On Thursday the manager of the branch of the library at which I work whisked me into her office to push the doors shut and say, "Amy, I'm very pleased to be able to offer you a position as adult page."
And I grinned (very wide) and said, "I accept."
So I start on the 31st, and I will no longer be one of the 'kids'. For the most part, I'm happy about this. My pay goes up by half again, and I get to keep working in a place I know and like.
Back in December, I was working on an essay for my English course, and the phone rang. Normally when the phone rings at our house, someone contemplates the display and shouts one of three things:
"Ben, it's Cole."
"1-800/Ontario/Washington! Don't answer it!"
"Mom, should I pick this up?"
However, only two of us were home, and we both ignored the phone, because it is bothersome and intrusive and I am an introvert. (See below. I like written communication.) I went up to check the messages a second later, though, and it was someone from the Mill Woods library wanting to know if I wanted to come in for an interview.
!!!
So I did a happy dance, made happier by four applications for the job and eight months of waiting, and called her back right away to say YES TUESDAY AT 4 IS FINE :D
And thus began my sojourn as a student page, which will have lasted eight and a half months in total. One of the first tidbits of information I received was, "We all try to be very welcoming to the new student pages, but sometimes this scares them." Being a student page can be a bit like having fifteen aunts and an uncle or two.
The first shelving truck I did took me a while, and I did it in the company of other pages chatting it up with one another and going a lot faster than I was. Since then, though, I've learned some things:
- The worst type of inquiry from a patron is, "Your site says you have this book, but I can't find it on the shelf."
- From 637 (dogs) to 782 (music) is the section most likely to take the longest to clean.
- We have many books on knitting.
- Wear comfortable shoes to work.
- Almost no one likes shelf-reading, and I'm a weirdo for enjoying it.
- Don't weed according to date unless someone tells you to.
- The Teen section is the worst place for girls in very skinny jeans and guys with piercings to be sucking each other's faces off.
- "Ask them at the info desk" is the answer to all questions, including, "Where are your books on fly fishing?" and "What is the meaning of life?"
- To shelve a DVD truck is to risk being mobbed.
- There's always at least one rogue computer chair.
Thus is the wisdom I will be imparting to my replacement.
3 comments:
I can relate to a lot of this, as I've been working in our library for the past year. I think I would agree that you're a little weird for enjoying shelf reading, but then, there are a few jobs at our library that only I enjoy. :-P
Having worked as a page for about 2.5 years while I was in high school, I can totally relate. Shelf reading in *shudder* Children's was the worst. Although sometimes it could be entertaining: one of my colleagues actually found a book in that department that had a charred imprint of a stove coil on the cover. You can just imagine the events leading up to that. :) Also, I think the dinosaur section was among the worst there, somewhere around 567 if I remember right. Generally, us pages would try and make the actual shelving last as long as possible before diving into that mess.
I remember another time when myself and a coworker carried a trolley of paperbacks up the stairs when the elevator broke down. It seemed really funny at the time. And one day we found a mysterious key on top of some shelves, underneath about a half-inch of dust. (Times like that make fantasy stories seem real!) So later on I wrote the date on a piece of paper and put it atop a shelf to see if it would stand the test of time. It lasted almost a year.
I've got many more random memories of the library, so thanks for bringing some of them back. :) And welcome to adulthood!
Dave
Just catching up on my Blog reading.
Didn't have a chance to congratulate you on your new library job. WAY TO GO Amy!
I'm not the least bit surprised, though.
Anyone would know when to hire a good employee.
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