#bookventures

This is a relief, but the weeks at work leading up to this decision have been so stressful that my nerves are shot: the announcement being unclear about how my hours will be coded and what, exactly, my upcoming work obligations are triggered an anxiety attack. The physical affects thankfully confined themselves to shakes and mild teariness, not the tight-chest tight-throat thing I used to get in college and still get from more direct stress. I sat in one spot while waiting for more information and folded paper cranes from scrap paper. A coworker offered to let me use their fidget cube (and to sanitize it first) but I turned them down because “remembering to return someone else’s belongings” was too much to handle.

A couple years back, a coworker needed to leave a cart of library materials for me to process, but my shift was going to end before they finished their part of it, and so we agreed they could put a note on it specifying it was for me to handle, and wheel it up whenever they happened to finish.

This was a coworker from another department. I don’t remember if they specifically checked with me, or looked it up themselves, or remembered it from my name-badge (which they don’t see very often!), but I got in the next day to see this cart waiting for me with not just a small sticky note that could have fallen off or been missed (leading to processing mix-ups), but a FULL sheet of printer paper with my first name in HUGE font, and "in-repair” in only slightly smaller font underneath.

My name, spelled correctly.

Of course the word-ordering out of context made it look like I was in repair, not the materials, and it made me laugh so much I taped the paper up in my locker once I was done. I see that thing every shift and it still makes me smile.

Once a year we have an all-day all-staff meeting. Last year, my boss decided to make sure people from different departments and branches got to work together, so we had assigned seating. Everyone’s names written in large marker on notecards sat on each table, in different colors so halfway through the day we could switch tables.

I had to verify my seat by walking up to my boss and going “so is there another [name] I haven’t met, or do I need to borrow a pen to fix this spelling?” Awkward for both of us!

This year we did not have assigned seating. What we did have, partway through, was a small awards ceremony marking increments-of-five-years work anniversaries. I have just reached five years this autumn. We got called up in batches, I stood in a row with the other five-year staffers, did a little bow during the applause because libraries encourage fun things like that, and got handed my certificate.

With my name in a nice big font, spelled wrong.

My face fell and I damn near wailed “Oh no, again?”

Boss apologized and promised to re-print it. Unfortunately, someone wanted to get photos of all the different year groups holding their certificates, like, right then. I tried holding it in a way to cover my name, but someone else darted forward and quietly pointed out the angle made it look like I was grabbing my own chest. I really did not want that photo having my name wrong, even if it never gets posted anywhere, so I awkwardly folded the certificate so only my last name showed.

It put a damper on my mood for the entire rest of the meeting. I’m still upset, actually, typing this up. I felt rude pointing the error out to my boss both years, and unlike last year this was in front of everyone. Now I get to wonder if it’s wrong in some official record, or spellcheck auto-corrected it, or if my boss really just wasn’t paying attention. It does, in fact, the exact opposite of the intended “staff appreciation” gesture.

The spelling mistake was just one letter omitted. One letter made the difference between a silly note that brightens more than one day, and humiliation.

Staff member: read exactly one thing wrong on the spine label. Book is in perfect alphabetical or numerical order in wrong section (Mystery put in Misc, Adult Nonfiction when it should be Children’s Nonfiction), or section/author/title got mixed up (such as putting Lord of the Rings next to a book by an author named Lorde, instead of Tolkien), or a visually similar letter/number was swapped, such as 1/7, 2/5, 6/9, A/H, E/F, O/Q, etc.

Patron: exactly one shelf/segment above, below, left, right, or diagonal to proper location.