Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Maytag repairman







For the young people in my audience, of which there are, let's see, zero? No! Wait, there is one out there! Hi. Which is great, because I was going to tell everyone anyway, that back in the 70's there was a famous commercial of the Maytag Repairman. And the joke and the sell of the ad was that Maytag made such insanely reliable appliances that the Maytag Repairman just sat there with nothing to do.

I guess he was supposed to be sad and lonely, and I get that, but even as an eight year old some small part of my brain thought:

Sweet gig.

Fast forward a little bit under half a century and I am the library greeter and hall monitor in a mostly closed, pandemic era library, on a lovely, sleepy Summer Sunday afternoon.

I never could fully believe things like:

I would be the Dodgers starting shortstop.

Or I would turn out to have magical powers.


So it's just nice that some of my dreams came true.




4 comments:

  1. You have plenty of company. The libraries I've been visiting are mostly open, which is to say that in addition to curb service they are allowing patrons in to browse to at least some degree. A couple of weeks ago I visited two that each had one staff person (called the Director, no matter how small the library) and no patrons at all.

    In my search for open libraries yesterday I spotted one that made me think of you "Help Wanted: Youth Services and Adult Services positions available. Come to work in our beautiful library in the friendly historic town of Gilmanton! The Youth Services Librarian is responsible for all library services to children and teens including selection of materials, designing and implementing programs and promoting the library in the schools and in the community. Adult Services Librarian manages all aspects of all circulation tasks and programming for adults. Some nights and Saturdays are required. Part time 24-29 hours weekly. College degree preferred with some experience in and knowledge of child development and the planning and preparation of adult led children’s programming Library experience strongly preferred. Please send a resume and a letter of interest with 3 letters of recommendation to Gilmanton Year Round Library, 1385 NH Rte 140, Gilmanton Iron Works, NH 03837 or email to Gyrla@metrocast.net"

    Take a look at their website. Wouldn't you like to have your own library? Just you (and the trustees, of course.) I'm sure you'd take a cut in pay, but would't it be worth it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would be worth the pay, but I'm not reading this as "I get my own library" alas.

      But I appreciate you keeping an eye out :)

      Delete
  2. I found another one, Belmont, NH. Google them; it's a nice little library.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cute. I'm always a tiny bit sad though when I go to a library website like this and everything is so... generic, like, there's three total innovations in the entire world (video storytime!) and the library acts like they're offering some hot, clever take on things.

      But it is cute. And a nice library. So... there's that.

      Delete

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