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September 05, 2000
Busy day at work, rambling entry...
Whoooo, was today busy... the new semester has started, so there are lost-looking new students coming out of the woodwork. I got nothing done -- and this time, it wasn't because of excessive slacking. I started off the morning with a very brusque and pushy professor, upset because we were unable to read his mind, and therefore did not have the books he wanted on Reserve for his class -- which started today. Every time I tried to explain that he needed to give us a list of the materials he wanted for Reserve, or have his assistant, or trained monkey, or whatever, give us a list, he cut me off with "I'm in a hurry. Just take everything you had last year, and put it back on for this year." Again with the mind-reading. I finally got him to hear at least some part of what he was saying, because an hour or so later, his very bewildered assistant (alas, not a trained monkey) came in asking what he had sent her to us for. She gave us a list -- five $#@%$! pages worth of books for us to fetch --and it was all resolved. After that, I had an annoyingly-long staff meeting -- it ran half an hour late, which threw my boss's carefully-planned schedule off. We're shortstaffed, as always, so everyone at the desk has to be scheduled fairly rigidly. Is it wrong of me that my only real concern was when I would get to go to lunch?
We had an information table with free stuff for new students last week and today, which meant I got to stand outside in the sun chatting with my friend Nathan and shouting "Hey, come get some free stuff!" at students passing by. I also got a weird little triangular sunburn on my upper chest, thanks to the v-neck sweater I was wearing. (A tip: never wear a cozy black sweater on a day you'll have to stand in the sun for an hour, no matter how cold the weatherman says it's going to be. Way too hot.) I brought home a deck of cards, some shiny pencils, a little paperclip/note holder thingie, and a little brush for getting dust off your computer screen home for my roommate -- they were all table leftovers, and all have either the library's information or the logos of databases we use on them. She seemed to like them -- she busted out the screen cleaner right away.
In between the meeting and the info table, I spent all day trying to put one book on Reserve. Just one measly book. That normally takes me five minutes. Today, it took hours, and I still didn't finish. The main problem was my slighty-off coworker, who was so involved in reading his email that he wouldn't help anyone who came to the desk -- he just sent them down to me, ignoring the growing heap of books and paperwork looming over my side of the desk, and the growing line of people just waiting to ask a question, or get their little raffle ticket (also from the info table) validated. I finally yelled at him to start helping some people, so I could actually get something done, but by then it was too late to do anything except try to clean up the mess. I staggered out of work at 4:30 with my hair standing on end and my head aching. Rereading the second Harry Potter book on the T helped, as did the nice empty bus that pulled up right behind the insanely-crowded bus at Haymarket -- I got a seat for a change, and didn't get elbowed, stomped on, or trampled in the process. Now I am at home, contently nibbling Chinese food while waiting for my grocery delivery to arrive. The odd thumps and crashes coming from the living room are mildly annoying -- Smoke, Tucker and Zoe are enjoying the fact that it's cool out, and are rocketing around the apartment. Sigh. But on the whole, I'm tired, and happy to be at home. Now if the damn dog next door would just stop barking for five minutes...
Posted by Mary Ellen at September 5, 2000 04:31 PM