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dream_labyrinthI have five minutes left from my internet time, so here goes:
The library I work in has two parts. One for the professional needs of the users - soldiers and civilian teachers - and one for their free time.
The base has a regular unit, but also hosts a lot of courses, meaning we have many users who are only here for a few weeks or so. There is the United Nations Training Center and the infantry school. So the "audience" is diverse.
I buy books and get them ready for lending, I work at the desk and theoretically I should do reference questions, too. But the library has only one computer with internet access and no access to databases, so there isn't much research I can do.
I live on the base in a room I used to share with a soldier, now have alone and might share with a trainee sometime in December.
The work is pretty interesting. People are really nice and I learn a lot. My colleague is nice, but I think we might get some trouble in time, as I have soem ideas about how work should be done that might collide with hers. And I am the boss, even though I am four years younger and she has been there much longer, knows the job and the people.
But I think that people should be able to get into the library when we are supposed to be open, and not find the door locked because we are on breakfast break in another department. No go with me there.
Also, she doesn't finish one job before starting a new one, and leaves chaos at our main work computer, which is the one with the internet access, that is also used by patrons when they need something.
Which sucks.
At the moment, we are hit by December fever. Comes early in the army. December fever is what happens when you have a budget you need to spend before the end of the year or give it back and never see the money again. For us, deadline is Monday. So we ordered a ton of books recently and they need to be catalogued and the bills need to be stamped and handed to the office that takes care of them. I wanted to get the last one in today, but the oder arrived around ten and I didn't have enough time to get it done before everybody else left for the weekend. Need to do that Monday.
On Tuesday we have a meeting to discuss whether any department has money left, and maybe we'll get some more money to spend on the "public library" part. My predecessor, who had been working there for something like 30 years, never did much to those books, so I need to buy a lot new and get rid of horribly outdated stuff.
And some time ago a young woman had my job, between that man and me, who hadn't much of a concept at all, aside from having the job for only six months. She put aside some books to get thrown out, but actually there is some good stuff in there she just thought to get rid of because she didn't know the authors or whatever, I don't even know, because she didn't make notes of what and why she wanted to throw out. SO I am going through these books and try to make a final decision.
The "academic library" part is in closed stacks right now, but there is a plan to open it to the public. Which will mean resorting the books completely, and probably changing the shelves around. So I don't really suffer from a lack of work.
(If you wonder how I manage to type this in five minutes, I bought another fifteen minutes, of which five are still left.)
I definitely will get my own place quickly after my six weeks of "probation" are up. I can't really surf as much as I want to at work, because I don't know how closely we are supervised and I don't want to get into trouble. But here in the library it's loud and annoying and there are way too many people.
And it is pretty cold, my fingers are freezing, making it hard to type.
I eat with the soldiers, which is pretty funny. The food is decent, usually, though often too salty. On weekends, however, there aren't many people who stay on the base and I am not sure what sort of food we will be getting. I didn't drive home this weekend and won't for the time being. Too much stress. Time's up.
The library I work in has two parts. One for the professional needs of the users - soldiers and civilian teachers - and one for their free time.
The base has a regular unit, but also hosts a lot of courses, meaning we have many users who are only here for a few weeks or so. There is the United Nations Training Center and the infantry school. So the "audience" is diverse.
I buy books and get them ready for lending, I work at the desk and theoretically I should do reference questions, too. But the library has only one computer with internet access and no access to databases, so there isn't much research I can do.
I live on the base in a room I used to share with a soldier, now have alone and might share with a trainee sometime in December.
The work is pretty interesting. People are really nice and I learn a lot. My colleague is nice, but I think we might get some trouble in time, as I have soem ideas about how work should be done that might collide with hers. And I am the boss, even though I am four years younger and she has been there much longer, knows the job and the people.
But I think that people should be able to get into the library when we are supposed to be open, and not find the door locked because we are on breakfast break in another department. No go with me there.
Also, she doesn't finish one job before starting a new one, and leaves chaos at our main work computer, which is the one with the internet access, that is also used by patrons when they need something.
Which sucks.
At the moment, we are hit by December fever. Comes early in the army. December fever is what happens when you have a budget you need to spend before the end of the year or give it back and never see the money again. For us, deadline is Monday. So we ordered a ton of books recently and they need to be catalogued and the bills need to be stamped and handed to the office that takes care of them. I wanted to get the last one in today, but the oder arrived around ten and I didn't have enough time to get it done before everybody else left for the weekend. Need to do that Monday.
On Tuesday we have a meeting to discuss whether any department has money left, and maybe we'll get some more money to spend on the "public library" part. My predecessor, who had been working there for something like 30 years, never did much to those books, so I need to buy a lot new and get rid of horribly outdated stuff.
And some time ago a young woman had my job, between that man and me, who hadn't much of a concept at all, aside from having the job for only six months. She put aside some books to get thrown out, but actually there is some good stuff in there she just thought to get rid of because she didn't know the authors or whatever, I don't even know, because she didn't make notes of what and why she wanted to throw out. SO I am going through these books and try to make a final decision.
The "academic library" part is in closed stacks right now, but there is a plan to open it to the public. Which will mean resorting the books completely, and probably changing the shelves around. So I don't really suffer from a lack of work.
(If you wonder how I manage to type this in five minutes, I bought another fifteen minutes, of which five are still left.)
I definitely will get my own place quickly after my six weeks of "probation" are up. I can't really surf as much as I want to at work, because I don't know how closely we are supervised and I don't want to get into trouble. But here in the library it's loud and annoying and there are way too many people.
And it is pretty cold, my fingers are freezing, making it hard to type.
I eat with the soldiers, which is pretty funny. The food is decent, usually, though often too salty. On weekends, however, there aren't many people who stay on the base and I am not sure what sort of food we will be getting. I didn't drive home this weekend and won't for the time being. Too much stress. Time's up.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 05:17 pm (UTC)Does that mean you decide which books are bought for the leisure library? If so, I suppose it's been heavily stocked with harry Potter lately ;)
You might consider putting some Stephenson in there. Especially Cryptonomicon.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 06:10 pm (UTC)This is because after probation, you can't be fired without a couple of months advance notice, and you can appeal if fired without reason. Germany doesn't have the hire-and-fire system like the US. Unions pushed through a lot of worker protection legislation here.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 10:28 pm (UTC)Things like this make it so hard for an intelligent liberal to resist a knee-jerk urge to diss the US economic and business models. Must. Not. Sloganize. Must. Use. Complete. Sentences.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 09:35 am (UTC)Stephenson? Not sure whether I know that author.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-13 06:25 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:17 am (UTC)He also wrote a nonfiction book, In The Beginning Was The Command Line, about the history of computers and the changing paradigms of operating systems, and a couple of highly interesting articles for <a href="http://www.wired.com>Wired Magazine</a>. In my not so humble opinion, Stephenson rocks hard.