A Typical Day in the Life...

So, this week has been interesting.

Let's take Tuesday as the perfect example of what is euphemistically referred to as a "typical" day.

At 9:00 I was greeted with a pile of mail and forms and other unidentifiable papers a foot high on my desk. After managing to deal with this (mostly by transferring it to other people's desks) I sent out a round of faxes to the branches reminding them of assorted things of various degrees of importance.

So far, so good.

At 10:00 I raced a requested book from here to one of the branches. While there, the day's newspaper was delivered. Said newspaper featured a prominent headline about a shooting. At a library branch.

Which I did not know about.

While I was still processing this information, a call came in from another branch, informing me that there was no heat, and the branch manager was in the process of freezing her tail off. She was, however, more concerned about her patrons, many of whom are elderly. Off I went to that branch to see what could be done. Two space heaters, one extension cord, and assorted phone calls to assorted people later, the temperature in the branch was no longer hovering at the freezing mark and the repair man had promised to come as soon as possible. Maybe even this week.

From there, it was back to the main library. On the way there I got an urgent call asking me to call one of the staff on her cell phone. Of course, I promptly drove into the black hole of the wildlife refuge, where there is no hope of a signal for my cell phone. On the outskirts of Chesterfield, twenty-five minutes later, my phone indicated that there might be hope of making a call. I called the staff member, who was having a minor health crisis, sorted things out with her, and arrived back at the headquarters.

Consultation with other staff members revealed that no one else had heard about the shooting either.

Back into the car for the drive to the branch where the shooting happened, where I had a conversation with the branch manager about why I had not been told about the incident, and why this would never happen again. We then agreed that she would call the police and arrange for them to patrol the library, while I ascertained whether any of the patrons had been injured or whether the bullet had hit the library. (If you injure a patron, I'll be mad, but if you hurt my library building I will have to kill you.)

According to the newspaper account, incidentally, this was not in fact a drive-by shooting. It was a pedal-by. We're working on making it into the bigtime, but so far all we can manage is a fifteen-year-old on a bicycle.

I then returned to the main library, to be greeted by yet another foot-high pile of mail, forms, paperwork, memos, and other paper crud on my desk, and a mile-long list of new emails in my in-boxes.

And this, my friends, is a typical day in the life of a library director.