A Work Post

All last week was staff training where I work. Basically, everyone in the Tech department were assigned 5 or so employees to train on the new database/security system we will be implementing within the first quarter of this year. So for a whole week, my department was scattered to all the other departments, and then the staff training portion took place up in the computer lab because we had the space. And computers. And a Rancor. But mostly computers and the space-thing.

Steve, my boss, thought five days would probably be sufficient enough time to train the employees. I got mine done in two. That's right, two. My boss got his done in four. Loser.

His training did consist of one or two days of setting up the computers so they'd run for his trainees. I just stepped in, trained my people, and left, leaving him and Gina to answer questions, while they phoned around, looking for me. I wasn't gonna sit around answering questions.

The first day of not doing work, I did work - I worked on a presentation for my group (in November, we had an all-staff day full of festivities...and work, and some exercise where we played with Legos and Play-Doh. We were put in "groups" and were given a problem that needed a solution)

This "problem/solution-thing" consisted of feedback from a survey we had given out to the public last summer. And the public bitched and complained, as usual, about the most ignorant shit you could possibly imagine. Your library should be open 24 hrs. Mainly the computer lab-area, not necessarily the library itself. Thanks for the feedback; okay everyone, the library will now be open 24 hours, 7 days a week, running up our utility bill, not to mention all the money we'd have to pay employees to be here that long, hiring more staff, cleaning up after selfish people who fuck up anything that's not their property. Not gonna happen. And yes, if the lab were open 24 hours as well, we'd have people here ALL NIGHT. And then it would be, well, since the library is open 24 hours, and the computer lab is opened 24 hours, then patrons of the computer lab shouldn't have a time period on the computer like they do now. Basically, I don't have a home, so I'll live in a library like FUCKING From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler only, in a fucking library because I'm homeless; I want hand-outs! I'll live on crackers and soda pop!

My "group's" problem was to come up with ways to make our library quiet because someone had wrote on their survey that libraries used to be quiet, and ours wasn't, and it needs to be quiet again; people who live in this town don't understand the word "advancement." The presentation I was working on that day included everything my group had discussed and debated in our meetings, plus my own ideas and data I had collected from other libraries; it was legit work, and it didn't take me very long to complete, either. That was the first day of not doing work, and the explanation of the work I was doing.

The second day was the 20th; Inauguration Day for President Obama. I talked to my supervisor for about thirty minutes and kidded around a bit, checked some email and some internets, then went to the business office, sifted through a desk drawer until I found a familiar-looking silver key, then walked across the library, unlocked one of the conference rooms, and played my Nintendo DS for twenty minutes. Then I remembered there was a television in the basement, that was never used, except for meetings. This is one of three down there, so if there happened to be people wanting a set for the Inauguration, there was one everyone was enjoying in the staff room, and one that had been moved to the auditorium (that one is a BEAST) with chairs outlined adjacent to it for the public to come in and watch the Inauguration. Not many people were in that room. With that in mind, I knew the last set was unoccupied, and so I commandeered a dolly, and went down in the elevator to retrieve it. Did so without any one asking me questions. By the way, my conference room was wired, most are, so I had limited cable. I trucked that set up to my conference room, shut the door, turned out the lights after plugging shit in, and tuned in C-SPAN for Inauguration coverage. After that was all said and done, and the Inauguration was winding down, it was 12:30ish, so said my clock in the conference room, so I unplugged everything, moved the television on a dolly to the auditorium; I DID NOT put it back where I found it because then it looked like someone had moved it in to the auditorium (because we have stupid people on staff who would do this) figuring that no one had taken the time to set up a television in the auditorium, which they had with THE BEAST, so that imaginary person, who our maintenance supervisor Kevin would assume worked in Reference, just decided to leave the television in the auditorium because they had done all the work to get it upstairs where it wasn't needed, and were too lazy to take it back downstairs. I know -- this clever, improvised scheme I had concocted sounds like it took a lot of thought, it didn't. I just know people. Kevin is against Reference, and the Reference department doesn't give a shit about anyone, so I played the two forces off each other. Office politics can work in your favor.

By 12:30ish, this meant I only had a half-hour left in my shift. And since I was still on the clock, technically working, I was entitled to a break. So I took mine. I went down to the staff room and one of my co-workers asked if I had gotten the message to talk to Gina. How could I have gotten that message, I was hiding out. I took a twenty minute break, eating leftover Chile from a Chile-cook off the staff had the previous week, and then I talked to Gina who wanted to know where I was at. I told her Children's had a security threat on their computer that I handled, then I went down to the Tech office for CD's, which, by the way, was a problem we had in the lab last week; one of the part-timers left a note saying we had run out of CD's in the lab, and I told Gina I thought we might have had some down there. After finding out we hadn't, I went up to the Business Office, where they informed me CD's had been ordered, then I helped Steve make cable (Steve wasn't actually there, I had told Gina, but I knew he needed to make some for the wiring-changes because of the new security system, so I volunteered)

That excuse covered my ass for about two hours, and it was bullshit! Steve needed wiring, but fuck, I wasn't gonna strip it. And I was out the door in 30 anyway, it didn't matter what I told her. Then I told her the rest of the time was spent on working on my presentation for my group, and then taking a break, and watching the Inauguration. She didn't take too kindly to me working on this "presentation" - apparently, they (she) had stuff I was supposed to be doing for them (her). I didn't like how she was ordering me around like her subordinate, so I went over her authority and talked to Steve. He told me to work on the presentation because I mentioned my "group" was holding a meeting that week Thursday afternoon, which they were.

And Steve also told me not to listen to Gina.

I walked out at 12:54, clocked out at 12:55 right as the time clock switched to the next hour, and went to my grandma's to take a nap, and watch some college basketball.

Editor's note*** Wednesday-Thursday I trained my people; yeah, you thought I had done that before the shit with the TV in the conference room...haha. That Friday, I was called in to work, which corresponds with my last post about talking with my boss about voicemail.