JANUARY 7, 2006
I rarely know anything that goes on in our monthly meeting of the “liberry’s” board of directors and that’s fine with me. What does trickle down to me often pisses me off and I would just get myself in trouble by opening my yap were I there to hear it first hand. This is particularly true when it comes to matters of our proposed new “liberry” building. (And I’ve kept my yap mostly shut about it online for two years now for fear of drawing the wrong attention to myself.) Friday’s meeting of the board was different, though. I might still have been in trouble, had I been there, but it would have been for laughing my fool ass off. My boss, Mrs. A, told the staff about it afterwards and assured us that it was a tale that will be retold for months to come.
Some time before the meeting, Mrs. A received a phone call from our eldest and longest-standing board-member, Mrs. Day. To date, Mrs. Day has not been at all wild about our campaign to build a new library. In fact, she voted against it for quite some time before Mr. Kreskin, our former board president, was able to convince her that it looked bad for one lone board member to keep voting against everything, so she jumped on board to save face.
On Friday morning, Mrs. Day phoned to inform Mrs. A that she had a major and exciting announcement to reveal at the board meeting. She wouldn’t give any indication what it regarded, but said it was something huge. Naturally, Mrs. A’s mind wandered to the possibilities. And while waiting for Mrs. Day to turn up for the meeting, Mrs. A and the other four board members—Mr. Eggs, Mrs. Emm, Mrs. Aitch and Dr. Watson—plus our press officer, Mrs. PR, mused aloud as to what the big news might be. Consensus of hope was that Mrs. Day had found someone to donate the remaining funds we need for the new building (around a cool million), but they found it more likely that she was merely going to take credit for securing a rather large donation a neighbor of hers had recently made that everyone already knew about.
Mrs. Day eventually rolled in for the meeting and after much smiling and excitement on her part, she finally revealed her big news. It seems that Mrs. Day has been in contact with everyone’s favorite cranky patron, annual $200 check-donator, frequent $200-donation revocation threatener, and third grumpiest old man in all the world, Mr. Crab, regarding what he might like to donate to the library’s building campaign. (All together now, “$200!”) Mr. Crab claimed that due to obscure IRS laws, he could not donate any actual money to the project because he had “already donated over a million dollars.” (I assumed when I heard this third-hand quote that Mr. Crab meant he’d already donated a million dollars to the library over the years, in which case he would have to be 5000 years old since he only ever gives us $200 at a pop. Now that I’ve thought about it, though, he probably meant he’d given a million dollars to various charitable contributions over the years—no doubt in $200 increments.) Instead of giving us any money, Mr. Crab said he wished to donate something far more valuable: an extensive antique German train set he’d collected and two, count em two, stuffed animals. And when I say "stuffed animals" I’m not talkin’ about Teddy bears or MonChiChis, I mean actual dead animals from Mr. Crab’s collection of animals he has shot, killed and had stuffed, taxidermy-style. According to Mrs. Day, Mr. Crab specifically wishes to donate two stuffed dead animal heads to be hung above the two fireplaces in the proposed new building.
From the way Mrs. A described it to me later, Mrs. Day couldn’t have been more thrilled about this donation. She beamed at the members of the board as she told them, barely able to contain her joy. This, to me, is merely proof that Mrs. Day's mind automatically defaults to the 1930s and 40s, when men such as Ernest Hemingway went around cheerfully blowing the hides off whatever creatures struck their fancy, for fun, then hung their corpses up for all to see and there were no activist groups to raise a stink about it. (By the way, while I think hunting for sport is abhorrent, I’m all for blowing the hides off of creatures you intend to eat, provided they are in season and/or the ranger isn’t looking. "Yeah, take my pic-a-nic basket again, you f*ckers!”)
The board’s reaction to the news was far more modern. I’m told Mrs. Emm and Mrs. PR began laughing openly at the absurdity of it; Mr. Eggs and Dr. Watson sat dumbfounded—Dr. Watson, particularly so, as this was his very first meeting as a board member; Mrs. A just shook her head in full knowledge of the kind of shit storm that would rain down on us from the local hippie-activist community should these heads actually make their way anywhere near our new building; and Mrs. Aitch was furious, but mostly at Mr. Crab’s assertion that there was some kind of million-dollar lifetime donation cut-off.
Between bursts of laughter, Mrs. Emm managed to ask what kind of heads Mr. Crab wished to give us. Mrs. Day wasn’t certain, but said that Mr. Crab has an elephant head above his own desk so maybe that would be one of them.
(It should be noted that Mr. Crab reportedly also has an elephant-leg golf-bag. You heard me... Elephant. Leg. Golf. Bag. When Mrs. A told me about it, I said, “That’s just awful. I mean, I can see an elephant-foot umbrella stand, and all, but a golf-bag is just excessive.” Mrs. A then said she really wished I had been at the meeting, because that was exactly the kind of running commentary that the board members began making around that time. Go board.)
For her part, Mrs. Day seemed oblivious to the ridicule the rest of the board was heaping on her major announcement. She must have thought their tearful laughter was out of joy at such a golden opportunity to turn our new library into some sort of big-game hunting lodge. She even further suggested that one of the heads might, in fact, be that of a polar bear, which Mr. Crab reportedly also owns.
Eventually, Mrs. Emm was able to compose herself long enough to suggest that we agree to accept the gifts, but only with no restrictions as to their use, so we would be free to sell the items to raise money for the project. Mr. Crab will most likely hate this, grump about it at length, retract his offer of donation and then threaten to withhold his $200 again.
“Well if he doesn’t stop acting so crappy to our staff, it’s going to be his head up above the fireplace cause they’re going to kill him,” Mrs. A reportedly told the board.
Soon the room calmed down a bit and the board began discussing such possibilities as a road trip to Mr. Crab's home in order to view the items proposed for donation. Immediately, various board members began vocally noting that they were likely to be out of town on that day, whatever day that should be, but Mrs. A insisted that such a trip could be delayed until all of them were able to attend.
After Mrs. A finished her tale for me, I advised her that we really did not want to be AT ALL beholden to Mr. Crab or we'd never hear the end of it until the day he died, and even then he'd probably have it set into his will that his heirs must continue to lord it over us until the end of time or be cut off from his reputed massive fortune.
Then I realized that it might be worth accepting Mr. Crab's animal heads, if only to piss off Mr. and Mrs. Smiley, who are among our more vocal militant animal rights types in the area and who have, in the past several months, continued desperately trying to torpedo this new building project using any stray hope they think might float no matter how ludicrous. Seeing an elephant head above our new fireplace might be just the thing to finally remove the remaining Grinchy vestiges of sanity they still possess.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Showing posts with label Mrs. Aitch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mrs. Aitch. Show all posts
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, December 22, 2006
Board Report
Every couple of weeks, when it gets close to pay day, one of the
members of the "liberry's" board of directors comes around to sign
paychecks. We always hope and pray it's Mrs. Em or Mrs. Aitch.
Unfortunately, it's often Mrs. Day.
Since Mr. Kreskin's departure, our board of directors has been composed of a pretty easy-going bunch of folks who stay out of our ass. However, if there's any ass-spelunking to be done, Mrs. Day is always the one to harness up due to the fact that she's been on the board since the Pliocene epoch and enjoys wielding that tenure whenever the opportunity presents. Mrs. Day is an old white woman in every sense of the phrase and she's not happy about anything, particularly when it comes to matters of money. See, Mrs. Day is among the inheritors of a major toiletries manufacturer and has more money than the Pope. For all her billions, though, she's prone to being very very cheap. Whenever she has to come in to sign checks, she questions every penny. She's particularly obsessive about it if the amount of pennies she's questioning is very small. Big checks don't cause her to even blink—she'll sign them right away—but the smaller the check, the more interested in its purpose she becomes. Petty cash checks are always of deep concern to her, but of even greater concern, due no doubt to their being exponentially smaller, are our paychecks.
Mrs. A warned me today that Mrs. Day was scheduled to come in after lunch to sign checks, so instead of eating lunch at the circ-desk, Mrs. A, Mrs. B and Mrs. J were going to retreat to Mrs. A's tiny office upstairs where they would sit, cramped around the desk to have their meal. This is because Mrs. Day has the mutant ability to sense when there are employees behind the circ desk and she can magically appear whenever there is an inconvenient number of them there—say, over one—thus catching us in the act of having too many employees being paid to stand around behind the desk with no justification. (She almost always comes to sign checks on a Thursday, when we have a greater concentration of employees on scene because of Story Hour, often at lunch time, when those employees are there, gathered behind the desk eating.)
Mrs. Day arrived about ten minutes into lunch. I wasn't surprised that she was early, since Mrs. Day has never been known to arrive at the time she has specified. Usually she arrives hours or, in one case, a day, late. And whenever she does appear, it's usually at the least convenient time possible. I smiled, greeted her and fetched the checkbook, then stood back to watch the show.
"Their salaries keep going up up up," Mrs. Day said in a disdainful tone as she signed. "I don't recall ever signing checks for such a high amount before." Then, as though sensing it was unbecoming to complain about the money earned by the staff in front of the staff, she added, "It's fantastic," in a less than thrilled tone. It didn't occur to me at the time, but Mrs. Day was probably correct about those being the largest payroll checks she'd ever signed. See, it's also Christmas bonus time, but unlike the last several years, in which we've received separate checks for our bonuses, this year the accountant advised Mrs. A to include the bonus amount in our normal paycheck so that FICA can be taken out. Mrs. A countered that this was bad, because that would lessen the bonus amount. Another board member, a wise man named Mr. Eggs, told her to just raise the bonus amount until the FICA deduction would leave the amount at the previous bonus level, so as not to cause any financial drain of our bonuses. Either no one thought to inform Mrs. Day about this, though, or they'd informed her and she just hadn't listened. (Gosh, I wonder which is the more likely of the two?)
"Is MRS. A in?" Mrs. Day asked.
"She's at lunch," I said, neglecting to mention exactly where she was at lunch.
"Hmm. Well, I did get here early," Mrs. Day said.
Ah, so she IS aware of her bad timing! Hell, she probably engineers it.
"How many employees are working today?" Mrs. Day asked.
"Um... four?" I said. Technically, we'd had five, but Mrs. C had gone home early. Mrs. Day nearly spit at this number, though. "There's just no excuse for that. There should NEVER be more than two people working. This place isn't that busy. The library doesn't have that kind of money. Four employees! It's wasteful."
Did I mention that despite her decades of service on the board, Mrs. Day remains the least informed as to how a library truly operates of any breathing creature to have ever walked the earth? Oh, she's the least informed, all right.
I thought about explaining the whole story hour thing and how we always have more employees on Thursday mornings than at any other time of the week. I thought about explaining that, sure, while it wasn't very busy at that moment, in five minutes we'd be deluged with patrons wanting to surf the internet on their lunch hour, etc. I thought about lecturing her on the subject of overdue notices and how we always run them on Thursdays when we have enough people to be able to check the shelves for them AND run the desk AND help patrons AND log computers on AND shelve books AND answer the damn phone. It wouldn't matter, though. She wouldn't listen. Instead, I decided to throw her a bone.
"Well, ma'am, I'll be gone in a few minutes and then we'll only have three employees."
"Hmmpf," she hmmpfed. "Don't you tell MRS. A I was complaining."
After Mrs. Day left, I took the checkbook up to Mrs. A so she could distribute the checks within. I told Mrs. A that Mrs. Day had been complaining. She wasn't surprised. What did surprise us, though, was that Mrs. Day had probably known I was going to rat her out and had planned her revenge accordingly, because my check was the only one Mrs. Day had neglected to sign.
Since Mr. Kreskin's departure, our board of directors has been composed of a pretty easy-going bunch of folks who stay out of our ass. However, if there's any ass-spelunking to be done, Mrs. Day is always the one to harness up due to the fact that she's been on the board since the Pliocene epoch and enjoys wielding that tenure whenever the opportunity presents. Mrs. Day is an old white woman in every sense of the phrase and she's not happy about anything, particularly when it comes to matters of money. See, Mrs. Day is among the inheritors of a major toiletries manufacturer and has more money than the Pope. For all her billions, though, she's prone to being very very cheap. Whenever she has to come in to sign checks, she questions every penny. She's particularly obsessive about it if the amount of pennies she's questioning is very small. Big checks don't cause her to even blink—she'll sign them right away—but the smaller the check, the more interested in its purpose she becomes. Petty cash checks are always of deep concern to her, but of even greater concern, due no doubt to their being exponentially smaller, are our paychecks.
Mrs. A warned me today that Mrs. Day was scheduled to come in after lunch to sign checks, so instead of eating lunch at the circ-desk, Mrs. A, Mrs. B and Mrs. J were going to retreat to Mrs. A's tiny office upstairs where they would sit, cramped around the desk to have their meal. This is because Mrs. Day has the mutant ability to sense when there are employees behind the circ desk and she can magically appear whenever there is an inconvenient number of them there—say, over one—thus catching us in the act of having too many employees being paid to stand around behind the desk with no justification. (She almost always comes to sign checks on a Thursday, when we have a greater concentration of employees on scene because of Story Hour, often at lunch time, when those employees are there, gathered behind the desk eating.)
Mrs. Day arrived about ten minutes into lunch. I wasn't surprised that she was early, since Mrs. Day has never been known to arrive at the time she has specified. Usually she arrives hours or, in one case, a day, late. And whenever she does appear, it's usually at the least convenient time possible. I smiled, greeted her and fetched the checkbook, then stood back to watch the show.
"Their salaries keep going up up up," Mrs. Day said in a disdainful tone as she signed. "I don't recall ever signing checks for such a high amount before." Then, as though sensing it was unbecoming to complain about the money earned by the staff in front of the staff, she added, "It's fantastic," in a less than thrilled tone. It didn't occur to me at the time, but Mrs. Day was probably correct about those being the largest payroll checks she'd ever signed. See, it's also Christmas bonus time, but unlike the last several years, in which we've received separate checks for our bonuses, this year the accountant advised Mrs. A to include the bonus amount in our normal paycheck so that FICA can be taken out. Mrs. A countered that this was bad, because that would lessen the bonus amount. Another board member, a wise man named Mr. Eggs, told her to just raise the bonus amount until the FICA deduction would leave the amount at the previous bonus level, so as not to cause any financial drain of our bonuses. Either no one thought to inform Mrs. Day about this, though, or they'd informed her and she just hadn't listened. (Gosh, I wonder which is the more likely of the two?)
"Is MRS. A in?" Mrs. Day asked.
"She's at lunch," I said, neglecting to mention exactly where she was at lunch.
"Hmm. Well, I did get here early," Mrs. Day said.
Ah, so she IS aware of her bad timing! Hell, she probably engineers it.
"How many employees are working today?" Mrs. Day asked.
"Um... four?" I said. Technically, we'd had five, but Mrs. C had gone home early. Mrs. Day nearly spit at this number, though. "There's just no excuse for that. There should NEVER be more than two people working. This place isn't that busy. The library doesn't have that kind of money. Four employees! It's wasteful."
Did I mention that despite her decades of service on the board, Mrs. Day remains the least informed as to how a library truly operates of any breathing creature to have ever walked the earth? Oh, she's the least informed, all right.
I thought about explaining the whole story hour thing and how we always have more employees on Thursday mornings than at any other time of the week. I thought about explaining that, sure, while it wasn't very busy at that moment, in five minutes we'd be deluged with patrons wanting to surf the internet on their lunch hour, etc. I thought about lecturing her on the subject of overdue notices and how we always run them on Thursdays when we have enough people to be able to check the shelves for them AND run the desk AND help patrons AND log computers on AND shelve books AND answer the damn phone. It wouldn't matter, though. She wouldn't listen. Instead, I decided to throw her a bone.
"Well, ma'am, I'll be gone in a few minutes and then we'll only have three employees."
"Hmmpf," she hmmpfed. "Don't you tell MRS. A I was complaining."
After Mrs. Day left, I took the checkbook up to Mrs. A so she could distribute the checks within. I told Mrs. A that Mrs. Day had been complaining. She wasn't surprised. What did surprise us, though, was that Mrs. Day had probably known I was going to rat her out and had planned her revenge accordingly, because my check was the only one Mrs. Day had neglected to sign.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Who's got the 10 and a half?
Yup. That's right. It's time for another 10 hour shift for the Juice
man. Mrs. A and Mrs. C are out for the day at a meeting of the minds
over in Town-D's branch.
Running tally for the day proceeds here...
8:50 a.m.-- I arrive at the library. There's a large SUV parked out front that I don't recognize. I figure it's a patron waiting for us to open, but no one is in it and no one is banging on the door to get in. I go to unlock the back door and find it's already unlocked and slightly ajar. Uh oh. Now I'm thinking the patron is inside, taking advantage of a door left unlocked by one of the librarians as they departed this morning. This kind of thing has happened before. As I cautiously round the corner of the computer hall, I get a line of sight on the circ desk and see Mrs. A there. Whew! Turns out it was Mr. A's SUV.
8:52-- I turn on the light switch for upstairs and blow the breaker.
9:00-- Mrs. C turns on the downstairs light switch and also blows the breaker. Mrs. A is irritated at this and swears we will not be paying to rewire the building since we're within a two year spitting distance of a brand new building altogether. As a result of the breaker blows, though, a third of the lightbulbs in the front room have gone. At 5'9", I'm still the tallest employee so it's always my job to change them. No doubt half the bulbs upstairs have also blown.
9:20-- Both patrons who've come in so far have given me cheerful yet marble-mouthed greetings that I don't understand. They are not together.
9:33-- First phone call for Mrs. A.
9:41-- Mr. & Mrs. Smiley arrive.
10:00-- I start changing bulbs.
10:19-- Boring assed task for the day: Stuffing fund drive envelopes. Mmm, boy howdy! At least I have Shawn Colvin's Whole New You album playing on the circ computer to keep me company. Great album.
10:35-- First computer patron of the day.
10:50-- A library staff member from Town-R's branch phones. Mind you, she doesn't identify herself whatsoever so I didn't know she wasn't a patron at first. The conversation followed:
11:19-- Out of coffee and in need of a change in music. I'm going to my car for some Neil Finn.
11:40-- The wife calls to say she's going to join me for lunch.
12:15 p.m.-- The wife joins me for lunch. She brings us tasty non-Atkins approved goodies such as pizza and a pecan encrusted stickybun, both baked by one of our fine downtown bakeries.
12:44--Holy shit! Stoner Lad just came in! I cannot believe my luck. Just when I thought today was going to be way more boring than I'd hoped, a long lost Rogue makes an appearance. We've not seen Stoner Lad in here for well over two years. He walks up to the desk and says, "Hey, uh, long time." Then he mumbles his way through a request to use a computer, saying he has something he really needs to print out. (Dare I hope more angsty half-literate teenage screw-letters?)
"Sure thing," I say.
After I log him on he says, "Uh, how clear are the lines today?"
"Pretty clear. We got DSL since you were here last."
"Sweet!"
Stoner Lad still dresses like he used to, which is to say small town gangsta wannabe, but with an auto-racing themed ball cap. His facial hair has gotten better too, as evidenced by his pointy goatee. He also dosen't seem to be actively "on" anything and has no trouble making eye contact when he speaking. Perhaps he's been away in rehab?
12:46-- A lady comes in and asks to use the bathroom. I don't figure this out until later when they leave together, but this turns out to be Stoner Lad's mom. Stoner lad prints out a few pages, pays for them and then leaves with mom, saying, "Bye." On their way out, she says something about having an old wallet of his with his library card still in it. Yeah, his OLD library card. Looks like maybe he's back in the area for a while.
12:55-- An assistant librarian in a neighboring county, who's head librarian is currently at the same meeting that Mrs. A is at, phones to ask to speak to Mrs. A. "Oh, wait... she's at that meeting," he says. Riiiiiiight.
1:02-- Oh, great! It's old rogue day! Jimmy the Anonymous Snitch just came in.
1:10-- Jimmy leaves after paying for his prints. I am irritated that he is coming here again, particularly since from everything we knew a few months back he was supposed to be going to jail for embezzling money from his employer. The last we'd heard he was supposed to have received his sentence in June, but we never learned what it was. He's been in a few times since then and was in yesterday. Evidently he's under house arrest or town arrest or maybe just was let off altogether. Who knows. Maybe he turned state's evidence against Bladderboy and was given a light slap on the wrist. Never did hear if the cops caught Bladders after their high-speed chase a while back.
1:22-- Harry the Killer Midget and Buddy come in. I've not written about Buddy before. He's a mentally handicapped man who comes in with an Unobstructed Doors aid. I call him Buddy because he once asked me if I would be his buddy, therefore I assume he is mine as well. Buddy is a really nice guy. His only major distinguishing characteristics, beyond the whole being my buddy thing, are that he's very tall and he always wants to know if Mary is working today. Nearly every time he comes in he asks one of the staff if Mary is working today. We always tell him, "No, Mary's not here today," at which point he responds, "Mary must be at home." None of us know who Mary is, nor has anyone named Mary ever worked here in the past thirty years, so we're not sure who he means. He didn't ask about Mary today.
2:48-- I've been running kind of silent. Mrs. C is supposed to come in to relieve me so I can go on break, but I don't know exactly when. Gotta keep my nose clean til then.
3:00-- Still no Mrs. C. One of our board members, Mrs. Aitch, comes in to do some fund-drive letter related paperwork. I'm jamming out to Neil Finn's One Nil when she arrives. Not sure if she approves.
3:50-- Mrs. C arrives to relieve me. I head to the post office to ship out ebay auction items, pop by the shoe store where I fail to find any decent shoes.
4:30-- I swing by the comic shop for the latest Bloodhound, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, the Supreme Power spin-off Doctor Spectrum book and something else I can't recall off hand. I'm terribly happy that the comic shop guy is now stocking Neil Gaiman's Sandman collections, after months and months of me bugging him about it. Now I'm going to have to do a Sandman symposium to get folks to buy it--uncultured peons!
4:45-- I pop by Ornathological Coffee, (not its real name), the local gallery/coffeeshop down the street for a cup of Sumatran coffee that is just slightly not hot enough, but is nevertheless tasty. While I'm there, I hear a familiar voice say, "So, how many books do I have now?" I turn to see Mrs. West, one of our regular patrons. Mrs. West almost always has books on hold with us. This is because she goes down the list of all the latest bestsellers that are out and has us put her on hold for them. Then she asks us to put her on hold for just about every other new fiction arrival as well. We're happy to do this. Trouble is, she NEVER answers the phone when we call. We have it on good authority that she's usually at home when we call, she just won't answer for whatever reason. This would be okay too, but she also refuses to purchase an answering machine saying they're annoying. Yes, they are annoying, especially when they don't pick up the phone and allow us to tell you your books are in. So our hold shelf is often CHOKED with holds for Mrs. West, which after 5 days have to be passed to the next patron on the list. I told her she had three waiting for her. She said that sounded like enough to justify a visit up the hill.
4:50-- I'm back on the job.
4:55-- A different board member, Mrs. Emm, comes in from the meeting they were having next door and asks if its true we have music CD's. It is. We got the same allotment of Remainder Closet material all libraries got after the big music industry settlement. I tell her that I don't promise it's all good, but there are some gems here and there. I guarantee her that the Shawn Colvin and Ben Folds Five are quality. She goes over and finds lots of things she likes (including the Colvin & Folds), then begins suggesting music to me, including Kas3y Chamb3rs and Gr3g Br0wn. "Br0wn's kind of folky," Mrs. Emm says, adding, "I like all sorts of music, though. Folk, rock, country, rap... I love Eminem!" I sort of just stared at her blankly for a few seconds on that one. Nothing against Em, but I just had trouble reconciling whether Mrs. Emm was really into his stuff or if she was just searching for some kind of street cred with me and Mrs. C.
5:00-- Mrs. C leaves via the back door before any of the other board members she see's lurking out front can find her and assign her something she doesn't want to have to stay extra to do. Good for her!
5:10-- Oooh. I'm asked by a computer patron to override our internet blocking software. It's the same guy who always asks us for overrides. In fact, I think he's the only guy who's ever asked us for an override. He's always trying to look at some album cover involving J essica Ra bbit. For some reason in the past I've never been able to get the override to work properly, but today it does. (And no, I didn't get a peek at it before I turned the station back over to him.)
5:27-- We are paid a brief and pleasant visit by the brother of the Purple Nun.
5:39-- Mrs. West, true to her word, comes in for her books.
6:03-- I begin attempting to eat my supper; a nice hunk of pork roast that I first cooked two nights back, plus some cheese and a spinach/artichoke dip I made. Mmm tasty, I love it.
6:22-- Still haven't been able to finish my food. We're plenty busy.
6:32-- A patron asks if he's smelling good food from one of the nearby restaurants or if that's coming from my food. I say, "Yup, that's probably my pork roast." It's not even heated and it smells good.
7:00-- The last patron departs, making sure to print out four pages just after I finish the daily cash box count. Thanks! I lock the doors and try to finish up my closing duties.
7:03-- Still closing up when someone starts pounding on the door to get in. Sorry, we's closed.
7:05-- Going home. It's a day.
Running tally for the day proceeds here...
8:50 a.m.-- I arrive at the library. There's a large SUV parked out front that I don't recognize. I figure it's a patron waiting for us to open, but no one is in it and no one is banging on the door to get in. I go to unlock the back door and find it's already unlocked and slightly ajar. Uh oh. Now I'm thinking the patron is inside, taking advantage of a door left unlocked by one of the librarians as they departed this morning. This kind of thing has happened before. As I cautiously round the corner of the computer hall, I get a line of sight on the circ desk and see Mrs. A there. Whew! Turns out it was Mr. A's SUV.
8:52-- I turn on the light switch for upstairs and blow the breaker.
9:00-- Mrs. C turns on the downstairs light switch and also blows the breaker. Mrs. A is irritated at this and swears we will not be paying to rewire the building since we're within a two year spitting distance of a brand new building altogether. As a result of the breaker blows, though, a third of the lightbulbs in the front room have gone. At 5'9", I'm still the tallest employee so it's always my job to change them. No doubt half the bulbs upstairs have also blown.
9:20-- Both patrons who've come in so far have given me cheerful yet marble-mouthed greetings that I don't understand. They are not together.
9:33-- First phone call for Mrs. A.
9:41-- Mr. & Mrs. Smiley arrive.
10:00-- I start changing bulbs.
10:19-- Boring assed task for the day: Stuffing fund drive envelopes. Mmm, boy howdy! At least I have Shawn Colvin's Whole New You album playing on the circ computer to keep me company. Great album.
10:35-- First computer patron of the day.
10:50-- A library staff member from Town-R's branch phones. Mind you, she doesn't identify herself whatsoever so I didn't know she wasn't a patron at first. The conversation followed:
CALLER: Is MRS. A there?
ME: No, I'm sorry, she's out of town for a meeting today. Can I take a message?
CALLER: Well... When I turned on my computer it said I have an error.
ME: (Realizing this is probably another library and not some derranged patron) Uhhh. What sort of error?
CALLER: (Dimly) It said "an error."
ME: Okayyy. Did you try turning it off and back on?
CALLER: Yes. It still says I have an error. I just want to know how to get it to stop telling me I have an error.
ME: (Since our branch is the regional hub for all computer issue requests, I realize I'll need to note this.) Well, if you'll give me your name I'll tell MRS. C when she gets back this afternoon.
CALLER: (Ignoring my question) I can still use the computer. I just want to know how to get it to stop telling me "error."
ME: (Trying not to get angry) I realize that. If I can have your name, please, I'll let MRS. C know about it.
CALLER: (Adopting a tone that says I should know full well exactly who I'm talking to) This is TOWN-R library.
Actually, I really should have known. If I were to make a list of the most computer illiterately staffed libraries in the area, Town-R would top it.
11:19-- Out of coffee and in need of a change in music. I'm going to my car for some Neil Finn.
11:40-- The wife calls to say she's going to join me for lunch.
12:15 p.m.-- The wife joins me for lunch. She brings us tasty non-Atkins approved goodies such as pizza and a pecan encrusted stickybun, both baked by one of our fine downtown bakeries.
12:44--Holy shit! Stoner Lad just came in! I cannot believe my luck. Just when I thought today was going to be way more boring than I'd hoped, a long lost Rogue makes an appearance. We've not seen Stoner Lad in here for well over two years. He walks up to the desk and says, "Hey, uh, long time." Then he mumbles his way through a request to use a computer, saying he has something he really needs to print out. (Dare I hope more angsty half-literate teenage screw-letters?)
"Sure thing," I say.
After I log him on he says, "Uh, how clear are the lines today?"
"Pretty clear. We got DSL since you were here last."
"Sweet!"
Stoner Lad still dresses like he used to, which is to say small town gangsta wannabe, but with an auto-racing themed ball cap. His facial hair has gotten better too, as evidenced by his pointy goatee. He also dosen't seem to be actively "on" anything and has no trouble making eye contact when he speaking. Perhaps he's been away in rehab?
12:46-- A lady comes in and asks to use the bathroom. I don't figure this out until later when they leave together, but this turns out to be Stoner Lad's mom. Stoner lad prints out a few pages, pays for them and then leaves with mom, saying, "Bye." On their way out, she says something about having an old wallet of his with his library card still in it. Yeah, his OLD library card. Looks like maybe he's back in the area for a while.
12:55-- An assistant librarian in a neighboring county, who's head librarian is currently at the same meeting that Mrs. A is at, phones to ask to speak to Mrs. A. "Oh, wait... she's at that meeting," he says. Riiiiiiight.
1:02-- Oh, great! It's old rogue day! Jimmy the Anonymous Snitch just came in.
1:10-- Jimmy leaves after paying for his prints. I am irritated that he is coming here again, particularly since from everything we knew a few months back he was supposed to be going to jail for embezzling money from his employer. The last we'd heard he was supposed to have received his sentence in June, but we never learned what it was. He's been in a few times since then and was in yesterday. Evidently he's under house arrest or town arrest or maybe just was let off altogether. Who knows. Maybe he turned state's evidence against Bladderboy and was given a light slap on the wrist. Never did hear if the cops caught Bladders after their high-speed chase a while back.
1:22-- Harry the Killer Midget and Buddy come in. I've not written about Buddy before. He's a mentally handicapped man who comes in with an Unobstructed Doors aid. I call him Buddy because he once asked me if I would be his buddy, therefore I assume he is mine as well. Buddy is a really nice guy. His only major distinguishing characteristics, beyond the whole being my buddy thing, are that he's very tall and he always wants to know if Mary is working today. Nearly every time he comes in he asks one of the staff if Mary is working today. We always tell him, "No, Mary's not here today," at which point he responds, "Mary must be at home." None of us know who Mary is, nor has anyone named Mary ever worked here in the past thirty years, so we're not sure who he means. He didn't ask about Mary today.
2:48-- I've been running kind of silent. Mrs. C is supposed to come in to relieve me so I can go on break, but I don't know exactly when. Gotta keep my nose clean til then.
3:00-- Still no Mrs. C. One of our board members, Mrs. Aitch, comes in to do some fund-drive letter related paperwork. I'm jamming out to Neil Finn's One Nil when she arrives. Not sure if she approves.
3:50-- Mrs. C arrives to relieve me. I head to the post office to ship out ebay auction items, pop by the shoe store where I fail to find any decent shoes.
4:30-- I swing by the comic shop for the latest Bloodhound, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, the Supreme Power spin-off Doctor Spectrum book and something else I can't recall off hand. I'm terribly happy that the comic shop guy is now stocking Neil Gaiman's Sandman collections, after months and months of me bugging him about it. Now I'm going to have to do a Sandman symposium to get folks to buy it--uncultured peons!
4:45-- I pop by Ornathological Coffee, (not its real name), the local gallery/coffeeshop down the street for a cup of Sumatran coffee that is just slightly not hot enough, but is nevertheless tasty. While I'm there, I hear a familiar voice say, "So, how many books do I have now?" I turn to see Mrs. West, one of our regular patrons. Mrs. West almost always has books on hold with us. This is because she goes down the list of all the latest bestsellers that are out and has us put her on hold for them. Then she asks us to put her on hold for just about every other new fiction arrival as well. We're happy to do this. Trouble is, she NEVER answers the phone when we call. We have it on good authority that she's usually at home when we call, she just won't answer for whatever reason. This would be okay too, but she also refuses to purchase an answering machine saying they're annoying. Yes, they are annoying, especially when they don't pick up the phone and allow us to tell you your books are in. So our hold shelf is often CHOKED with holds for Mrs. West, which after 5 days have to be passed to the next patron on the list. I told her she had three waiting for her. She said that sounded like enough to justify a visit up the hill.
4:50-- I'm back on the job.
4:55-- A different board member, Mrs. Emm, comes in from the meeting they were having next door and asks if its true we have music CD's. It is. We got the same allotment of Remainder Closet material all libraries got after the big music industry settlement. I tell her that I don't promise it's all good, but there are some gems here and there. I guarantee her that the Shawn Colvin and Ben Folds Five are quality. She goes over and finds lots of things she likes (including the Colvin & Folds), then begins suggesting music to me, including Kas3y Chamb3rs and Gr3g Br0wn. "Br0wn's kind of folky," Mrs. Emm says, adding, "I like all sorts of music, though. Folk, rock, country, rap... I love Eminem!" I sort of just stared at her blankly for a few seconds on that one. Nothing against Em, but I just had trouble reconciling whether Mrs. Emm was really into his stuff or if she was just searching for some kind of street cred with me and Mrs. C.
5:00-- Mrs. C leaves via the back door before any of the other board members she see's lurking out front can find her and assign her something she doesn't want to have to stay extra to do. Good for her!
5:10-- Oooh. I'm asked by a computer patron to override our internet blocking software. It's the same guy who always asks us for overrides. In fact, I think he's the only guy who's ever asked us for an override. He's always trying to look at some album cover involving J essica Ra bbit. For some reason in the past I've never been able to get the override to work properly, but today it does. (And no, I didn't get a peek at it before I turned the station back over to him.)
5:27-- We are paid a brief and pleasant visit by the brother of the Purple Nun.
5:39-- Mrs. West, true to her word, comes in for her books.
6:03-- I begin attempting to eat my supper; a nice hunk of pork roast that I first cooked two nights back, plus some cheese and a spinach/artichoke dip I made. Mmm tasty, I love it.
6:22-- Still haven't been able to finish my food. We're plenty busy.
6:32-- A patron asks if he's smelling good food from one of the nearby restaurants or if that's coming from my food. I say, "Yup, that's probably my pork roast." It's not even heated and it smells good.
7:00-- The last patron departs, making sure to print out four pages just after I finish the daily cash box count. Thanks! I lock the doors and try to finish up my closing duties.
7:03-- Still closing up when someone starts pounding on the door to get in. Sorry, we's closed.
7:05-- Going home. It's a day.
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