Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: Public Library Core Catalog checking (I'm through the biographies and working backward, currently buried in WW2)...and whatever else happens today.

omg, what a day and we haven't even opened! I'm at the desk 5 of the 7 hours we're open today. Pretty sure I'll be ready to murder someone by closing time.

10:00

• "Is that computer still broken like yesterday?" [apparently so]
• Guest pass for internet
• "This computer isn't working either" [different patron--I reboot both of them and, voilà, functionality]
• [Print off a few extra guest passes]
• [It's 10:10 and 7 of 14 adult internet stations are in use]
• [email] Put Streisand's new CD on order for patron and responded to email
• Question from shelver about where Spanish music CDs are shelved [nothing in this building makes sense anymore--they are with music, but audiobooks are with the Spanish books]
• JO stops by for his daily post-internet chat, until...
• ...someone else needs to fax (and also needs correct change)
• I spend a few minutes looking for an animal ("asian cinnamon bear") JO wants a picture of
• Also Yellowstone Season 3 for him 
• First round of wiping down public PCs done
• [phone] Scott Turow's Ordinary Heroes [ours is the only copy of the 59 in the system that is currently chccked out--hold is placed]
• [phone] Sandy Jones' Guilt Trip [we haven't ordered it, so I do a request for purchase]
• "Can we just ... use ... one of the little rooms?" [yup, go right in]

11:00

• Librarian KT says she's going to lunch now instead of at 12 [fine, long as desks are covered, I don't give any shits]
• JO: it's a red panda...and then we move on to sports, WWII era flight stuff, and then he goes off on a political tangent as some other folks show up [shoo, not that I disagree with him]
• Books on scoring bridge
• The 'little rooms' people are headed out, and literally the only people back here with me are the bridge couple--no, wait, there's someone on a laptop in the study area
• [phone] Is the library open today? [...till 5]
• Guest pass for internet
• [phone] Renew DVD due today {how many ways are there to spell Kauf[f]man[n]...?}
• [yknow how there are just some people that give you the willies? have had a guy wandering the stacks who finally left...shudder]
• Round two of wipedowns done
• Printer issues
• Toner in copier is completely out [mild panic--do we have another tube of it?? yes, yes we do]

12:00

• Librarian M is here to cover lunch hour in the kids' room
• Adult summer reading [no flyers to be seen, so I tell her to register online from our webpage]
• It's so quiet in here I can hear the music the guy 30 yards away from me is listening to through his headphones--it's either country or the Little River Band
• [Just double-checked the schedule: there's no one at Reference this next hour; stupid scheduler! That would be me, today. Librarian M will stay and cover it]
• Guest pass for internet use
• [Librarian M has to leave around 1:45, so we'll scramble]
• Guest pass for internet use [dude is wearing a full suit, including a tie pin, and is probably 30--not the norm hereabouts, esp on Saturday]
• [Horrors: we're almost out of fish food!]
• Non-suit guest-pass guy thanks me profusely as he leaves
• Suit guest-pass guy brings me the sign we use to mark stations cleaned on his way out. Thanks, I guess?
• Frozen PC, I restart, we check to see if her document got deleted (it did) and she's good to go
• Round 3 of wipedowns done
• [Dude is printing off ... a lot, a good 2+ minutes worth of churning at the printer. I hope we have more paper]
• Regular LW comes in complaining about the humidity and smoke particulate (from fires--it's all over the country by now, basically), but "it does feel good in here"

1:45-2:00

• LW continues the story she started telling me before I left for lunch, which kills the whole 15 minutes...although I recall another patron needing something but I forgot to write it down

3:00

• Custodian B lets me know that he brought up another box of printer paper, so that's sorted
• Librarian KT is helping a sweet girl find books about study abroad. She's going on her own, and she's nervous, but brava to her for doing this!
• "Where is Librarian AB; I haven't seen her for awhile." [{I need to update the staff list!}...and I do the tl/dr why she's been gone this month]
• Wipedown and double-check who's actually here
• Guest pass for internet
• [phone] Curbside pickup [transfer to Circ]
• [phone] Printout of lyrics for an Andrea Bocelli CD [it's one of our old regs, so I tell her to just stop in with the title of the CD and we'll look up the songs and print them for her]
• Check-in with circ folk. All is well so far
• Prize redemption for adult summer reading
• Part-time cataloger R comes to let me know how the little project I gave her today has worked out
• There are six unpaid people here with me: four on library computers, the one still on her laptop in the study area and (I think I see) one in the reading room--let's keep that steady-and-falling for the next 45ish minutes

4:00

• ONE HOUR!!
• [I may never get out of WW2 in this stupid PLCC]
• Shit, one of my least-favorite regulars just arrived.....
• [phone] Grammar books [though it starts out with "the book I reserved was sent back; can I still pick it up?" no]
• Not-favorite-guy catches me in the middle of finding grammar books to ask why he only got 48 minutes for the computer [because they will all turn off in 48 minutes so we can leave]; he thought it was Friday. But we close at 5 on Friday too....
• Help with photocopier on my way to circ with the grammar books
• Guest pass for internet [I'm not even sure if she was online for 2 full minutes! wow]
• Print off tally sheets for August for Librarian AB to save her from running around crazed when she comes back, at least on that front
• Refill printer--just made 100+ copies, so 🤪
• Today's papers are put away, and I've done the first round in the stacks checking for stray patrons
• I warn the one guy who seems fully immobile that we're closing
• One person left in the reading room
• I'm going to live dangerously--since we're closed tomorrow--and NOT wipe down computers. Shh, don't tell!!

Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: going through the Public Library Core Collection (nearly through the bios, but I started with them so I have all the DDC left), checking donated audiobooks to see if I want to add them to collection, doing processing slips for the travel books/other continuations, drinking mad amounts of caffeine...

We're short a reference person today so I'm on-desk all day. The same person is out all month, but we're finding fill-ins for those weekends; no time to do so today.

10:00 Front Desk

• "Why wasn't I called when this item on the holdshelf arrived?" [ILL staff said she literally called right before we opened; patron was outside waiting and missed it]
• Three of my favorite people walked in one right after the other....yay
• Long chat with one of the above whom I haven't seen much this year
• "Is Local Author* working today?" [nope--he actually has the holiday weekend off!]

11:00 Reference

• Time to wipe down all the computers that Librarian K didn't bother to...
• [phone] Renew overdue item
• Turn off your keystroke sounds on your phones, folks! [tok tok tok tok..tok...tok tok tok....] [and she finally FINALLY leaves]
• "Has [name] reserved one of those (gestures vaguely upstairs) rooms?" [we...don't have... rooms upstairs that are reservable, but also we're not doing reservations for the study rooms--what she wants--25 yards from me, behind her]
• [Sir! Sir! There's more printing!] Patron returns to grab the 10-page form he forgot he printed
• [phone] Gone with the Wind/Glory/Taking Chance all on DVD [we own, but he's in an area of the county that doesn't pay library taxes and we can't issue him a card without him paying his prorated fee--he only wants them for the holiday so can't he just pay for the time he has the movies out...(no), and "everyone was crying about GWTW being racist" so it's impossible to buy now...][Three versions currently available on Amazon in the U.S.--wah wah wah]
• Guest pass for the internet
• [11:41 -- The one guy on the internet, three people in the study room, and someone studying in the back--and me....oops another guy just walked in to use the computers]
• Local paper [current is kept at Desk because of theft] and "what happened to the trash can that used to be outside?" [people were throwing out their household trash here and it was full of food waste-->bees, so we pulled it....6+ years ago] [I didn't mention he been oblivious for over half a decade of coming almost daily]

12:00 Reference

• Wipe down empty computer stations from the last hour and update tally sheet (which thank God is accurate since I'm actually able to track via this!)
• [phone] "I just got a notice for some things I know we returned; can you check your shelves?" [sure, and I find 2 of the 3 so I remove them all from her card and she is thrilled]
• Local paper is back
• [phone] No Sudden Move on DVD -- "it's an oldie" [well, actually, it was released last month so....I do a Request Purchase slip and tell her we'll call if/when it's released on DVD]
• Local paper/trash can guy wonders why the picture he printed just shows text and no pic [it's from Pinterest or something and you can't print just one image--I find what he's looking for elsewhere and manage to get a copy printed]
• Guest pass for internet
• [I'm hungry--Culvers? Taco Bell? Local gas station sandwich? Def need more caffeine--just finished Round One]

2:00 Front Desk

• [Taco Bell got nearly everything wrong on my order, but I do have plenty of caffeine at least....😞...didn't realize till I was back at work]
  
• ...and I forgot how to read a clock so I'm 10 minutes late to my shift
• "Are you guys open on Monday?" [nope] "What time do you open on Tuesday? [10 a.m.]
• [watching the camera outside the hidden basement entrance--we've been having regular visits from a kid on a bike for the last couple of weeks....]
• We have a staff member who likes to gossip/whisper to other staff when it's not busy. It makes me want to hurl (early teenaged trauma)

3:00 Reference

• Guess what? Librarian K didn't wipe down any workstations. I know. You're as shocked as I am.
• Every single person using a computer has been here at least twice this week, two of them every single day at least once... Good thing they are all low-maintenance from my standpoint
• I was going to stock the printers, but I can't find white paper...wait, I checked one last place and found some
• [We already have three carts of books to check in on Tuesday, not counting what arrives the rest of today, and tomorrow, and Monday. Holy balls, Tuesday morning is going to suuuuuck!]
• [Still watching that back camera]
• Renew dude's time before he asks, without telling him; he matter-of-factly just keeps on watching his music videos, oblivious or just internally thanking the Internet Gods
• Help saving, emailing, and sending signed certification docs for a BSA camp in another state. I don't ask questions lol
• [We have a piano available for people to play: dude just arrived and is playing the soundtrack of my teen years: Billy Joel, Bryan Adams, Styx....]
• [phone] Commuter train schedule for Monday, here to city center, and back
• 
  

4:00 Front Desk

• Backpack Lady from Wednesday (a WHOLE other story...) has found the last of the things she had checked out (like, 6 kits full of toys, games, puzzles, and books that were all mixed and missing parts) so the $600 bill she had on Monday is now down to $0. But now she can't find her card. She's a mess.
• Stephen King books [and I get 'redirected' for 20 minutes talking to my former pastor's wife about life since his death and the fact that her daughter is my kid's age]
• "Can I borrow tape?" [when I find it...]
• Thank you from BSA dude as he leaves
  
• Tape lady is finishing decorating and then we can go

*The one on our staff; we have a couple dozen others in town....

Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: I was scheduled for 6 of the 7 open hours on the Ref desk today so the fact that I just got one "back" (2-3*) is the joy of the day. The goal otherwise: stay awake, blog, create an Amazon cart from our wishlist, and pray for the time to go fast with no crazy people. Several staff are out today because they got their second COVID vacc at the end of the week. Oh, and the always-present PLCC, the 2021 ed.

10:00

• Newspapers are out, staff PC is ready to go (except for printing passes for patrons to use the internet)...nvm, we're ready to rock and I've renewed books on the phone for two people and assured another guy we'd help him with copying when he gets here...9:50 and waiting for the regulars
• I can't stand it--I spend 10 minutes cleaning the goop and dust off the base of the sanitizer squirters. GROSS
• SSo, one of our daily guys, tells me that last week was his 43rd anniversary, and the 30th anniversary of his divorce [I know his wife, so this isn't totally out of left field] [and now he's just talking himself: "well, just don't kneel on someone's neck for 9 minutes...gawwh"]
• Dear Lord now we have a second member of the Greek chorus...
• Three questions/issues, one lovely long-time patron: info on local obit [nada], Wikipedia about Ron Howard, and enlarge a map of Morocco but just a little [took several tries, but we got it]
• Have I mentioned that my head hurts? 90 minutes post-aspirin, no improvement...sigh
• Three stations wiped down
• Plus two more

11:00

• [phone] Directions from nearby town to tiny subdivision on the opposite side of our town
• "The map you-all printed for me last week from the internet doesn't have an index. Should it?" (so, like Main St is at C6) [good Lord, I hadn't even noticed that Google doesn't do that!]
• [phone] Library in system asking to check an address in our town to be sure they are sending a patron to the right place to get a library card [they are]
• [phone] Direction lady is back asking if the road she needs to take is McCo... or McDo...; her instructions say McDo... but that road does not exist here
• Two more stations cleaned up, plus the Local History shelves where someone was browsing earlier
• [We have a Management Team group chat that we can plug into when things pop up, like "why isn't the pass-printer working?" earlier. It's all the department heads + the director. The last two Saturdays we've had a bunch of scheduling snafus; last week the director checked in for the first time at closing time after multiple people had to leave early for the day and we needed coverage. Today, again, we have coverage problems and several texts have gone out about random stuff (10-12, not 40)--absolutely no response from the director, nor has he even READ the texts! But we can "count on him" if we need him to come in...so he says. About everything. Meanwhile, I just found out a very dear friend will probably die today so I'm in stellar shape for work.]
• There are currently two patrons in the entire adult nonfiction/Reference area.
• ...three
• ...four (dude walks in and freezes in confusion at the sight of the "CLEANED" signs on each computer--"these are available to use, right?")
• "Why won't computer type numbers? Or letters?" [did for me...no clue....]
• "Why won't outlook let me log in?" [we reset her password and off she goes]
• [Meanwhile, Librarian C comes to tell me that we have patrons in staff-only areas, and she's sending someone home at noon* who had a surgical procedure yesterday...]
• [Turns out the map (C6) guy's adult disabled son was in the story room. He shouldn't have been but he's also not a troublemaker of any kind so...]
• Two more stations cleaned up
• [phone] "What time do you guys close today?"

12:00

• Rituals & sabbats [not in our system, so I ILL from one of the dozen or so libraries in the country that own this]
• [phone] Renew book
• How to print from personal laptop [download to app, or (easier) log on to our computer and print from flash or email]
• "Are these for us to take??" [screen cleaner wipes, and yes]
• Help with printing
• Extend time
• More help with printer
• [Phone] Custer's Last Sit [it's a play from 1950 so I'll have to ILL it after lunch]
• Librarian C comes to tell me that one of they guys in the back doesn't have his mask up so I go "remind" him--yay for security cameras
• Clean three stations
• Wipe down table and move chair back where it came from [this really annoys me--if you had to move furniture, how about putting it back when you're done, peeps?!]

2:00*

• [we are at less-than-optimal staffing--see, I speak euphemism!!--so I picked up an hour at Ref]
• Librarian C cleans off Ref Desk but I literally spend the first 15 minutes of this shift wiping down public stations that she skipped.
• Photocopy of a full-page newspaper article [I just do it on the staff machine on huge paper--easier for everyone]
• [My friend, mentioned above, died at 11. I am crushed]
• Finish the Custer ILL from before lunch
• Request for two self-help books, neither of which we own and he wants them today, so I just tell him to follow me to 158.1 and maybe there's something there that he can make work
• How to renew library card
• Clean another public station
• Check in with tech person who was waiting (and gave up) while I dealt with self-help guy
• Arthur : the dog who crossed the jungle to find a home
• Pokémon adventures. Black & White vol 5 [our copy has disappeared so I reserve a different library's copy and add request to the "things to replace" basket]
• Self-help guy and his partner are giggling together in the stacks. Desperate to know what they found that's so funny

3:00

• Boss finally figured out the chat feature...now that it's too late to help (according to him)--I just can't do anything but shake my head in dismay anymore
• More cleaning--I don't know how many, but the whole dang area is wiped down now
• My feet hurt, and there's exactly two staff members (me + a shelver) and one patron here...oh, wait, two tweens just arrived to use a computer
• And someone is stapling...seriously, I'm going to go into a coma, which isn't such a bad thing all things considered, but won't look good for library PR
• Tweens are leaving: one's in shorts (it's 62 out) the other in pajama bottoms--both in Tshirts and humongous masks

4:00

• There are, I think, two patrons in the building. Possibly only one. And 52 minutes left so that means there will be mayhem in 25 minutes as everyone realizes they need a DVD for tomorrow.
• Help with faxing
• Tech reports her day's work to me
• Hostage [due out in June]
• "Do I still have time to get online?" [it's 4:30, so...uhm, yeah]
• Clean more stations
• Adjust balance on "have time" woman [somehow she had a negative balance so that's weird]
• She and one guy are all that's left back her besides me and a shelver--I'm going to go do the last-minute tidying while they finish online
• Two people reading papers. Go home go home pleaseeee
• Everything's wiped down, scanner, fax is off, and I just need to turn this off and go.

Saturday (as usual--I'm a #saturdaylibrarian every week)

What I'm doing between questions:  I'll be looking through reviews in journals and tidying up for next fiscal year since I've spent most of my money for this year already; we flip on May 1. Otherwise, I do not know what, but I'm hoping to stay awake the whole time.

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

11:00-1:00 [front door, curbside, outside bookdrop, general low-key ref]

• 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!

Friday

What I'm doing between questions: whatever I can think of to do...mostly adding call numbers in Core Collection book

10:00 [front door patrol]

• Empty book drop for the first time today; fill cart, move to quarantine, replace cart [now fully damp yay humidity]
• Talk to circ staff [best part about this extra duty is that I get to spend time with our awesome circ staff]
• Chat with friend that I haven't seen in months; she says her 85-year-old hubby is repairing the fascia on their house, on a scaffold [I love old guys, but I told her to tell him not to be dumb]
• [phone] Are we open this weekend? [yup]
• Boss comes in to buy raffle tickets [Raffle pull is at noon...lol]
• Empty bookdrop once more
• Clean off station in preparation for the next person

11:00

• Scan/fax machine is broken, and the old fax machine can't connect to this guy's number [Librarian AB and I both try]
• Long-winded movie buff has me looking for an American remake of After the Wedding since we got him in Danish....after a lot of searching he decides it's probably a better movie in Danish [the English-language one is completely miscataloged in our system]
• Arrow Season 6 [of all the copies in the system, ours is the only one checked out, of course]
• One of our Crosses to Bear arrives, goes through coupon box, and then settles in for her usual long stay which will involve lots of dumb questions she's asked a million times before today--and we've answered multiple times before today
• Meanwhile, another guy on a computer heaves a loud sigh every 4 minutes or so. He has no idea how *$^@ing annoying it is
• New circ person comes by with errors she found in call numbers in NF picture books while shelving [she works for a nearby book jobber and does vendor cataloging there so she's picky 😛]
• SUPER-entitled young man "needs" a guest log-in. No ID -- "I never needed one before!" -- grabs the pass from the printer before I can hand it to him... ["GET OFF MY LAWN!"] He did push in his chair, at least
• [phone] Can I renew my library card over the phone? [no but I explain the procedure for doing it via email]
• [there was another phone call but Entitlement kid's behavior threw it right out of my brain]
• [phone] Renew three books

12:00

• Just realized that Sighing Man now has a Greek chorus from another station in Exclamation Man; also the sighing is now occasionally accompanied by what sounds like a light burp to start (also he's wearing his mask from nose-tip to just under his lower lip--how do people like this survive daily life?)
• Woot thank God he's gone!
• Exclamation Man has been trying to get online for 10 minutes; just now asks for help [reboot]
• Someone else can't get online [Num Lock is off]
• ...I overhear Librarian KB telling someone about the Scan/Fax machine being better to use....so I run over to say nope, is broke
• Guest pass
• Exclamation Man has a stalker who is making his computer not work right [seems fine to me, but I'm not arguing with him]
• Cross keeps just asking questions from her seat ("are you open Monday?" "Sunday?" "When do you close today?") [I have now blocked her from renewing her time again when her second hour's session ends]
• [12:21....will this hour never end....?]
• We are filling up: only 3 open Internet stations
• Very sweet man needs guess pass

Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: cleaning desks/tables/touchscreens, limping through Public Library Core Collection checking our catalog, watching cameras to see where people are sitting so I can clean after they leave...COVID time is weird. Oh, and Fbk Msgr. It's deadly silent in here.

Professional and full-time staff are now scheduled on "front-door" duty as well as the Reference Desks so that we can catch people coming in and tell them to mask up if they aren't. We have free masks if they "forgot" theirs. We're also charged with regularly emptying the outside (through the wall) bookdrop onto a Quar Cart, and keeping track of the outdoor food pantry we installed while we were closed. I have a LOT less cataloging time these days... 

11:00

• "I'm done"--off I go to clean his and other stations where people have left [I cleared all but one person when I showed up on-desk; people love me]
• The only person left keeps coughing and messing with his mask [shudder]
• New card, how to use computers
• [phone] "I have books to donate..." [Weds afternoon/evening only please]
• Two guest passes
• [phone] Curbside pickup [I transfer to the front desk to deal with him]
• Help with printing
• [phone from children's room] Curbside guy called back so now literally half the staff has talked to him--they are JUST NOW taking his stuff out [known idiot, so not surprising]
• Dude who appeared at the public computers keeps sighing heavily and muttering to himself, loudly ("oh my god" "I don't know" etc.)
• Next-door neighbor dude arrives and I rush to clean "his" computer--he opts to sit elsewhere because everything's damp
• Clean off printer station and two other computer areas while I'm up
• [miss at least two calls while I'm doing that]
• Coughing dude gets up and says, "Get to cleaning!" and I tell him I've done more cleaning here than in my house this year. While I'm up, I wiped down the print/fax/scan station

12:00

• Now that there are only two other people here, the muttering guy has stopped making so much noise for whatever reason
• Study rooms are closed, unusable. "Oh noooo!" I point out that wifi is available throughout the building but he's really thrown by the lack of study-room availability; he's off to find a suitable substitute [he's a regular, but obviously not since we re-opened]
• Next-Door Neighbor is chuckling at whatever he's doing online; the acoustics allow me to hear everything from 30 yards away
• [phone] How long are you open today? [till 5] Tomorrow? [No Sundays] How long can I use a public computer? [an hour, but we aren't really enforcing it so people stay...and stay....]
• So, today is basically Men's Day at the 'brary; another middle-aged guy wanders in, around....and back out, stopping for scenic asides (weird)
• [phone] How late are you open today? [still 5--3rd or 4th time I've been asked hours today so far]
• I thought we might get through a whole day without Cornie (not her name) but here she is, panting and sighing as always
• Study-room guy needs a pencil
• My other least-favorite female patron just arrived--hopefully she won't need the internet; right now she's messing around with the coupon box
• [phone] Hours, and did my books get checked in? [yep--she is a delightful Nigerian woman I've helped get a passport in the past]

LUNCHTIME at last!!

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]

Tuesday

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

Friday

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!

Sunday

What I'm doing between questions: in the children's room I was ordering our Next Month's Bestsellers orders (Books and AV) and doing a pass-through on the next Audiobook order I'll need to place. Once I get to the adult area, I'm busy enough that I start looking at reviews but don't get far.

1:00 [in the children's room]

• Close/Lock children's bathroom doors as we open.
• Talk to Librarian C about splitting the desk hours, and then put out all of today's newspapers, dropping one with patron RR who will collect a list of books from the reviews sections and give them to me later
• Smile [the copy on the shelf isn't there, so I go get one of the SIX (!) in storage]
• On the way to and from storage, I direct one person to the second copier in the back of the building, and help another person with the first copier
• Sort out transactions tally sheet for the day
• Random semi-homeless woman is wandering through for some reason....go away! [somehow my unspoken command works!!]
• Two tweener girls come in look around and then head to the YA area
• Family of 5 kids + Mom arrive; the older kids immediately sign on to play Roblox while Mom and toddler ask for the train set and go play, analog-style
• My Many-Colored Days and I Am Not Going to Get Up Today [all our shelved copies are out, or MIA, so I send her to Circ for them to check storage for either/both]

2:00 [in the children's room till 2:30, then adult]

• [phone] "Car crash. I'm fine. Books I had in the car are long gone with the car, though. What do I do?" [I transfer her back to Circ since I'm not sure what our policy is on sad stories like this--I mean, obviously, she has fines and overdues, but are we going to charge for the books? I don't know...]
• Changing of the Guard: nothing of major import to exchange info about
• "How many books can I check out?" [not really a limit] "Even if my card is from [next town over]?" [Yep, all good--load up the truck!]
• Oldie patron, who's been coming here forever, needs a local train schedule ... and then a guest pass because the trains are on Sunday schedule (i.e. there are fewer) so she has time to kill
• Another regular patron stops to say bye: she looks more depressed every time I see her...kinda worried about her
• [phone] Multiple new title reserves from one of my absolutely favorite patrons
• Hours and phone number for local antiques place; PLUS compliment about how these out-of-towners like our library

3:00

• Card number [she has a fine, and nothing but a debit card, so she has to lug her infant back up front to pay so she can get online; I feel bad]
• Mom comes over to print, tweener-ish (?) kid meets her and lingers by the desk long enough to whisper to me, "You're an awesome librarian!" [Pull it together woman: open weeping is frowned upon at the Reference Desk!]
• Turn on cameras to survey the array of actual study-ers...in prep for closing
• Favorite book illustrator walks past on his way out [he's turning gray, but still hot]
• I go share the compliment from the kid with Librarian C since I didn't actually do anything to earn it, and maybe she did [nope, but we're splitting it]
• Pen? [Have mine]
• Trade quarter for another quarter; printer kiosk didn't like his
• [Next Town Over] Woman has collected four shopping baskets of materials on a table; I hope to hell she actually takes them all and hasn't just organized them for us to reshelve....
• Three specific books on cutting; his card's expired, so I fill out the requests and send him up front to renew his card so I can attach the requests to his online record afterwards
• White-out? [not today--it's not something we keep around, but we should]
• Chat with one of our regulars
• Cutting dude is back, looking for Rosetta Stone for Italian [I show him our new Transparent Language database and he says he'll try it out
• "I left a thumb-drive in the public computer yesterday..." [got it, and no, I don't have the cover to it because THAT wasn't in the slot, Ding-Dong]
• Closing announcement
• Shopping baskets are headed to the circ desk, one by one...how the heck is she planning to carry all this to her car??

Wednesday

What I'm doing between questions: checking our catalog against Booklist's Editors' Choice list to see what we need to buy.

7:00

• It is quiet tonight, unexpectedly. I can see 6 people--no, 7--only one of whom is likely to be homeless (it's sleep-in-our-town-tonight night, so we often have people here who are turned away because of alcohol or drug use)
• Circ person brings me three books to order for her
• People sign in for study room use
• I place holds on things that were left behind earlier and then go eat cake and talk at the circ desk. It's really really dead, except for the Board Meeting going on upstairs

8:00

• Chat with one of our regulars about how I "never" get sick despite all the germy people [I've been doing this job for almost 30 years: I've pretty much had ALL the regular stuff and my immune system is on high alert]
• Check the cameras: meeting in public room, meeting in staff room, two study rooms in use, one person on her laptop, and the above regular....yawn!!
• Study room sign out
• Directions to the Children's Books area
• ...time for a pre-closing walk-through
• And everyone's gone, so I finish the last of the closing chores and head out.

Saturday

What I'm doing between questions: whatever I can figure out to kill time. So getting orders ready to send for my buying section(s), sending some of those orders, marking items in the catalog that we own that have received awards, sending the list of last month's Withdrawn Items to the buying staff...yknow, whatever.

9:00 [in the children's room]

• Family comes in with under-2 kid (mom, dad and two grandparents) [play for awhile, show off the library to visiting grandparents, leave]
• Staff member flies in to say there's a crisis in the workroom and they're swamped at the circ desk [Tech Staff person's pet bunny died suddenly at home--she's wrecked....don't judge, people!]

10:00 [in the children's room]

• Yes, that was seriously all that happened. Currently, at 10:10, there is one adult in here, looks like she's going through her mail or something. The sun is shining outside and I definitely see people coming and going through the front doors, but no kids.
• Bunny grandma has come in and calmed down TS person who won't leave because we're short-staffed today
• Shelver asks for an explanation for the way we're numbering/sorting the Star Wars books in the adult fiction section; I verbally explain this chart to her [Star Wars people, I love your geekdom, and loathe everything else about the 'universe' in which you live]
• Also, I just realized the books on the shelf, if I owned them all and wanted them in order, should start with the leftmost book being the furthest back in time (25,793 Before the Battle of Yavin) and count backwards to 0 BBY and then start at 0 ABY and count forwards to 45 ABY (at least to date) [the shelver just turned and walked away shaking her head]
• Librarian AB comes in to ask me about stats and logins and blah-blah with our ILS [my short answer is "I don't know, but I don't think what you're doing will change the stats counts] ; she also says she's fine with me staying in here for another couple of hours
• Shelver returns to ask about a call number on a Board Book ["I don't understand this board book..." My response: "I'm really sorry about that!"]
• Truck books, REAL trucks, not stories [holy crap an actual reference question!!]
• ...and Kleenex

11:00 [in the children's room]

• (same) Shelver has yet another question....about the His Dark Materials series, which I love and can therefore answer easily
• Check in with bunny mom and tell her to just go home if she needs to
• [there are now TWO SEPARATE FAMILIES here in the area--so BUSY!!]
• I go get my lunch bagel because my stomach is scuh-REEM-ing
• Rump (Shurtliff) [we have 4 copies, but three are in storage, and the other is checked out--off I go to the scary basement to retrieve a copy]
• Librarian AB calls to remind me she needs to eat lunch, oops

12:00

• ...so now I'm at Ref
• And I replenish the nickels in our change drawer because the print station isn't returning nickels automatically today [tech win!]
• How to transfer music from disc to thumb driver, only she didn't bring the computer in, so I sort of show her and she says she'll try, but probably will come back with her laptop
• Guest pass for internet use (and extend time till closing)
• How to close out when done online
• [so basically in 15 minutes I tripled my patron interactions for the 3 hours at the kids' desk]
• Book with "things to write in sympathy cards" instead of repeating what everyone else says [in this case, Google is what he needs, not a book; who uses books anymore??]

Monday

What I'm doing between questions: reviews for purchasing in my buying sections.

11:00 a.m.

• Quick primer on "how to do the Reference Desk" since I haven't been out here for months (long story)
• "Can I use the phone for an emergency call?" [it's re: a case number, she doesn't have a phone--homeless--so, yeah....and as I expected it's been 10 minutes so far: she's nucking futs. This shelter she's been staying at has "poisoned her with cancer" (multiple repetitions of this one) and she's suing them for throwing her out; ohmygod, it's a crazytown rant. Bless the woman on the other end of the phone] I'm getting lots and lots of names: Betty W...n, Donna, LaVerne, Kim D....n, Ron W...s, John S....z, Sofia,  [Kim has apparently wants this woman's legs cut off, or otherwise kill her; also the hospital stole her ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes so they could rape her]
  I love my job!
• 35 minutes later...Librarian H arrives to look for her son in the paper (not this week?) and she says the woman (who had just left) has been in to get a guest pass so I was able to pass long some of the warning bells

1:00 p.m.

• Help with printing
• Scratch paper
• Do we have a calculator for a test? [yup--buried deep, but functional]
• Help printing Amazon return label
• ...and the line commences....
• "How much to scan and email to myself?" [free]
• How to save doc to desktop to download to resume site [it amazes me that people trust that we'll delete it from the computer and don't even ask]
• [other stuff I don't remember]
• Circ person arrives with 15-item list of DVDs for patron. I place 5 on hold and set the list aside for doing more later this week

5:00 p.m.

• Finagling with Publisher and Word [if I could manipulate the doc myself, I'd figure it out, but the guy is about at my level so I just tell him to keep trying stuff, or Google the hack]
• Print from phone [dude's barely ESL-literate, it takes 20 minutes, but we get it done eventually]
• Look up card number for a known cutie-pie
• Calculator is returned, after she passed her test [w00t!]
• Consumer Reports [ultimately, the information she needs is behind the paywall online, and we don't have access--we should do that, derp]
• There was more, but I spent so much time with those big questions that I have no memory of what I was doing in the gaps

Wednesday

What I'm doing between questions: trying not to rub my sore, allergy-ridden eyes which hurt like hell today. Also checking Fiction Core Collection against what we actually own.

3:00

• Renew time online x2
• "Can you look up my library card?" [yes, because he's a cute kid]
• "Can I sign up for Summer Reading?" [well, it's got less than a week left, but sure since this week's prize is free entry to next week's county fair...]
• Library card kid comes back--"can I get a guess pass?" [no dice figuring out his password]
• I fill them both in on the fact that they can use the YA area now (going into 6th grade), which they decide is far cooler than hanging out here in the grown-up section [DUH!}
• "Can we have a screen?" [he has a card, he knows his password, so...uhm, yeah....]
• Mr. P (on of the regulars) "donates" two pens he found by his computer [they started life as ours anyway, so....]
• Second time renewer finishes up and returns the pencil she borrowed earlier
• Look up card number + compliment about how great our library is compared to hers [though, having been to her library, hers has a MUCH better view: lake + beach!]
• Summer Reading kid returns, can't get online in YA [his birthday was entered wrong in his card; I fix it and give him a guest pass just in case]
• "Screen" guy meanders over for a pencil; his daughter/sister/wife finds a writing utensil so by the time he meanders back she doesn't need the pencil she sent him here for [we discuss Job's patience and taking deep breathes while she mutters to herself]
• Mr P stops to say bye and tell me that his wife is going to be incensed that he went to the library dressed "that way"--a pocketed clean blue T and clean jeans....--then he warns me it's likely to rain right around closing again tonight [great]
• I'm searching for a book someone requested in my collection section (200s: religion)--I finally find it in Amazon: self-published manure re Jesus [call patron and say no-one owns and we can't buy]
• "Screen" dude seems to be on the verge of murdering his companion; she is a bit (ahem) pushy
• ...but they're leaving and she's actually fine in person, if a little ding-dongy
• approx 3:35...RANDOM MAYHEM...

4:00

• Husband arrives from train station to fill me in on his trip to the hospital in the Big City....
• ...MAYHEM CONTINUES....till about 4:30 [I actually called for backup, twice!]
• 700,000 Summer Reading check-ins [omg this is the last week thank God!!]
• Reserve several movies for my regular Weds. aft. patron [she does NOT like subtitled movies, and she had two she asked for this time: "nevermind!"]
• Help with scanning to a flash-drive and uploading the doc to email to someone
• Mystery v. Mysteries, Western v. Westerns on genre labels [staff question]
• Pen
• Director from nearby library stops to say hi and give me a hug (she's a buddy) [the consortium directors met here this afternoon]
• Sign-in for study room x 2
• People magazine [we keep the current one back here so people might be less likely to trash it]
• Someone I know from Al-Anon walks by and says hi [she looks great! ...hmmm and yay]
• Scanned doc patron returns our flash-drive, and asks me to delete his file from it [I delete his AND four other people's....and send an email to Ref staff to remember to do this themselves!!]
• more flippin' genre label questions.... "are we doing Horror? What color?" [I have a sudden realization that in about 5 months someone is going to 'realize' that we should have used "Russian Stories" or "Novellas" or "Pseudonymous Author" (or other random things) and want to add them. We already caved on "Time Travel" which I think is covered under "Fantasy" and we aren't doing "Suspense" which is basically 75% of what we buy it feels like.....  /rant
• Ice Cream Museum yada yada yada

7:00

• There was stuff

8:00

• There was more stuff, and showing new staff how to close up shop and of course Zooey came in at 15 minutes prior to closing and stayed till 5 minutes after....

Monday

What I'm doing between questions: Rural and Reciprocal holds

11:00

• I run to circ to swap the "big bills" for printing change
• Library D has disappeared from here and not reappeared where he's scheduled, so Miss W is freaking out
• No, the fact that Google has a (ridiculous) doodle today is not because they're trying to irritate you, Crazy Woman; and no, it doesn't look like poop: it looks like flour and potato peelings, which the subject's claim to fame [Librarian D already warned me that she's complained today about her card's barcode having her birthday in it--we did that on purpose of course]
• Reset password
• Password dude's dad strolls in whistling
• Staple remover
• Crazy Woman leaves, or at least logs off and heads to the front
• Staple remover back
• Help downloading books to her Kindle [she has an "emotional support" dog in a baby stroller--so that's a first for me]
• Old maps [long complicated back story, and she didn't bring her reading glasses so she can't actually SEE the old maps....] I am saved by the next Ref person's arrival so I can eat lunch

1:00

• YA reading logs--and someone has fubar'd the login (prob the boss) so it takes twice as long as necessary
• Help finding link for job openings at local parochial school's website
• Placed hold for The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey) for patron who I am positive has read it at least a dozen times
  
• Help with printing
• Help with SSA printouts, logins, etc. Also electricity bills (can't access that for some reason)--poor folks with no computer skills being told to log in to do stuff they don't understand....sigh
• Adult Summer Reading Prize
• Local paper + CR buying guide for this year
• Help with printing from a flash drive
• Guest pass
• YA reading log

4:00
Everything I typed here disappeared. Grr.

Sunday

What I'm doing between questions: Death Dates list.

1:00

• I can't imagine who will be in the library today: it's lovely outside, there is plenty of [local] sportsball on TV, and the kids don't have school tomorrow; I expect crazies and people without a life, i.e. our usual crew
• Newspapers are out, printers have paper: we're GO
• [phone message] Courageous Faith [I'll have to order it--no one around here has purchased it yet]
• A book about the Holocaust, with pictures [he later tells me it's to show friends who've never heard of it...omg...but good for him!]
• Headphones [one pair that maybe works, or he can purchase...no $$, so we'll try the maybes]
• Thumb drive not showing up on public computer [of course it does when I'm standing behine her--computers, making us feel dumb since 1980]
• Leftover reserve from yesterday for The Muse [our copy on hold, so it goes on reserve]
• Guest pass for internet
• How to copy stuff from a file into email, and vice versa
• Scavenger Hunt results [I can't find the answer sheet, but thankfully I know all the answers this week!]
• "I can never find this book on the shelf..." [he was looking where it should be not where it actually is, but we've got it
• Can't log in [card expired--easy fix]
• Add $$ to printing account, paid for with credit card at circ
• [family member is being a dick on chat because I told him he might not want to watch his "home team" play today because they're being slaughtered.....sigh...no more chat for me for a bit] he did eventually apologize for being unfair
• Our Constant Job Seeker is here, sighing as usual, and learning something new. I'm sure at some point today he will come over and tell me all about how stupid/brilliant whatever-it-is is...at length...after he cracks his neck a dozen times and stretches his back (arms in the air &; wave 'em around like you jus' don' care)

2:00

• Are we open tomorrow? [no one told me we aren't...lol...he says he'll see ME then for sure]
• Email-to/from-file copier stops back with our pencil--asks why we would be closed tomorrow and then says, "I'm too old to care about Columbus Day anymore!" [heh]
• [phone] The Gipsy in the Parlour [found it but wow, could you be more obnoxious about spelling?? I have to ILL it; it's 60+ years old]
• Chat with circ ppl about a frozen print job on her computer...can't figure it out
• "Why won't this save on my flash drive?" [after a few minutes of "huh, hmm" I realize she's put a / in the file name; delete that and it's all good]
• [phone] The Last American Man [on the shelf, so I pull it and place it on hold]
• [speaking of which: radio silence on chat after I came back and asked a question about dinner....wevs dickhead]
• As expected, Constant Job Seeker is here venting on the job he has....sigh sigh sigh [eventually walk away]
• Fix registration for library programs [all set, didn't need fixing....?]
• CJS is back

3:00

• Guest pass [she has a fine, but she needs a job...I'm such a sucker]
• [Find a pile of requests at the circ desk while wandering through--find one on the shelf, reserve two others, and leave the others for Someone Else to do through ILL; oh and I leave one with a tech to search her piles of DVDs since our copy is supposed to be here and maybe it's gone to Repairland]
• CJS...omg, I'm gonna punch him!
• Extend time [will do, but the computers shut down in 20 minutes...]
• Local paper
• CJS . Srsly
• Walk through to see what kind of crowd is scattered around...just about time to do the We're Closing Soon announcement
• [phone] Is Columbus Day a federal and state holiday? [yup and everything's closed. Except us]
• Guest pass [nope, not doing it since you'll log in with just barely time to use it] [The whole family is dingbatty]
• And then the other daughter makes a [loud] phone call for help on the webpage she's using ...
• Headphones come back! Unbelievable!!
• "So you're going to close at 4 on Sundays now?" [we always have, yup]
• Last-minute patron wants Rushing Waters on hold [done]
• And we're done.

Wednesday

What I'm doing between questions: praying that it stays very quiet and no one asks anything complicated tonight: we're short (again) and my eyes are having a very bad time with focusing on things like spine labels and computer screens. Otherwise, switching over to the Updated Subject List since I'm all caught up with Death Dates; well, with checking them in the catalog.

6:00

• Fermentation (for a college lab report) [why she is not at a college library I don't know]
• I make an announcement about a car in the lot that was apparently parked by a drunken asshat...er, a very nice older gentleman [once we know it's his car, I just tell him he's gotta not park on the sidewalk in the future, please]
• Our paranoid letter-writer has been here, literally, all day doing something online [she called last night to make sure it was ok if she used the computer all day to type her genealogy into some governmental site--whatever that means] 
• And our Weds night group home folks arrive: Wild Wild West (as in books on), Halloween, fire engines, Zoom! [I have to ILL the last one]
• It's hotter than heck--on goes the fan that is always here now
• Oooh, Ms. Paranoia is gone! yay
• Soundtrack from "Ice Castles" (hello, my early teenage years!!!) [another ILL to do]
• How many magazines can be checked out at once? [no limit]

7:00

• Librarian KT is walking around like the ground is made of eggshells [sciatica flare up]; she can't walk, I can't see, together we make one semi-functional librarian
• "How do I log out of Yahoo mail now?"[I show him] then welding books, then National Geographics
• Call about Free: Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff request [audible download only; no book, no CD--but now I know that she watches Bill Maher, as do I]
• Eraser ... oh, and pen?
• Tech calls to let me know that Ms. Paranoia has left the director another note. Sealed inside an envelope so we will have to wait till tomorrow to find out what's buzzing around her brain today...sigh
• "I got a call that the things I requested are here" [thump on the desk goes her giant bag purse--I explain that they are up front, after I ascertain that these "things" are books/DVDs/etc. not something extremely weird we might actually have here at Reference; she looks moderately put out and not sure she should trust me]
• Different tech comes past on an errand and asks if we can tell from a cancelled hold where something came from [I check my record of cancellations...apparently not, which is weird]
• Go on my mid-shift wander to make sure no one is naked or dead anywhere in the building, and pick up 3 more reserves from circ, all for DVDs

8:00

• People using study room sign out
• "Where are the restrooms?" [point and explain]
• An hour till closing announcement
• "Can I use a study room?" [sure, why not?]
• Refill all the paper in printers/copiers/etc.
• It's dead in here, just a matter of the computers shutting down and herding the stragglers to the door...
• Dude in the study room is NOT leaving....grrr...ah now he is
  DONE

__________
We are finally getting shook of Librarian J a.k.a. Crazy Cat Lady. This is her last week of work. So of course she took today off. Weird that she hasn't had to call in sick once she she scheduled the rest of her time off so carefully. Anyway, that's why I'm going to be on the desk more often for the foreseeable future, especially on Weds. nights when she normally held things down here. So it's a trade-off, but overall, no one's exactly sad to see her leave.

Friday

What I'm doing between questions: checking the Death Dates lists--from August and September this year!--against our catalog.

1:00

• Blowers are off today so it's deathly quiet out here today; every keystroke can be heard
• "Does the printer print in color?" from someone with blue lipstick and a lip-ring [yes, if you tell it to, and she's quite nice]
• I am old: what's this thing with baseball caps that look like they just landed on guys' heads, rather than guys wearing them? It looks ridiculous (also, wearing Miami Dolphins colors--teal and tangerine--is an interesting tribute to people in Florida dealing with Hurricane Matthew)
• Boss stops by; we may not get the blower fixed till Monday. Yay--I work Sunday. It's like breathing tropical air in here already
• Guest pass, but suggest he get a library card
• Help making a photocopy
• [Operatic Farter is leaving, fartless today]
• Four leftover ILLs completed. Seriously, why weren't they done by the person who started them??
• Black Hole Blues [put on hold for him]
• "Did that last guy have an accent?" as he returns his Ethernet cable...[no...? I don't think so? and here's your card back]
• How to pay to print
• [finally starting the Death Dates list...]

2:00

• dead for 20 minutes
• [phone] Librarian K asking for the first two Hobbit movies [on his way back from his honeymoon--needs something to do tonight with the kids; I pull them and leave them in his inbox]
• More paper in printer--woman just printed about 50 pages
• Help with printing, and then with printing blown-up print job on copier
• Boss walks through--maybe we'll have blowers before we close
• Guest pass for internet
• Staff member's family is visiting, adorable little redheaded granddaughter included
• Blower tries to start several times...nope
• And...yes, it's on!! Sounds a bit off, but blowing air!
• Latest guest pass person asks for a wipe--the keyboard is greasy [ew]; we have Clorox wipes and she takes one\
• ...and help her print
• Killing Kennedy [on the shelf--I grin maniacally as she tells me how GOOOOOOD this series is!! Finding the book for her "made [her] day." OK, so not my thing, but it's always fun to have seriously happy patrons]
• Help with faxing [dude is 5 years younger than me and looks like he's about to keel over]

Wednesday

What I'm doing between questions: mostly just chatting to people and keeping this up to date. It was a little busy!

3:00

• It's busy today--kids are out for conferences and the homeless are appearing...or something. Anyway, a LOT of faces, several of them new. And the usual people as well. Including:

The Operatic Farter: long, loud, musical, and occasionally stinky

The FOL Guy: super-nice, was in the paper last month for getting arrested for disturbing the peace & vandalism

Pirates of the Caribbean: NEW! tall skinny and hairy proto-hipsters x 3. Possibly meth-heads. Homeless?

Ponytail Gamer: used to be an aide with the SPED kids, now spends hours every day here playing a really weird game online.

• Return of Big City Paper That Gets Stolen if we leave it out
• Study room sign-in
• More time for a guest user whose time just blew up [I give her a new day-pass and extend her time immediately]
• Longish chat with FOL Guy
• How to print from a laptop
• Hello to/from family that usually comes in half an hour prior to closing
• Proto-Hipsters decide to leave, so they turn their iTunes to max volume for the walk to the front of the building [and I "no no no" them, and then realize the "Pirates.." moniker is for the shitastic eyeline one of them is sporting; the loud one says, "Sorry, I didn't realize..." dumbass]
• Commercial motor vehicle operator instruction series which is not anywhere in this state. After some back-and-forth, she decides one disc is fine to examine to see if she wants to buy the set for $600 on Amazon [and then I hear some random story about a doll? or something she bought from American Dollar Store that actually came from Amazon...blah blah blah]
  
• Sign in for study room
• Discover that there are old reserves sitting here--finish those up, including an ILL for Like Finding My Twin [I might snag this when the patron's done for a quick perusal]
• Laptop printing person successfully prints off a zillion pages [ I 💚 PrinterOn]

4:00

• ILL tech needs a port, so I volunteer the one I'm just finishing up with and log out
• The population is currently half what it was an hour ago....I'm that scary?
• Help with Excel test...do I get the grade too?
• Study room sign-out
• Librarian C needs a port ... and then 2-year-old patron and mom need to meet our puzzle horse
• ...and a lengthy gossip section ensues because Librarians M and KT appear with questions for us
• KT wants the teen series called "Prey" separated from the adult series called "Prey" in the catalog (duh, yes, I should know better)
• Help with Excel [I know NOTHING about charts and tables!] and she sort of thinks she's got it figured out anyway
• Guest pass and help with printing
• ....and DONE!!