I totally missed yesterday! I’m not surprised as I worked my first 8-hour day in…well, nine months. No, I didn’t just have a child. I’ve been slacking. No, I’ve been SLACKING. Yes, much better. What will make you hate me more, I only have to work an 8-hour day once a week. Let me duck, and then veer left, now a right…if people stop throwing things and quit with the stink eye, I’ll explain.
I live in a tiny little town. Thanks to the powers that be, any public FREE, for the community kind of place is locked up tightly most of the week. This includes the library. We’re open Tuesdays thru Saturdays, four hours at a time. Right, doing some math, that’s a WHOLE 20 hours a week! Woo hoo! Break out the big guns. It’s all based on circulation, or so I was told. The smaller your numbers, the smaller your staff, and likewise, the shorter your hours. Thing is, since we’re NEVER open, most people do their “business” with us via cyberspace. We have an on-line catalog where people can place holds and renew their books. I found out, by accident, that all those transactions are attributed to the MAIN library, not the individual branch. How’s a kid supposed to show higher circulation functions when most of their “hits” don’t get counted? I’m not just a soapbox prophet; I put in my two cents with Technical Services. (And yes, sometimes I do feel like I’m dealing with the people from “Brazil” as I make my way through the phone system, “Central Services…” but no one ever answers with quite that same tone of voice.)
So, when first hired I was all for 8-hour WEEKS. I was just filling in where the Branch Manager and other Library Page couldn’t. The point was to get me out of the house! I’d quit my teaching job in Hawai’i and run away to Kings Beach to drink too much and hide. And maybe go a little insane in the company of a couple good friends? Yes, definitely. If you read my profile at all, I say recently divorced. Try: filed in February, completed and cleared in March. That’s Hawai’i for you, I guess. Want a quickie wedding? Try Nevada. Need a quickie divorce? Go Hawai’i. Who knew?
I was in no state for anything pragmatic or adult or, well, sane, when I first arrived. Andy’s nice; he describes me as “trying too hard” at times. I describe me as bonkers. By and by I’ve come a long way (baby) and now I’m trying to see if I can really break away from teaching for a bit and work in the public service via the library. 8-hours a week wasn’t going to cut it. I was ready to look into other means of making money when a second branch in the area needed more personnel. I jumped at the chance. Yesterday was my first day “double-shifting.” I work one branch in the morning, the second after lunch. I hurt. This whole library thing isn’t like teaching. I stand a whole lot more. Or lean on my hip that hasn’t quite healed from my last bicycle accident (in Hawai’i, in February, on my way to SIGN the DIVORCE papers…ugh.) Add the 30-40 degree weather into the mix, and wow, I hurt. But that’s what Advil was invented for, eh? Sure.
So, am I in for 40-hour weeks now? I wish. Try 40-hour pay periods (every 2 weeks), so now I’m officially working “part-time.” I’m patient, and cheap, so if the stars are aligned correctly and all the right deities like me, I might be able to pull this off. I’m told I should advertise my computer skills and try to get work fixing Macs in the area. I own my own set of torque screwdrivers (is that what you call those funny star-shaped-tipped thingies?) And I actually know how to use them :).
And I know, I said I was going to do something with like the knitting aspect of my life, but that was supposed to be yesterday’s post anyway, right? R-I-I-I-G-H-T. As it is, I’ve been “tagged” to do some blog-chain-about-me-thing. Back in the stone age of emailing (using Unix terminals and Pine or Elm here people) I was happily exonerated from chain-mail letters via an anti-chain letter. Now in the blogosphere, these “meme” things are spreading like wild-fire/chains. Oh well, I’ll get to it eventually. Promise (to the fiery daemons in control of my fate, or whatever. I don’t actually know what befalls someone who blows these things off…but I’m not superstitious, oh noooo, not at aaaaallllll).
Have an awesome pain-free day.
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