Day in the Life of an Idiot

 Hisashiburi desu! Long time, no see!

How is everyone?

I've been obviously kind of out of it. Once again, I don't have any particularly good reason, although, as I reported earlier, I was at Maplewood Library a TON last week, filling in for someone having a family crisis. I was there Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, all morning, until 3pm.  I like Maplewood. Once again, I got a vague non-offer to consider working there more regularly...which I would love, but, as I told them, that's not even in the picture until we get Mason off to whatever college/university he's considering sometime after next year. 

It's physically demanding work, though?

I know that most people imagine working at the library as very genteel. Shelving books at leisurely pace, answering one or two patron's questions in a quiet, contemplative space, while sitting at a desk surrounded by books.... no, I WISH. I liken being a circulation staff member to working at a book factory. It's HARD labor. When I come in, typically, there are deliveries to tackle. Deliveries come in HEAVY plastic boxes and giant metal bins almost as tall as I am. When I'm at Maplewood, Shoreview, or Roseville, the GOOD NEWS is that I don't have to check-in all those books by hand, but I do have to put them on a conveyor belt that sorts them into the appropriate bins. When bins fill, they need to be sorted by hand, but they are at least all of a type, say, all the fiction (though you do have to separate the genres, make sure the new books go to the right book truck, etc., etc.) There are also movies and other media that need to be sight checked before they can go onto carts, because people will forget discs or put in the wrong ones. Then, there's all the requests, which the bin sorts, except, we have to print out receipts for each one and get those alphabetically by borrower on a separate cart.... and that's just when you're working the check-in machine. Remember, too, you are lifting boxes and twisting and setting books onto the belt. I literally sweat doing this work, because it has to be done before the SECOND delivery comes and you start it all over again.

If you're not on the machine, you're doing all sorts of other check-in work, except by hand. There's all the expired-requests that have to get taken off the hold shelves and returned to other libraries, request lists from other libraries that need to be pulled from the shelves and hand checked in to print out the slips and sorted into the appropriate boxes to be shipped to the right libraries, etc., etc., etc., until your arms are tired, your brain is fried, and your feet hurt.

Even so, I hate shelving the most. I know a lot of people who have volunteered or worked as high schoolers in a library who think back fondly of being in the stacks and shelving or sight-reading the shelves. I actually don't hate sight-reading, but if you think that we ever have time for such a leisurely activity at one of the Ramsey County libraries, hahahahahahahaha! (<--insane laughter.) I hate shelving because it's also a time crunch and a lot of it is, oh, here's yet another Vince Flynn book to stick with the thousands of others or James Patterson or Nora Roberts.  It's not the "oooo, look at this precious gem of an unknown author that looks so interesting...." 

That might be the fault of Ramsey County, though, because they are not in the habit of keeping things on their shelves that people don't check out regularly. 

I do love shelving in the manga and comic book sections because they're often small enough that I can do a little sight-reading (making sure all the volumes are in the right order, etc.) and shelf straightening and browsing. 

But, yeah, normally, it's not RELAXING. I still love the work, however, don't get me wrong, I just really wanted to write this to disabuse people of the sense they seem to have that my job is somehow slow-paced and pleasant. (No, I get 11.50/hr. to break my back lifting boxes of books). But, yes, I still like this job better than almost any other that I have ever had, because love books that much. And libraries attract the very best co-workers. The VERY best.

Also, I have a weird sort of pride in how busy our libraries are. So, like while I'm sweating, I'm thinking, "Yeah, you know, we're only this busy because people are reading this MUCH." Which makes me happy?  Plus, libraries these days provide so many services. One of the reasons they wanted to make sure someone was covering this last week is because they started up their annual AARP tax help service--which is free by the way and open to anyone, just the AARP sponsors it and it's aimed at helping seniors. But, this means, there's a LINE waiting to get in in the mornings, because it's first come, first serve.

Libraries are crazy, awesome places.

And, word has gotten out that I am a manga fan so I actually am going to have a chance to talk to one of the major manga purchasers for my library and give them my fantasy list of titles I want them to buy. I've been collecting titles all week, in fact. If you are a manga fan, feel free to drop a title in my comments, but, it may be a surprise to you, but the library has a LOT of the titles you're probably thinking of, even brand-new stuff, but certainly most of the "classics." I've actually learned about hot new manga from the library. I read most of My Hero Academia through the library and One-Punch Man. 

In fact, I just binge watched the first season of an anime that I discovered as a manga at my library: Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku. 

So, you know, it's all good. 

So, tell me something that would surprise me about YOUR job!