KT forgot to swap 😃
- Mayhem
- Our little favorite patron comes in without a mask and stops at Circ to ask for one of our cheapies
- Friend of Lois's stops to natter about CAL and general blah-blah; I miss meetings
- "Do I have to repair this or can we replace it?" [mending person--it got wet in 1997 and looks awful but we jury-rigged a crappy-looking cover and have kept it--wtf?]
- [A lot of what I do here is listen in on convos between patrons and circ staff and jump in as needed, so trying to track that is proving a bit dicey]
- Volunteer checks out for her shift today
- Tiny kids with a wagon, and mom--supes adorbs
- Director actually arrived on time!!
- Money on c card for copies. We are super-late-20th-century here and have one place to scan cards...smh (except the vending machines)
- Finally remembered to check the bookdrop--absolutely buried...sigh...one whole side of the quar cart
- F.o.Lois invites me to a meeting and says bye
- "Can you help me register for a COVID vaccine?" [Our favorite little man, and I refer him to Reference because I can't figure it out either]
- Renew item, but on daughter's card, which is from the BIG CITY library, so we have to get her into our system, and also do we have a newer edition of the test book than 2019 [yes!]
- Wipedown
LUNCH
2:00-3:00 [front door, curbside, outside bookdrop, general low-key ref]
- I hate entitled white people. So very, very much. Very long story that involves them barging into an (empty) office to talk on their cell phone, leaving the office door open once they were done, and getting all over my case for closing the door (hardish) after them. "We were talking to SPECIAL OLYMPICS! It's a CHARITY!"
Reader, they were ordering a sweatshirt. I could easily have written down their ccard info since my office is a glass wall away. They were impervious to my glare and the director did nada...except listen to them as they complained about how rude I was all the way out the front door - [phone] Reserves for two books which takes far longer than it should because of my adrenaline push and the fact that our phone system sucks and dropped the call
- Bookdrop is emptied
- Search for lost earring for patron [no luck]
- Random weirdness, including Rosa the Duck (Louise Penny) and "Avatar" the movie and literally all over the map
- Wipedown
3:00-5:00 [Reference Desk]
- It is dead quiet here: one person on a computer and one wandering in the history section--don't ever change! [currently outside it's 57°F and sunny blue sky plus I hear there's a basketball thing happening?]
- Cleaning x2
- "Oh Lucy" DVD [placed on hold for him--we don't own]
- Front door (automatic) won't close/open because the sun is shining directly on it--welcome to warm weather in my library!
- Cleaning
- "What time does [state school] play [other school] tomorrow?" [it's even on a network, so he can watch!]
- {{Smoke 'em if you got 'em}} 420
- Can't log on with card. Can't log on with guest pass. Ah, because it's set for Admin login--switch over and he's in
- Clean all study tables not removed for COVID and sweep for closing census
- When I get back to the desk there are suddenly twice as many people using the computers. gah
- Closing announcement
- Refill printer paper and put away today's newspapers
- [phone] Circ desk asking if anyone turned in keys in the last hour [nope]
- Librarian KT and I discuss the quar cart situation today (we've had a LOT of returns)
- Patron is printing off, quite seriously, 1.5" of paper; guess I'll be refilling the printer again.
- "Is this the only printer? And it prints in color" [yes if you tell it to print in color....turns out he did not do that]
- ....and we're clear!
