Conference Week: Day 1

(Reconstruction of Eaten Blog Entry, with a big thanks to Phil and Sam for sending me the original pre-chewed feed which I've now reincorporated)

Today is the first day of our state's "liberry" association conference, taking place in a resort hotel up in the northern part of the state somewhere.

Am I going? No.

Do I want to go? No.

Are me and Mrs. J the only staff members in house today? Yes.

Am I wearing shoes appropriate to a 10 hour shift? No. (These Skechers tend to start biting after about four hours. My feet are screwed, but it's my own fault.)

Am I anticipating "liberry" goodness/badness to shortly ensue? Hey, it's 10 hours in the crazy house here. Of course there's going to be standard issue "liberry" activity, both good and bad.

8:54 a.m.-- a full six minutes before we open, I get a phone call asking to speak to Mrs. C. I have a feeling that the phrase "I'm sorry, she's out of town at a conference for the rest of the week" will leave my mouth several thousand times today.

9:24-- Yet another call, this time for Mrs. A.

9:44-- And we have our first Rogue sighting of the day as Mr. Smiley comes in. He brings Mrs. Smiley with him. Mmm, that's some grumpy old people goodness for your ass.

9:58-- More people phoning for Mrs. A.

10:06-- We get our first computer patrons of the day. Two at once. Unrelated.

10:10-- Mrs. J informs me that some mischief-minded turd-blossom has removed the bolts that hold the back guard-rail portion of our rolling step-ladder in place. As a result, she nearly tumbled ass over teakettle off the top of it while trying to shelve a book. That's right, Mrs. J might have been killed because some asshat kid thought it would be funny to use his dad's leatherman to unscrew the bolts. The culprit seems to have stolen the bolts as well. Now I have to go put a sign on it telling patrons to stay the hell off of it before someone else tries to take a header.

10:11-- Someone comes in looking for Mrs. A.

10:15-- One of our board of directors, Mrs. Day, calls to say she's going to come in to sign checks and is on her way. This doesn't actually mean she's on her way. This means at some point during business hours today she'll roll in, probably at an inopportune moment, and will likely give me shit about having to come in and sign the paychecks two full days early, like I'm twisting her arm and forcing her to come in. SHE CALLED ME!

10:22-- A patron asks if we're closed tomorrow because of Toyota. I say, "No, it's Veteran's Day. What about Toyota?" He explains that Toyota will be filming a car commercial along mainstreet in Town-A, just down the hill from the library. They're apparently going to close off the entire area for traffic throughout the day. Good thing we won't be open.

11:34--Mrs. Day comes in to sign checks, several hours earlier than I expected. She doesn't even give me any crap, though she does have an ILL request for a book that does not exist in the entire state system.

12:40 p.m.-- I see a crabby looking lady trying unsuccessfully to put her books into our locked after hours book drop box out front. She must know that books that actually make it into the box are considered fine free, because when she finally brings them in I see that they are 89 days overdue.

12:51-- We're having surprisingly low traffic today. We did 169 checkouts yesterday, which is a busy day for us. I was expecting a patron flood since I'm the only guy manning the building. We've actually been able to search the shelves for overdues and mail the notices out, though. Ooh, that reminds me to remove Mrs. 89 Days overdue notice from the pile before we waste 37 cents on her.

12:55-- Parka makes his first appearance of the day. Oddly, he's not clad in his namesake parka despite how cold it actually is outside.

12:56-- I go to sign Parka on a computer. I have to wait for it to reboot from the ground up, cause the last user shut it down rather than just logging off. While I wait, two clients from the Unobstructed Doors Mental Health Assistance Organization come in and their aid heads them right for the restroom. One of them cuts a fart that is impossible to ignore. (*I will not let Parka see me laughing at the handicapped... I will not let Parka see me laughing at the handicapped* )

1:45-- After nearly half an hour of circulation silence, I attempt to eat my lunch. Staff lunches are an odd phenomenon here. No matter what time we decide to eat, as soon as food is unwrapped and begun to be consumed, the patron floodgates open up and we're suddenly swamped. Food presence also tends to act as a magnet for one or more of our board members to come in—usually the one who thinks it's just horrible that the staff eats at the circulation desk in front of God and everybody. Hey, once we get the new library built and actually have a break room we can move the party somewhere else. Right now it's either the picnic table outside in the cold or Mrs. A's tiny office or the restroom. Of course, the moment I unburped the lid of my salad container today, the front door started swingin'.

1:50-- Parka comes up to complain that the internet is slow. He's enlisted the testimony of a fellow internet crowd member to back up his claim. Naturally, he assumes I have the power to do something about it. I don't, but I go reboot his computer for him anyway. He's lucky I don't go into a diatribe about how slow things USED to be a year and a half ago, back when we had dialup speed instead of cushy DSL.

2:18-- The Toyota crew evidently thinks our nearly post-Autumn town isn't foliated enough for them. Patrons have come in and mentioned that the crew is downtown in a cherry picker attaching leaves to the bare trees in front of city hall. From our side window, I can see them doing this.

2:43-- A female patron returns eight John Grisham and Patty Cornhole books on tape all of which are in horrible condition, are 61 days late and some of which are missing tapes. The cardboard cases look as though she sat on them repeatedly. She fesses up to one of the tapes being missing, but I detect others. Her husband—who looks exactly like you'd imagine Hagrid's younger brother might—unleashes two very loud open-mouthed sneezes with barely an "excuse me."

2:55-- Parka returns for his second appearance. He's evidently waiting for a specific e-mail.

3:00-- Like a big ol' coward who is only scheduled to work til 3p, Mrs. J flees the building leaving me by myself for the rest of the day.

3:25-- Blogger EATS this entry and I have to reconstruct it from the ground up. Thanks guys.

3:27-- Shortly after discovering this, the circ desk becomes awash in patrons. A lady is irritated that she can't seem to log on from home into the practice test service we offer on our website. The community college library has told her she needs to come to us for the password. I explain that we don't have a password for it. The old testing system used to use the patron's library card number for it, but I don't think that's how it works anymore. She claims she's tried that, but can't actually demonstrate for me how poorly this works for her because she has—all together now—forgotten her library card. She's fed up with the site and with me. Her attitude and the fact that blog entry was just eaten, is pissing me off. I tell her that Mrs. A and Mrs. C, the two people with definitive answers for her, are out until Monday.

"So, what, I'm out of luck until next week?" she says.

"Not if I can figure it out for you now," I say.

She starts ranting at me again. While she's busy with that, I load the practice test site on the circ computer and see that it clearly does NOT require a library card to access, but simply and clearly asks the patron to choose a username and password of their own. Once I've told her this, she suddenly remembers what her username and password are, logs into the system and is now in love with me that I've solved her problem.

3:37-- Someone phones for Mrs. A. Turns out the caller was already fully aware that Mrs. A is out of town at the library conference, she just thought she'd call anyway. In fact, the phones will NOT. STOP. RINGING. I can't even hang it up from the two calls I've just taken back to back without another coming in.

4:15-- Dadgum, I wish I had a big stool to sit on. Stupid Skechers!

4:34-- Our first call of the day asking what time we close. Whoo hooo, take a drink!

5:05-- And the world comes to the library. For 20 minutes straight, we're slammed. And when does the circ computer decide that it's going to take a break and completely freeze up? Oh, only when there's suddenly a line four patrons deep, two of whom want new library cards. I beat the computer into submission.

5:30-- Man my legs are hurting. Okay. Fine. I'll sit down.

5:48-- I call a patron about a book she has on hold. Unfortunately, she had just been in half an hour earlier so I should have given it to her then. I hate it when I do that.

6:03-- By pure chance, I spy Chester the (Potential) Molester parking in our half-hour parking and then lurking into the darkness toward the community college. From what we're told by the college's librarian, Mr. Rob, Chester's been racking up quite the reputation around there too. The only good thing about that is that at least the girls there are of consenting age.

6:32-- Half an hour to go. We've had very little traffic at all for the past thirty minutes. I think I'll vacuum.

6:51-- Already finished my end of the day duties. One last patron (who I like) is left to go. My 10 hour shift is nearly over. I plan to go home, eat whatever delicious meal my wife has prepared, and completely skip church choir practice. (The choir director is just gonna make me stand up.)

Shite! I hear a car!

Ahhh... False alarm.

6:59-- That's a wrap. Wow... a whole day with both Mrs. A and Mrs. C gone and no call from Mr. Kreskin. I would have had money riding on that one if there was anyone around to bet with.

7:00 p.m.-- I don my coat and exit stage right. (After craftily deleting my saved reconstruction file and browser history, of course.)