Readership to Librarianship

You know what I heard? I heard it was Take Your Blog Readership to Work Day some time this week. Josh said so. But then, Josh says all sorts of squirrelly things that are not to be trusted because he may be just joshing, so I don't know if this one is for reals.

Hey- Josh could be JUST JOSHING! How could I have never thought to say this before? These are the moments in my life that should be celebrated in some sort of Italian Roast Instant Coffee commercial.

Anyway, I will pretend that Take Your Blog Readership to Work Day is real. To that end, yesterday during a lunch break, I took some half-hearted photos with my craptastic camera phone while on a lunch break to show you, my Readership, how I roll as I work in Librarianship. Because anything that has that many "ship" words in it HAS to be fun, right?

First of all, yesterday was an awesome day on the Librarian Ship because this morning, before we opened, there was a surprise party. And the surprise party was FOR ME. See, I am transferring to another library location next week, and the staff at my current location threw me a party to say "later, gator." It was way awesome.

You want to know something really pathetic about me? (Just add it to the list, yo). I have never had a party thrown for me before. Like, EVER. Except when I was growing up and my parents threw me a birthday wingding. But, as an adult? No parties thrown for me. I have thrown lots of parties for others, lots for myself, and I have attended lots of parties thrown by others for others, and I have always had this secret thought in my head, sort of wistful-like, about how awesome it would be for someone to throw me a party. One where I don't have to organize anything. Because, you know, I am usually that person, who organizes things. And I love doing it, but this? Today? Walking into a room and having the food taken care of, and a cake, and flowers, and a nice card, and everything? And all I had to do was show up and take it all in? LOVED IT.


They even got me flowers, those rascals.

Ok, on to more common work things in the life of me.

Well this first thing isn't very common, but I have to share. People often call and leave me strange messages on voicemail. Like, people who have the wrong number. I don't know what it is, but it happens to me more than the average amount. This morning, I showed up to a voicemail message that went a little something like this:

"Um, hi. I think maybe I have the wrong number. I'm not sure. This is the SeaTac airport cargo department calling, and we have a crate of frogs here for you to pick up. But it doesn't sound like the library would be the right place for this call to go. So, um. If it IS you that is expecting a crate of frogs, then call me back."

A crate of frogs! First a surprise party and now a crate of frogs? This must be my lucky day.

Enough ridiculousness. I have boring photos to share!

The first thing that you are probably thinking of when thinking of a librarian gig is books. And you would be right, there are a lot of books in my life. Stacks and stacks of them that I get to handle and love and care for. But if I were to be perfectly honest with you, the thing I interact with more than books? Would be this.


The daily screen stare down

Usually the computer is turned on though. Obviously.

One thing my building has is an abundance of windows. Even as I sit at my desk, I am bathed in the glow of the Seattle sun, which makes scant appearances like an agoraphobic starlet.


I realize the window panes in this photo look like scary prison bars, but the effect in person is really nice. Really. Trust me.

And by the way, the word agoraphobia? Cracks my shit up. Because see, in Hindi, the word "gora" means "white person." So like, to my ear, it sounds like the word "agoraphobia" means "fear of white people." Which strikes me as hilarious. No offense to white people. Or real agoraphobics. Or people who are afraid of white people.

ANYHOO.

This is my office door. It has a port hole in it! Is that not the best thing ever? So when I am in my office, and my door is shut (not very often, but still), people can come and view me through the port hole. Or I can view the outside world as if it is a wondrous aquatic world that I dare not enter without a wetsuit.


Behold the strange librarian life.

I feel like I am painting a very odd picture with these photos. Prison-like windows, a port hole door...what does this say about my work life? That it may drive me a little crazy?

To keep myself sane, I have a photo stuck on my wall right behind my computer monitor, so that it is in my peripheral vision at all times that I am computing. It's a photo of me and my pals on our annual beach house summer vacation. Looking at it can get me through just about any bad day.


Snapshot sanity.

You may be asking yourself, Librarian, do you sit in your office all day? Why no, dear reader, I don't. Very little time is actually spent in my office. I spend most of my time in the library. But running around there taking photos is sort of unseemly, plus I was on my lunch break and I do most often eat my lunch at my desk (is that bad? It seems bad to say that) so that's the photos that you're getting.

I'll leave you with a photo of the stairs that lead from my office to the library proper. I run up and down these goldarn stairs about a jillion times every day. It is healthy for my ass and a pain in my ass all at the same time.


Upsy downsy upsy downsy

That's all I could muster up, friends. Five minutes of sitting at my desk and taking photos during a lunch break. But that's ok, right? Especially since Josh probably made this whole thing up anyway.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl