Mellow like Messi

"Just" You ask "What kind of Library Clerk are you?"

"What's that?" I reply. "Have you read my blog clerkmanifesto? Roughly ten percent of my posts are all about what kind of library clerk am I. Twelve hundred posts, ten percent, so that's 120 essays on the sort of Library Clerk I am."

"Yes, I've read them." You say. "What fun! Tell me again please?"

"Okay."




The greatest soccer player who ever lived is Lionel Messi. The teen librarian Marcus, who among the one billion fervent soccer fans in the World is the only one I actually know, might say "How can you really say who is the greatest player of all time?"

To which I might reply "Like this: Messi is the greatest player of all time." But only because, well, sometimes I can get a little like that, which you might have noticed.

And here's how the great Messi plays soccer: 

Economically.

There he is, jogging easily up the side. There he is, studying the game, pacing himself, laying back, only doing just what is needed, a spectator, enjoying the Spanish sun, quietly stalking the game, resting up.

And then he is needed. He is called on. He is essential, and he rises up fluidly from a kind of snooze mode to perform absolute miracles and magic. Practice, training, time on the pitch, and two full games every week, but as for pure, heart stopping soccer, greatest of all time soccer, we get about 15 minutes of it every week.

That's just exactly how I clerk!

I hope that doesn't sound self-aggrandizing. If you think about it at all you will likely come to the shrewd conclusion that it isn't, really, self-aggrandizing at all. After all, clerking is not soccer.

"So," You wonder. "Is that how you write clerkmanifesto as well?"

Oh no. For that I run flat out until I collapse, panting and vomiting in the grass.