...outcome.

Wow!

I could not have been more wrong in my earlier prediction of the suckage level of today's Sunday shift. In fact, I'd have to say that today didn't suck at all. I'd classify this as one of the most perfect "liberry" shifts I've ever had. Certainly in the Top10.

First off, when I rolled in and prepared to start my day without internet and circulation software, I discovered that neither the internet nor the circulation software were at all disabled. Sweet, I thought. Furthermore, the patron traffic was so exquisitely low I was able to sit on the floor and do quite a bit of work on the auction website for ten minutes at at stretch without interruption.

Well, that's not entirely true. Eventually, the net did start working a bit more intermittently than I usually care for, but we had been warned of this. The circulation program continued to function unimpeded, though, so no worries there. By 2:30, the internet had completely healed itself and worked just fine.

Also, my fears of the Internet Addict crowd storming the place and making my life miserable proved unfounded. Evidently, they'd all read the signs I put up and knew to stay away. Oh, sure occasionally, a patron would wander in and ask to use the internet. I would then check it on the circ computer to see if it was working and A) log them on if it was; or B) send them away. The one exception to this came when the Sweatiest Woman in All the Land came in to use a computer and I told her that that she couldn't have one because the internet was down for the whole day. Mind you, at the time I told her this I was seated on the floor at the webserver actively using the internet. How I can claim this was anything other than a dirty blatant lie I'm not sure. My only excuse is that I didn't want her overpowering stench to viciously maul my otherwise perfect day.

I got the auction page squared away and managed to finally move all the images for it off my own personal website and onto our webserver itself. (Our Win 95 equipped webserver computer is so old that it's damn near impossible to move mass amounts of data onto it in any kind of efficient manner. It has rejected CD's, USB cables, my portable USB based zip disk card reader, installation of Win Zip and while with a great deal of effort it finally allowed me to install and execute WS FTP, it refused to allow me to actually FTP out of the building thanks to the stringent security measures taken by home office techies. So I was forced to simply load each of the 62 images stored on my page and save them directly to the webserver.) I had time to make and print a binder page for each auction item in case non-computer users would like to bid on the items in person and make signs about the auction to tape up at all our computer stations. Largely, these activities went uninterrupted.

Only got one "What time do you close?" call the whole day and only a couple of other calls, one of which was a most welcome call from my sweet woman.

Meanwhile, outside, the sun was shining, the leaves were yellow, crinkly and fragrant and the world was just a joy to behold.

How good it is to be wrong.