Work notes, part II

Talking to one of my co-workers yesterday, I found out that she has also had problems with Mr. Charming. This made me feel a lot better, because R is about the sweetest and most self-effacing person you could ever hope to meet, to the point that if you stepped on her foot, she would apologize for inconsiderately putting her foot in your way. So if he makes her mad, I clearly wasn't overreacting. In fact, we were both relieved to hear that the other had had such bad experiences with him, because it meant it wasn't us, it was him. Much like my boss was happy a couple weeks ago when I was there to witness an ambush from one of our battier ladies over a sign they want to put up. As she said, "I'm glad you're here to say that she's crazy, because after a while I begin to wonder if it's me."

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I've never been a visual person. I'm not the sort to do much decoration for holidays - in fact, I don't think we've done any decorating for Christmas at all the past couple years since we were moving or planning on moving. One of the reasons I wasn't interested in going into public libraries while I was in library school was that I hated the thought of having to do displays.

And yet, I'm sitting here on a day that I'm not actually working, looking for Easter decorations online and wracking my brain to figure out what display I can put up after Easter is over. In the past four months, I've spent quite a bit of time cutting out and putting up Halloween pumpkins and skeletons, Thanksgiving turkeys, snowflakes, Valentine's hearts. I've been gnashing my teeth over the fact that a month as short as February has so many potential displays to put up - Valentine's Day, African American history month, Lunar new year and President's Day (I went with Valentine's Day and African American history month, partly because I could recycle so much of the Martin Luther King Day display).

I find this unleashing of my inner kindergarten teacher who I didn't even realize was there very bemusing. I'm glad that this is an area of my job that it turns out I can do well despite my natural inclinations, and I've gotten a lot of compliments, which is nice to hear. There are so many things to do at that job and so few working hours to do them in, it can feel like I'm never making a noticeable dent. But at least it gets noticed when I make the library look purty.