Excuses

You are probably wondering why, when I was assigned to an hour long block of non-fiction shelving, I only managed to shelve one half of the top shelf of my cart.

There are good reasons.


1:00   The person replacing me at the phones was five minutes late.

1:05   One of my favorite former co-workers, who now, in retirement, subs occasionally, and who shares an interest with me in obscure, regional, and experimental candies, had brought in a candy bar called "King Bing". It had reached its optimal temperature and she was sharing it out and telling us about her trip to the largest candy store in the world in Jordan, Minnesota. King Bing was a cherry fondant surrounded by a peanut coated sort of chocolate substance. It was not particularly good due to the poor quality and artificial contents of its ingredients, but that's not really the point. The point was the small, strange adventure of eating a bite of it.

1:12   Time to sign the retirement card for co-worker that I haven't seen in a year.

1:14   While wheeling the non-fiction cart to the elevator a volunteer stopped me to inquire about my co-worker's limp. Answering him led to an account of his own knee problems, which led to a discussion of Doctors, which led to the recounting of an episode of the TV show Louie.

1:26  Failure to sufficiently push the "up" button on the elevator.

1:28  Decided it would be a good time to go to the bathroom.

1:31  Ritual gathering of clerks around the weather radar on the computer. Group musing on why it was so hazy out. No satisfactory explanation was agreed upon.

1:33  Sufficiently pushed "up" button on elevator but ran into congestion at the vestibule exit door to upstairs shelving areas.

1:35  Was asked by librarian if, as supply sergeant, I could in any way procure divider tabs. I could, but this turned out to be a far longer discussion than one would think possible.

1:40  Shelving aisle blocked up by patrons with all their pesky "browsing"!

1:43  Interesting book about unfamous baseball players from the days of yore insisted on being looked over.

1:47 - 1:56   Nine minutes of uninterrupted shelving involving large, unwieldy books with 18 digit Dewey Decimal numbers that needed to go onto horribly overcrowded shelves.

1:56  Allowance for four minutes travel time to next assignment.



When you factor in all the demands of this job, as I have above, I think you will agree with me that it's pretty amazing I got done all that I did! 

No, you need not thank me. It's all in a days work.