another vent/rant

look away now.

So I worked yesterday.

The day started fairly well.

We'd been warned during the week that IT would be doing some work Saturday morning so the library's computer system would probably be down until 11 am (we open to the public at 10) so we would probably be offering limited services for the early part of the day.

However when we arrived everything seemed to be working properly and just before 10 am IT rang to say they were finished and we wouldn't need to use offline or anything like that.

yay.

Now I work my rostered weekends at a different library to the one I work at weekdays. This (for some staff) adds a slightly more stressful edge to the weekend as there are subtle differences between branches & some branch specific routines that need to be remembered & dealt with.

Now one of my colleagues this weekend is a perfectionist who prepares in depth when working at a location other than her home branch. She also follows procedures to the letter - if procedure says turn around three times, click your heels, & wear gold lipstick, then that's exactly what she does.

So this colleague had memorised the new printing procedures for our weekend branch & was confident when her first customer wanted to print (& was not a member) that she knew what she was doing.

Meanwhile another staff member was also a bit stressed cos things had been moved around a bit (it was his home branch) while he was away ...

Then colleague 1 couldn't find undated printing cards, colleague 2 didn't know where there were any either, and all of a sudden you could see the tension increasing, the stress levels rising, and the need for a defibrillator becoming more obvious.

This was when I became aware of what was going on (I'd been helping others) .

- so I went thru to the workroom and found some undated cards,

- dealt with the person wanting to print (who was by now getting stressed because of all the stress she felt she was causing),

- made sure there was an ample supply of undated printing cards at the desk,

this all happened before 10.20 am ... so I sent the 2 stressed staff members in different directions so that they could calm down and regain equilibrium

- at morning tea time i raced to the supermarket and bought triple choc chip cookies to improve morale and lower stress levels (it worked)

It was obviously a full moon friday night - although we weren't especially busy there were a lot of angry people coming in.

My 'favourite' - the patron who wanted to complain about her treatment by a staff member a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently a few weeks ago she'd approached a 'staff member" ( a female standing at the paperback stand) and asked for some help with the computer. This person, helped her and then refused to give her her name when asked for it.

Now I'm not 100% sure the woman who helped her was actually a staff member. The patron hasn't seen her before or since at the library, she wasn't wearing a name badge, so she may have just been a 'good samaritan'.

Eventually the day ended and I headed off for dinner with friends.

Now I don't normally drink but I really deserved the couple of wines I had with dinner last night...