Saturday, May 10, 2014

Never boring

There was an incident in the teen room this evening. As far as I could get it a teenager living in a group home didn't want to leave the library with all her people when all her people were leaving the library. She yelled and threw things and resisted. I was pretty busy with the automated check in machine and was content merely to receive the reports as they filtered back to me. I refrained from gawking. For one thing it's not my favorite flavor for an incident; people yelling and having a fit, and for another it's pretty mundane. On average we get at least one large scale tantrum from a child not wanting to leave the library when they have to per day. This incident sounded a great deal like the same thing, only with a bit older and larger protagonist. 

Still, when there's great hubbub, and 911 is involved, one likes to keep loose tabs on whatever is going on. So I was happy for my colleague's briefing. And when he finished his briefing and said "It's never boring around here." I could have just performed my part in that call and response as I was supposed to. I could have said "No, it never is."

But that's not my way.

So I said "Actually, it is boring around here all the time." 

My colleague could only agree.

At my library there are crazy people, minor local celebrities, wildly adorable children, special one of a kind cultural events. The high watermarks of the human mind are ever at one's fingertips. There are diverse people of diverse backgrounds to talk to. There are new stories from patrons and co-workers and fascinating books everywhere you turn. Variable tasks, complicated problems, and unusual mysteries abound.

But, at heart, it's work. And it's boring.

Shelving, typing, requesting, searching, talking. Blah blah blah. Over and over.

So half of one's job is just making it interesting enough to bear, interesting enough to like, interesting enough to be interesting. Mostly one can do it. One can joke and chat with patrons and co-workers, one can apply oneself fiercely to their work, one can revel in being appraised of what's going on, one can read every chance they get, one can race over thoughts of everything happening around them for their blog, one can apply deep conviction to helping patrons, and one can disappear into dreams. There is a mighty lot one can do to make it all work.

But scintillating blog post stories, frightful tantrum throwing teen patrons, and challenging tasks though there may be, it's still pretty boring around here. And one should be a little careful about pretending too much, even if pretending a lot can be a pretty good idea.

2 comments:

  1. I not from your country but want to compliment such extraordinary writing of your daily post. Many persons read and enjoy this blog but why not more fan mail and sycophant following like I am? Why Americans so shy about their great artists? In my country we treat you like great prince and smother you with pleasures.

    ReplyDelete

If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.

I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!

One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.