February 6, 2018

This morning I woke up (as I tend to do), ran on the elliptical, ironed my pants, got ready, and went to work. My opening routine was slightly different this morning because along with all the other stuff, I also had to get a new battery for the wall clock by our desk. Exciting times.

I was on desk for two hours when we opened and I did things. The weirdest thing involved an email from a patron making a purchase request for a book we already own. That wasn't the weird part, because that happens regularly. The weird part was that the patron currently had that book checked out. I didn't say that in the email because I didn't want to make things awkward, so I gave her an out when letting her know that we had the book, by offering to place it on hold for her. And then she responded, saying she would like me to do that. So I did. She will return the book because someone else is on hold for it, and then she'll get the book back. I even mentioned the title of the book multiple times, trying to jog her memory or at least let her see that maybe she was asking for the wrong book. I should have just said it was a book she already had, but at the time it was just too weird.

I also looked for a book for another library, read articles, and had a really positive reference interaction. A patron walked up and wanted essays about nature, preferably about gardens, and that really stumped me. She mentioned a couple books that we didn't have and that I had never heard of so I looked them up on Amazon to see if we could find some similar books but that didn't lead anywhere. I kept trying to refine my search but that wasn't working so I eventually just took her to the “nature” section and we browsed, starting with forests and working our way through animals. Even though she wanted gardens, she said she had already looked through that section so I thought it best to stay away from there. We started walking through the aisle and I pulled books that looked promising and she eventually ended up with several books. In the beginning I think we were really close to her walking away kind of pissed off, and then by the end she walked away really happy. It was pretty great. The power of serendipitous browsing.

When I got off desk I had a walkthrough and refilled my Mystery display. I may have gotten a bit carried away with that because now it is brimming. It looks like when librarians fill their display before going on vacation, which is to say, almost every inch of the bookshelf is covered in books.

I ate lunch in the cubicle again because it was snowing and I wasn't going to deal with it. I ended up watching YouTube videos and staring out the giant floor-to-ceiling windows at the snow. I like watching snow from inside.

I was on desk for an hour after lunch that really flew by. One of the regular patrons who comes in to use our phone a lot mentioned he had read my article in the paper, so that was cool. I also ran down to the mailroom to pick up another box from the IRS. We now have the 1040EZ forms and the regular 1040 instruction books. What the crap IRS? I can't make a display out of that. The patrons would be equal parts confused and annoyed. I think other stuff has shipped as well so we'll see if I can get something together before tax season is over.

We had our tech drop in today and the most of the first hour was spent working on my adulting bookplate ideas and talking to the one-on-one tech lady about random things, because she was the second person today instead of the volunteer. Around three o'clock a patron showed up but it turns out she was actually there an hour early for her appointment with the one-on-one tech lady. We said screw it though because no one else had come, so they started working on her questions, and I continued working on the bookplate and occasionally answering questions they had.

After the drop-in I did a quick walkthrough and then I was on desk for the last hour of the day. A decent chunk of that time was spent trying to help a somewhat regular patron find a book. She wanted a large print Christian fiction book that was part of a series but wasn't Amish or historical. All of those stipulations pretty much canceled out every Christian fiction author or book I could think of, so that wasn't helpful. And she couldn't remember the books or authors she liked, also not helpful. I looked for quite awhile and kept throwing out ideas that were not well received. She ended up just going with a new Nicholas Sparks book that she hadn't read. She normally gets helped by another librarian, who won't be back from vacation until tomorrow, so I think she'll be back. Luckily she had a good sense of humor about it so I was able to joke around with her. She also told me that she had fallen recently and couldn't get back up so the fire department ended up having to come help her. She thanked them by bringing them a cake that said something along the lines of “Thank you for picking my fat ass up.” I thought that was pretty funny.

When I got home I wasn't in the mood to cook, and I close the next two nights so I didn't think it made much sense to cook, so I just had a peanut butter sandwich. Which is what I'll be having for the next two nights as well. Good thing I like peanut butter. While I ate I watched YouTube videos and then eventually played CoD: WW2. Demolition has been added this week so I played a few rounds of that. I've got to admit I spent most of the time confused as to whether or not my team was attacking or defending. They have also made it so you have to be next to the planted bomb suitcase in order to defuse it. I think previously you just had to be next to the giant boxes that are being blown up. This adds another element of confusion because you have to find the suitcase first. I think they also made the crates taller so they are perfect for head-glitching now, which is annoying. But I'll figure it all out. Or I won't and they'll take it away and life will go on.

Now it is late, and I've got a headache, so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. I get to sleep in (if I get to bed soon) and I'm looking forward to that.