How news travels the empire

Helminthdale Central Library is closed for the next couple of weeks while the carpeters come in and have a series of fits.

Those of us in the building know the library's closed because all the lending and reference staff are in box-packing mufti and Seth's shifted the photocopier downstairs from the reference library. The public who have been in the library in the past two weeks may have noticed the signs on the walls. Other than that, publicity is confined to a press release which was sent out on Monday to the local paper, which goes on sale today.

There hasn't been a broadcast email to staff saying that the library's closed and what's happening with returns, reservations, requests, etc. Bit much to ask really.


And as for telling the world on the web site... sigh

Our custom is not required

Noreen's received a novel cancellation report from our book supplier:

"The publisher will not provide this book because they say that it is unsuitable for library use."

Dangling

4.05pm
T.Aldous: "What time are you going home tonight?"

Pauline:"About half four."

T.Aldous: "I've got some urgent work that needs to be sent out tonight. I'll just go and get it."

5.10pm
T.Aldous: "I won't be needing you to do that work after all Pauline."

Twopenny enigma

"It's a funny thing," muses Head of Service Warner Baxter. "I keep being told we can't possibly close any of our libraries for staff training or service development workshops. But it's OK to close them so that we can install new lavatories."

There ain't no use working so hard

Two libraries are closed for refurbishments: Helminthdale's shut for the rest of the month (I think) while we have carpets and shelving sorted; Catty's closed for the long run for a sequence of undisclosed refurbishments which probably involve the floor, the roof and the wall that's falling off the building.

I've been entirely unsuccessful in my attempts to persuade the corporate web team that this is information that should go on the library web pages. "You've provided too much information," I'm told in response to the one-hundred-and-twenty-eight-word piece of copy I try to include. I protest that customers need this information.

"The library web page isn't for information."

My mistake, then.

Penny for the Guy

The Scriveners' Arms is having its big Guy Fawkes do on Donkeyhanger Common to celebrate what a colleague who will go nameless describes as "The Nation's Tribute to the Last Honest Man in Parliament." He isn't enjoying himself:

"Wandering around aimlessly in the dark with a crowd of screaming idiots dancing in the firelight amidst the stench of sulphur: if I wanted that I might as well have stayed at work."

Lines

The Nation's Greatest Whiteboard now has a new grid drawn upon it. In the four weeks it's been on the wall it's had umpteen generations but aside from the word "Name" which graced a corner for a fortnight and "Kilroy farted here" which lasted an hour there's been sod all other use of the thing.

Each time I walk past it I have to quell the urge to start playing noughts and crosses or battleships.

We can all look forward to despair

Browsing around the potted shrimp counter in Hannigan's Truss Boutique I bump into Henley Parmilow from the Town Hall. I've not seen him in well over a year just before he had a nervous breakdown after his marriage failed in fairly awful circumstances and things going on at work finished the job.

"Hello, Henley, how are you? I've not seen you in ages."

"You know I've been on long-term sick."

"Yes. How's things now?"

"Not too bad, I guess. I'm back in work."

"That's good."

"I suppose so. Couldn't stay off much longer: I've had to remortgage the house and half-pay on the sick couldn't cover the outgoings. Been paying the mortgage by credit card."

"Ouch. That's bad. You are OK now, though, aren't you?"

"Oh yes. Strong enough to survive working for Helminthdale Council. Do you know what Arthur said to me when we sat down to do my return-to-work?"

"I shudder to think."

"His opening gambit was: 'You have to realise that your sickness record may jeapordise your job, don't you?'"

I'm human enough to still be able to register shock. There's a layer of line management in this council populated by utter arseholes.

Vast, rolling empty places

The Nation's Greatest Whiteboard is suddenly a blank again.

There's no obvious reason why and I daren't ask Seth, he's already sick to the back teeth of the thing.

Short fuse

Not my most edifying day. I'm tired and unwell but in work to conform to the corporate policy "if you ain't dead you should be in work, unless you are dead in which case you might be able to have time off for the funeral." Beryl's similarly unwell: absolutely chock full of a cold and rattling like Rafferty's coal van.

I'm replacing the equipment we moved out of the way for the new bog at Senebene. All goes well up to the point where a rather harassed Beryl tries to put somebody onto PC number 3.

"I'm trying to put George onto PC number 3 and nothing's happening."

"That gentleman's already on PC number 3."

"No, that one's number 3."

"That's number 5."

"It's number 3."

"It's number 5. It was number 5 when it was over in that corner and you've just watched me move it over there. Why would it suddenly become number 3?"

"Well, it should be number 5. This is just going to confuse everybody."

Instead of both of us leaving this silliness alone and coming back to it later we both gnaw at it like rats on a bone. In the end I lost my temper, which is entirely unprofessional and inexcusable. Losing it in a public place is definitely not on. Utterly, utterly stupid on my part. I'll have to try and patch things up with Beryl.

Trumpèd volunteer

Beryl makes the mistake of telling her superiors that a young lad has asked if it's possible to spend a couple of hours every Saturday doing a bit of voluntary work in the library. Ah well...

• Is he doing it as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme? No? Ah...
• He's not doing it as school-organised work experience? Dear me...
• There are better ways of starting a career as a librarian. Voluntary experience doesn't really count at library school.
• We'll have to check with Humane Resources to see how we stand with volunteers.

Ball kicked into the long grass.

A few points:

• We don't have any of these questions when volunteer tutors come in to do Silver Surfer sessions.
• Nor when volunteers do local studies work.
• A lad who volunteers to get some Saturday work onto his C.V. rather than loll around watching telly or hanging around street corners should be supported.
• Who gives a flying stuff whether or not voluntary work counts for anything in library school? There are other audiences out there in the job market, many of which proffer better prospects for hard work than do library school.
• Is it any wonder front-line staff get their work done in secret?

Sigh...

Placed

Noreen gets a 'phone call.

"The Chief Executive has nominated you to represent your department in the Buy Local Conference next week. I'll need a brief bio from you to include in the conference pack."

"The Chief Executive doesn't know me from Adam. I'm not authorised to buy anything. And the Library Service is a member of an acquisitions consortium and we're required to do our stock purchases from the consortium contract. Aside from that I'm pretty sure I'm not the person you need to be speaking to."

Who's the bastard in the black?

Coming out of Hannigan's Truss Boutique I bumped into Ken Barmy, the systems manager for Pardendale Libraries. Last time we spoke he was being a bit smug because they'd got their act in gear and advertised internally for maternity cover in what we would imagine to be indecent haste, even before the actual birth (in Helminthdale the child will have at least reached tertiary college before the job description was written).

"Have you got a new Town Librarian yet?" I ask.

"It's delayed. We had two internal candidates and they were both interviewed. One's a Town Librarian from elsewhere in the Borough looking for a change of scenery. They've worked for us for twenty years. The other's an Assistant Librarian who's worked for us for thirty years."

"Difficult decision?"

"Who's to say? The appointment's been put back for three weeks pending external references."

Sabbath

"The carpeters may need to come in on Sundays to get some of the work done upstairs," says Doreen.

"They'll have to let themselves in: I'm working 72-hour, six-day weeks and I'm not giving up my Sundays," replies Seth.

Once for charity with Sir Harry Lauder

"Please could you sign these orders?"

asks Noreen, indicating a pile of orders that have built up so far this week, all requiring Mary's signature before they can go in the post. (e-procurement? don't make me laugh: between the auditors, the library managers and the IT section we'd be better off with semaphore)

"I can't, I'm being Frog today,"replies Mary.

In the time taken for the subsequent explanation, the latest about her daughter and her views on different brands of soft licorice she could have signed a month's worth of orders.

Still, what's stock ordering in the scheme of things?

Dreck

Doreen pops her head around the door frame. Makes a change from Mary coming in to measure the acreage of the floor with a view to filling it full of old Bunty Annuals.

"I was talking to Milton this lunchtime and he says you've got a spare PC on one of the desks in your office."

"Jimmy Huddersfield's PC. Yes, I suppose we could put that on the desk where the other PC used to be. His replacement's not even been interviewed yet."

"Is it an old PC?"

"No, it's relatively new. The same vintage as the other one. It would have made more sense to have given that to the Graduate Trainee."

"Then why wasn't it?"

"Don't ask me, I'm just the hired help."

After all, why move one PC and set up one email profile when you can move two, disable a scanner and have to set up six email profiles?

What a moving lot of old codswallop

"When are you moving over here?" asks Jim. "The graduate trainee could do with some company."

"Well, there's not a lot of use my moving over there before the new network point and telephone point have been installed. That would mean my moving over there, moving out of the way and moving back again. Done that once. Not doing it again."

Happydrome

Doreen's unhappy. Join the club. She comes into my office to share her unhappiness with me.

"When are we getting a replacement PC?"

"For the one that's been taken for the Graduate Trainee?"

"Yes. I'm not happy about that being taken. It's very inconvenient."

"I share your pain. As do your Assistant Librarians."

"I suppose I could use the PC in my office upstairs but I can't really work in there."

"I've suggested to Milton that we should buy a replacement. And that it should have the scanner installed onto it."

"Well, how long will that be?"

"Dunno. We do need something for the Assistant Librarians. Especially when Milton spends all day on the PC on their desk and leaves it unattended locked on his password."

"I'm annoyed that I came down and found it had just disappeared."

"Welcome to our world. It is a function of the way we do things hereabouts, which is to say last-minute and shambolic.

Inconvenient. Pshah! Like I had any bloody say on what happened with that bloody PC. While I was putting my gear back in my office Jim and T.Aldous were instructing Seth on the commandeering operation. Bollocks to the lot of 'em.

People set their black puddings by it

Library managers and project management... sigh...

Entirely reasonably, Seth's getting nervous about the forthcoming recarpeting of the lending and reference libraries upstairs. He still hasn't been given a gameplan as to what's happening or when (allegedly all the counters, desks and shelving - including wall-mounted - are being budged to one side for the operation) and there's not many days before it all kicks off. His latest conversation with Doreen doesn't inspire...

"When's the joiner coming over to do the reccy of the shelves on the wall. He was supposed to be doing a walk-through with me weeks ago."

"He can't come until the day before we close."

"What will the cleaners be doing while the library's closed?"

"I hadn't thought of that. They'll just have to take leave."

"I don't think so."

"Can you sort something out?"

"Looks like I'll have to."

The bald-headed end of a broom

There'll need to be some explaining to do at Senebene Library....

A lady customer approached Beryl.

"Can you help me?"

"If I can, yes."

"I'm looking for pictures of genital herpes."

"I see..."

"I need some pictures of genital herpes for my course."

"Male or female?"

"Male."

So Beryl has spent the morning looking at pictures of diseased willies.