This morning I didn't run on the elliptical, once again, because of
my knee. Instead, I paid a lot of bills. Nothing like spending over
a thousand dollars before you're even fully awake.
I did all the opening things and then I was on desk for two hours. I
helped patrons but spent most of my time working on the screenshots
and email for my boss about the website. After wrapping up the stuff
related to the usability videos I also threw in the contrast issues
with the main menu. It's annoyed me from the beginning, before the
new site even went live, but that feedback didn't lead anywhere. So
getting that changed is going to be my new thing. I also got one of
the other librarians on my side, she's going to start adding it in as
a recommendation on her monthly reports, and the one-on-one tech
trainer, who works with a lot of older folks who struggle with
contrast and small text issues, is on board as well. The last thing
I harped on and on about in my monthly report recommendation section
was self-checkout upstairs, which should be happening when the
remodeling eventually happens, so I need another cause. It should be
a fairly simple fix, so hopefully I won't have to bug people for too
long.
With the rest of my morning I had a walkthrough, caught up on the
news, and got a brief start on redesigning the new monthly report
form. Previously we used a Word document, but our boss would have to
open that and a couple other documents from various places whenever
she wanted to compile information for our reviews. Now she has moved
it all to a spreadsheet file on our internal online portal, or
whatever we want to call it. There is a page for our goals, one for
the things we're working on, and then one for each monthly report.
The idea is good but the formatting wasn't great, and my boss was
aware of that, and kept mentioning, half-jokingly, that I could make
it look better. And that is pretty much all I did with my afternoon.
I started by creating a mock-up in Excel and then recreated it in
what is basically an open source version of Excel that we use in the
portal. After the fact I figured out that I probably could have just
imported the Excel file, but I didn't really lose much time
recreating it.
My main focus was on the monthly report for itself, and I'm happy
with how that turned out. I think it looks much cleaner and simpler.
After getting that nailed down I copied it a bunch, creating pages
for the rest of the months, including the first three (so I could go
back and fill those in with the old reports, just to have a full year
on the new system). Then I moved onto the other two page, which I
also pared down and cleaned up. I'm biased, but I really like how
everything turned out. Unlike the previous formatting, I don't feel
the subtle hint of anxiety tugging at my periphery when I look at
them. When I was satisfied with everything I spent the last bit of
my day creating a template for the design that I can share with my
coworkers, in case they want to use it.
When I got home I ate dinner and then eventually headed to my Mom's
house. She thought we agreed on meeting a little before seven
o'clock and I thought we agreed to a little after seven o'clock. In
my defense, I nailed a little after seven o'clock. And we ended up
having plenty of time to spare. We went to see an author and it
was pretty great. I think I've only read one of his books, with
other bits here and there, and I always enjoy catching him on NPR, so
it was cool to see him live. He did not disappoint. It also makes
me wish I could commit more to writing. Or at least writing
interesting things. This journal is an obvious piece of evidence
that I do write quite a bit, but it's not very compelling. I want to
write something fun and interesting. Someday.
After the show, I looked at my Mom's TV when we got back to the
house. It had apparently wouldn't turn on earlier in the day. I
don't know that I did anything special but I was able to get it to
come back on, so hopefully the not turning on thing was just a fluke.
Now I'm going to bed because that's what I like to do at the end of
each day.
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