Monday, November 16, 2009

What Do You Do All Day?

I know we're all busy. I know we all have virtual and real lives, and sometimes the two cross over and bleed into each other. The above question has been posed to me recently by students as well as faculty.

What they see: me sitting behind a desk, tapping insanely at a computer, surrounded by books and bits of paper.

What's really going on:

1. Cataloging new books via Follett Cataloging software
2. Web site maintenance for both the school and the school library
3. Retreiving and printing login information for students, teachers and parents to use LiveGrades software for our school
4. Reading various and sundry blogs and tweets
5. Listening to music (either over on LAST or on Rockabillyradio.net)
6. Reading work-related e-mails and trying to respond
7. Checking stuff for my grad school classes
8. Helping kids fix server login problems, retreive stuff that "they know, they just know" is there on the server, because they know, they just know they saved it right (Uh---so how did it wind up in My Documents on this computer, instead of your G:\ drive with your lunch number?)
9. E-mailing my mom
10. E-mailing various community members in regard to the web site
11. Cruising various web sites for computer troubleshooting information
12. Cruising Novell's web site checking for various updates, patches, and general less stinkiness to make our server work better, faster, and not eat files
13. Make coffee
14. Sometimes I'll eat, but I haven't had a "full," or "sit-down" style lunch at work in years. These people who say librarians aren't teachers and don't deserve a 30-minute duty-free lunch, I flash a pair of upraised middle fingers and bid you a hale n' hearty "get bent!" And just so you know. . . . often my "lunches" are spent in my library, surrounded by kids, teachers, and people who need help, whether it's opening a file, saving a file, getting something to work in Flash, getting something to work AT ALL, or sending something as an attachment in an e-mail.
15. Answer phones---and yes, there are times when I have had to answer two phones simultaneously, with a third one ringing. It's in my back office. Sometimes I go back there, but I'm often afraid to.

I also don't take off from work much. The last time I did, all hell broke loose and it took weeks to get stuff straight.

I'm not complaining, though! I'm really not! I love my job! I get to help people all day, and I get to talk to cool people with crazy problems too. I also am constantly learning. I know stuff about Office 2007 that I never would have found on my own! I help people with web stuff, too! I always learn something neat!

So. . . .what do YOU do all day?

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