Ideally-placed for kissing goodbye

"What time are you leaving?" T.Aldous asks Maisie. "I've got an urgent order that needs doing."

Maisie says something non-commital and sighes. Once himself has disappeared she confides:

"He's been doing that bloody urgent order all last week and had me hanging round at the end of every bloody day."

Well, those desks won't order themselves. At five to five Maisie comes bounding over.

"T.Aldous has asked me to check with you: there's no corporate IT support after five o'clock is there?"

"No, there's not."

"Good. The e-procurement system's down and I can't send any orders. Looks like I'll just have to go home. What a pity."

Not so bad

Only thirty boxes of kids' books incoming today, a welcome respite for Betty and Noreen. Nearly all are the fag-ends of part-orders that were delivered the other week (a pain in the arse: receiving items on an order in dribs and drabs creates at least two-and-a-half time as much work as receiving it all in one batch. If it's an order for 1,457 books that's delivered as eight batches spread over three weeks it isn't funny.) More good news is that one of the books is the other half of a problem pair caused when the electricity supply dipped in the middle of an invoice: one item's on order but apparently received and the other's received but apparently on order. For reasons which escape us all on analysis, the receipt of this book automatically sorts out the problem. Systems guy decides to thank Providence and let sleeping dogs lie.

Another highlight is the copy of "Curious George Goes Quantity Surveying" which has English text but a Greek cover. Somewhere, one hopes, there's a copy of the Greek version that has an English cover, otherwise it could all get horribly complicated.

Autumnal splendour

Catty Library may be closed for repairs but that doesn't mean we're spared in-library water features in this splendid English summer weather. The water chute in the children's library at Senebene is no more than one would suspect, ditto the bucket of water feature at Spadespit. We feel entitled to be a bit pissed off that the new library at Roadkill didn't manage to get through its first six months without a leak. Especially as it didn't leak once in the two years it lay empty waiting for us to move in.

Surprise!

Quarter past eight there's a knock on the front door. The gentleman introduces himself to Noreen: "I've come for the meeting and demonstration."

What meeting and demonstration? No idea. We have numerous whiteboards, some huge and empty; calendars, diaries and post-it notes and no end of communication tools but nothing avails. The gentleman is not happy: he's travelled three hundred miles for a meeting at half-eight. A combination of coffee and professional interrogation techniques gives Noreen enough clues to surmise that he's come to see Mary about a new model Mobile Library. Conferring with Milton, who also has no idea of any meeting, they decide to install the gentleman in Milton's old office and help him sort out space for him to display his wares.

Mary, of course, arrives at twenty-five to nine and installs herself in her office with a cup of tea.

Somebody who failed Meccano

Maybelle has just finished constructing a panel display for the stand at the "Healthy Helminthdale" event at the Town Hall tomorrow.

"That pole's the wrong colour," says T.Aldous.

We all needed a magic torch

So that's why Seth's been looking so smug today... The Fire Inspector's been in, had his say about box city and has told Seth:

"You're the Fire Warden. You've got the responsibility to keep the fire corridor clear."

"I try, but the managers keep over-riding me."

"You've got the legal authority to get that corridor cleared. They have no legal authority to stop you doing it. Think on that."

The Acq. Team are starting to see light at the end of their darkness (they reckon they're now only about a month behind with the workload, so long as less than fifty boxes arrive tomorow). Over the past few weeks Bronwyn's been quietly disposing of stuff that's been hanging round for a decade. And nobody's asking what happened to the sixteen boxes of children's books that went to Panama Street Library for an event and never came back. The omens are good for an entertaining "No, you can't pile a load of old desks in the corridor" stand-off during the summer holidays.

Lifelike, isn't it?

Henry Irving bounces into the office.

"I've just visited the inmates in your brand new Leadership Suite. Very splendid. A hub of management activity and a foment of razor-sharp decisive thinking. Wonderful. I shall visit it again."

They must have moved the shopping trolley.

Noses to the grindstone

It's always a bad idea to have a flexi-day off (especially in Flaming June with the rain up to your navel and trees horizontal in the wind). There's always bad news to come back to.

T.Aldous has decided he won't be retiring before 2011.

This grim puppet

T.Aldous motivating Jim and Milton:

"Of course, I never wanted your posts to be created when the reorganisation was proposed..."

Get a nice sheep's head from the butcher

Doreen's having a torrid time of it this afternoon. T.Aldous is obsessing on the buffet arrangements for the centenary of Milkbeck Library. She's had half an hour of it and has just returned to her office, where she needs to catch up with this week's staffing problem in lending and a load of hassle about Epiphany. Less than two minutes in, he's back on the case.

"That buffet selection seems to have a lot of meat in it. Lots of people don't like a lot of meat. We need to have a look at some of the other options."

Our visitor figures are falling, our issue figures are fragile, our stock management processes are lying on their backs waggling their legs in the air and staff are thinly-spread and utterly demoralised. But there won't be too much meat.

Damp

T.Aldous and Doreen have been over to Epiphany Library to see how the refurb's going. It turns out that it's going as we would expect: one of the wall panels under the windows has been removed for something or other, leaving a useful gap in the wall for rain to pour through.

Guess which is the only bit of the floor that's been carpet-tiled?

Tibet smells of butter

More concerns about the idea of Catty Library adjoining the health centre.

"The smell will drift into the library."

I'm sure that the health service has similar concerns.

New balls please

Conversation over the newspapers and lunchtime butties:

"That's good news."

"What?"

"Maria Sharapova's going to be wearing shorts at this year's Wimbledon."

"And something over her mouth?"

"Don't be unfair. These days that's the only time I get to hear a woman grunting."

You and me both, mate.

The vehicle's in motion, the driver's got nothing to say

Salome's helping a customer fill in a driving licence application form on the DVLA web site. His English isn't good but he is friendly...

"Now, Mister ..., are you male or female?"

"Yes."

"OK... Are you disabled?"

"Yes."

"Are you blind?"

"Yes."

"Are you pregnant?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, there's a queue building at the enquiry desk. I'll have to leave you to finish completing the form by yourself."

They can smell fear

For reasons of my own I've been reviewing Library Service processes and project management.

Between us we've established the correct pattern of behaviour in the aftermath of the usual nonsense. I present it here for the illumination of nations.

The Helminthdale Damage Limitation Toolkit

Did we get away with it?
Yes	Sorted.
No
Can we blame somebody else?
Yes	Sorted.
No
Will anybody make a fuss?
No	Sorted.
Yes
Can we find a scapegoat in the lower ranks?
Yes	Sorted.

A concentrated dose of all-pigeon action

More developments on the Catty Library front. It turns out that the space at the end wall is going to be the joining point between the library and the new community health centre, which is finally coming on stream after two decades' hot air. It's OK to knock down the back wall but we can't have a wireless network connection the size of a biscuit tin up on the roof. (sigh)

This transformation from vague rumour to vague intention is mentioned to senior Catty Library staff.

"What happens when people wander into the library from the health centre?"

Somewhere in there is humour

This floor is heaving with boxes of books; old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones. Quite by chance it dawns on me that we could automate the distribution of the Book Off books by exporting the dataset to a spreadsheet, randomising the list and then batch-transferring subsets of the stock to each library. After checking out the intended proportions with Frog I did the necessary and hey presto! a week's work done in ten minutes. The stock just needs to be processed and boxed up for shipping. This gives us a fighting chance of getting shut of the stuff before Xmas.

I'm relieved at having found a solution to part of the problem, right up to the point where I mention it to Noreen. Her response is underwhelming.

"It'll still be weeks before they're finally get rid of them."

By the time we finish the conversation I'm entirely deflated. The latest in a long line of disappointments. Nearly every piece of work I've done this past few weeks has been a dead waste of time. Oh, the work's done and it works OK. It's just that there's only me worrying about any of it. It would be just the same if I didn't bother.

Noreen feels similarly about her work, which is one reason why she's so down. The remorseless torrent of thousands of might-or-might-not-count-as-work books takes its additional toll.

It's all part of working in a service where delivery takes a very poor second place to attendance.

More time than is strictly necessary

Huge problem with the People's Network at Helminthdale Central. Huge, huge, huge problem. Send for the cavalry. Call for Dick Barton. Batsignals at dusk.

The clocks on the public clients are three minutes slow.

Customers booking an hour's session still get their hour. Just three minutes later than it says on the clocks in the library, all of which are finally set to British Summer Time (three years of work on Seth's part but he got them beaten into submission in the end). Consequently, "lots" of people have been hanging round the enquiry desks waiting three minutes for their session to start. Big problem. Especially as there's obviously no intention of using the three minutes to sell a selection of our services to a captive audience. Seth's made it very clear that he will not be changing the time on the clocks. Especially as the people complaining most loudly are the self-same ones who would kick off the most at the idea of closing the doors three minutes late. So the problem's come to me. I have the same system permissions as the public so I can't over-ride the clock settings.

I promised to ask IT to have a look at it.

• I won't be asking them any time that we need them to get a move on delivering a new client model.
• Nor when we want them to change internet permission policies.
• Nor when we're trying to persuade them to unblock blogs and social networking sites on staff PCs.
• Nor when we need their support for a big capital systems project.

Po

A customer rushes to the lending enquiry desk.

"I think you need to go and have a look at what's going on in the children's library."

Maybelle went over to check it out. A lady had emptied all the picture books out of one of the kinderboxes and sat her child in there. Said child was emptying his bladder as Maybelle arrived.

"I'm potty-training him," explained the lady.

Still on the trail of the whistling mouse-nobbler

When Bronwyn cam down half an hour ago she was accompanied by a little old man who'd wandered into the lift as she set off. She sent it back up to the lending library floor. Thelma's just come down.

"There's an old man in the lift. I've just sent him up to lending."

Bronwyn decided to investigate. It turned out to be the same chap.

"Nay, lass, I'm in t'right place. I only nipped in to use the lavatory."