Two custard tarts, a sliced loaf and a tin of corned beef

We haven't been over-run by boxes of incoming new stock lately. If anyone asks we tell them it's because the Acq. Team are a well-oiled engine of accessionary zeal and then they go away. We don't tell them that it's a combination of some of the Assistant Librarians not putting in their orders; Mary not signing the orders; and the supplier suspending the orders for a fortnight due to some communication glitch.

This all puts the fear of God into the Acq. Team. They know all too well the thrill of drought-and-flood stock management. They also worry that some idiot will take this as a useful moment to do some time-and-motion studies of the team's throughput. Bronwyn's trying her best: she sorted out the supplier snafu and some of us have good reason to think she's doing a lot of unpaid overtime at home, ordering the stock the Assistant Librarians should have chosen. She's also actively asking front-line staff to submit wish-lists. The bad news is that she's having to do most of this surreptitiously so as not to give certain members of Policy Team the opportunity to put a stop to it.

We can all breathe a little easier today as sixty boxes of new stock have arrived. Well, all except Seth, who has to lug them all about and stack them in the fire exit corridor while they're waiting to be invoiced.