A typical day at the fine arts library
8:00 pm: I set myself up at the desk and stare at the wall.
8:15pm: The girl I work with returns from pretending she's shelf reading while really smoking in the bathroom, and Matt, my supervisor, says "Hey Emily... would you like to go do some shelving?" No, I want to say, I would NOT like to go do some shelving, I would rather club you with the barcode scanner, but of course I am the ideal Library Student Assistant and I say "But of course!"
8:30 to 9:30: I shelve books. Inevitably, some heavy motherfucker of an architectural journal falls off the shelf and I nearly die, or the service elevator door slams on my fingers, or someone has removed the entire erotic photography section from the shelves and I have to track them all down and put 300 some-odd books back in order.
9:30: I return to desk, and am immediately approached by the same Korean man who comes to the desk every night wanting to take out four reserve books on Bauhaus. Every night I have to explain to him that a) he can only take out two reserve books at a time, and b) he has to check them out before he can leave the desk with them. Every time I speak to him, he nods vigorously and says "Yes! Yes!" and then takes the pile of books and walks away. Every night he sets of the alarm at the door. I fear this man may be a professor and the architecture program is doomed.
10:00: The arrival of the angry deaf author with the malfunctioning hearing aid. His typing is like the pounding of elephants on the
keyboard. Approximately every 27 seconds he lets out an angry sigh, thrusts his chair away from the desk, and stomps through the
reference section furiously thumbing through random books (this evening it was the German/Spanish dictionary and an encyclopedia of insect art) before throwing them aside. Throwing. No joke.
10:15: "Emily, would you like to go ahead and close the windows, push in chairs, and do pickup?" No, you dolt, I would not. It's ten
degrees outside, the damn windows shouldn't have been opened to begin with, the architects need to get off their high horses and push in their OWN chairs, and pickup is going to take me an hour because that neurotic freshman girl with the green leggings just destroyed the
entire thesis section. "Why certainly."
10:15 to 10:30: Close the fucking windows. I would like to note that bees are currently making their homes in the eaves of the Fine Arts Library and are attempting to make their winter home above the African Cave Art section, so "close the windows and do pickup" really means "fight the bees and stack all the books right under their nest".
10:30: Return to desk with bee stings. "Now don't forget to ring the buzzer three times, Emily." "Okay Matt, I won't." Of course I won't forget. I ring the damn buzzer three times at ten thirty every time I work, and did the same thing all last year. I got the memo.
10:30 to 10:44: Stare at wall. Listen to periodic shriek of hearing aid, followed by angry sigh and stomp around room, immediately after which arrives the thud of flying literature.
10:45: "Don't forget to ring the buzzer twice, Emily." Okay, seriously, did you really think I was going to forget? "Don't worry, I've got it under control."
10:45 to 11:00: Stare at wall. Continued noise of hearing aid, etc.
11:00 pm: "Go ahead and ring the buzzer once, Emily." Really? But I thought that at eleven I was supposed to ring it six times with my big toe and then fart the national anthem.
11:00 to 11:15 pm: Matt, my supervisor, does closing rounds. Every night it's the same sing-song "the Liiiiibrary's CLOsed!" He's like a Care Bear. He's got to be on some serious drugs. I have to hear him say it... "the Liiiibrary's CLOsed!" eight times, one for every room in the library, and each time I always think that maybe every time he utters those words, someone eats a kitten.
11:15: supervisor and I try to coax the angry deaf author out of the library because he is still pitching reference books. Apparently he's been using the same computer five nights a week for like, four years, and he still hasn't figured out that on weeknights, we close at eleven.
8:15pm: The girl I work with returns from pretending she's shelf reading while really smoking in the bathroom, and Matt, my supervisor, says "Hey Emily... would you like to go do some shelving?" No, I want to say, I would NOT like to go do some shelving, I would rather club you with the barcode scanner, but of course I am the ideal Library Student Assistant and I say "But of course!"
8:30 to 9:30: I shelve books. Inevitably, some heavy motherfucker of an architectural journal falls off the shelf and I nearly die, or the service elevator door slams on my fingers, or someone has removed the entire erotic photography section from the shelves and I have to track them all down and put 300 some-odd books back in order.
9:30: I return to desk, and am immediately approached by the same Korean man who comes to the desk every night wanting to take out four reserve books on Bauhaus. Every night I have to explain to him that a) he can only take out two reserve books at a time, and b) he has to check them out before he can leave the desk with them. Every time I speak to him, he nods vigorously and says "Yes! Yes!" and then takes the pile of books and walks away. Every night he sets of the alarm at the door. I fear this man may be a professor and the architecture program is doomed.
10:00: The arrival of the angry deaf author with the malfunctioning hearing aid. His typing is like the pounding of elephants on the
keyboard. Approximately every 27 seconds he lets out an angry sigh, thrusts his chair away from the desk, and stomps through the
reference section furiously thumbing through random books (this evening it was the German/Spanish dictionary and an encyclopedia of insect art) before throwing them aside. Throwing. No joke.
10:15: "Emily, would you like to go ahead and close the windows, push in chairs, and do pickup?" No, you dolt, I would not. It's ten
degrees outside, the damn windows shouldn't have been opened to begin with, the architects need to get off their high horses and push in their OWN chairs, and pickup is going to take me an hour because that neurotic freshman girl with the green leggings just destroyed the
entire thesis section. "Why certainly."
10:15 to 10:30: Close the fucking windows. I would like to note that bees are currently making their homes in the eaves of the Fine Arts Library and are attempting to make their winter home above the African Cave Art section, so "close the windows and do pickup" really means "fight the bees and stack all the books right under their nest".
10:30: Return to desk with bee stings. "Now don't forget to ring the buzzer three times, Emily." "Okay Matt, I won't." Of course I won't forget. I ring the damn buzzer three times at ten thirty every time I work, and did the same thing all last year. I got the memo.
10:30 to 10:44: Stare at wall. Listen to periodic shriek of hearing aid, followed by angry sigh and stomp around room, immediately after which arrives the thud of flying literature.
10:45: "Don't forget to ring the buzzer twice, Emily." Okay, seriously, did you really think I was going to forget? "Don't worry, I've got it under control."
10:45 to 11:00: Stare at wall. Continued noise of hearing aid, etc.
11:00 pm: "Go ahead and ring the buzzer once, Emily." Really? But I thought that at eleven I was supposed to ring it six times with my big toe and then fart the national anthem.
11:00 to 11:15 pm: Matt, my supervisor, does closing rounds. Every night it's the same sing-song "the Liiiiibrary's CLOsed!" He's like a Care Bear. He's got to be on some serious drugs. I have to hear him say it... "the Liiiibrary's CLOsed!" eight times, one for every room in the library, and each time I always think that maybe every time he utters those words, someone eats a kitten.
11:15: supervisor and I try to coax the angry deaf author out of the library because he is still pitching reference books. Apparently he's been using the same computer five nights a week for like, four years, and he still hasn't figured out that on weeknights, we close at eleven.