libday5
much to my embarrassment, i signed up for the library day in the life project last week and didn’t manage more than a couple of tweets. i had signed up because i wanted to compare my experiences this past winter (when i was getting maybe two half shifts a week) to this current whirlwind of activity which is summer casual work. i’ve been so flat out i haven’t had time to think about it.
so the week came and went, and i’m too late for libday5 but i’m not too late to take stock.
last week i worked sunday to saturday with a brief respite on thursday when i took some hours off to watch my roomies’ band play at a local summer festival. highlights included experiencing a particularly challenging week of changes to government forms and a slew of legal questions, and getting to help an ornery patron locate vampire novels (which is not my specialty, but i made her smile — a real wow, huh? moment for me). the other most notable occurrences included a certain wingnut who came to the library with a slew of fish related queries, and a poorly located poo that took place in the men’s washroom urinal (this came only hours after i was teasing a librarian friend that the only notable difference between our jobs was her responsibility for alarms and cleanup). i oddly worked four of the six days at the same branch (a particular favourite of mine), and one bizarre shift where i found myself improvising with a bunch of circulation duties i’m not familiar with (um, print hold notices? what?!).
i left the week off feeling really positive about my work. the major difference between this past week and the week i blogged about in january was not having the uncertainty of last-minute call outs. as much as it’s great to come in and be profusely thanked by the librarian who now gets to have a lunch break because i’ve arrived, it’s even better to know i’m going to be able to make rent with no problems. throughout july i’ve done stretches of as many as 14 days in a row (though most aren’t full shifts they still take up the day with a decent commute), and for the most part it’s been absolutely fine. there were a few tired days when i spilled coffee all over my car, myself, or both and had to spend a good bit of time trying to convince my sometimes coworkers that i was in fact competent, but like i said: overwhelmingly good.
i’ve especially been taking stock this month since it’s a year now that i’ve been an employed library tech, and only slightly more than a year since i graduated. no doubt my skills and knowledge have expanded like gangbusters, but i also can’t help but notice how much more comfortable i am with my coworkers. it’s hard being an on-call because i’m always stepping into someone else’s shoes, messing up the general routine of a given library, and just generally signaling chaos in big bold letters. it’s not that i as an individual bring chaos (i’m often given the big ups for being such a huge help, really flexible, and smart as anything) but having a call-in means someone is ill, away, or it’s so dang busy that the library needed reinforcements. i had a coworker at the guildford branch say, “it’s like you’re a regular employee — you’re always here!” and it brought little flutters of happiness to my starched and orderly library-worker heart. ah, to find a place in the chaos…
