New Hires

Today was an interesting day at work. Now that it's summertime, I work mornings. Okay, it's kind of ridiculous, what I'm working. Because I work for the government, and the government is stingy, they only allot me 13.5 hours a week. So a lot of the times, I have to get creative with how I can manage to squeeze in 13.5 hours in a week without going over all while not ripping myself off. Basically, I achieve this via "time theft" - a charming euphemism used to describe "sitting around until 9:00 exactly to punch out". I mean, hey, an extra minute is like... 15 cents or something.

Anyway, we are ridiculously understaffed at the library. We have 9 pages working in reference. 2 are on vacation. Fortunately, 2 are supposed to be coming back since they finished up with school, but I've seen neither hide nor hair of them. Not that I mind; I didn't like either of them. See, I took over their positions - which were cooler than what I was originally doing - and I don't want them back, because then chances are I will basically be "demoted" back to doing carts for hours and hours on end. Not like I don't do that anywa, but at least when they were gone, I got to do stuff like the pull list and recycling newspapers. And that was really about it, but it beats shelving, honestly.

So what happened here, since we're so pressed for workers yet we can't afford to hire any more or give the people that do work there more hours (which I think is a load of crap, since we did technically hire two more people, but they are only temporary help, and I kind of get the feeling that they are not paid very much), my boss is like, "Well, okay, so we need you Tuesday and Thursday mornings to do the pull list. But we need you on Wednesday to close because nobody likes working Wednesdays for some reason, and then since Loan is on holiday in Vietnam for the rest of the summer, we need you to work Fridays because there's only one other girl working Fridays and she can't do everything herself."

So here's what my schedule looks like for the rest of the summer:
Tuesday: 9:30-12:00
Wednesday: 4:30-9:00
Thursday: 9:30-12:00
Friday: 1:30-5:30

Isn't that stupid? I mean, I like short shifts just as much as the next guy, but come on, 2.5 hours?? ... Whatever.



So about those new hires. Like I said, I am pretty sure they are just temporary, since they were called in to do inventory. This makes me mad. My boss promised me that I would get to do inventory this summer! I specifically asked for it, she agreed, and she even told me last week that I would get to do it starting today! But no, did I get to do inventory today? Noooo, Walter did it!

Lemme tell you about Walter. I like Walter. He is a very funny man. He reminds me a lot of Gary Coleman. Actually, he is the exact likeness of Gary Coleman. I'm not kidding. Same size, same voice, very outgoing, very funny. Yeah. I work with Gary Coleman.

So I had never met him before today, and I thought he was just some creeper hitting on me. 'Cuz he's all like, "Hey, what're you up to? Whatcha doin'? What's your name?" Questions questions questions! And then I was like, "Can I help you with something?" because I wanted to get rid of him, and then he pulls out a cart from freakin' Narnia and is like, "Actually I work here."

Well I'll be damned. So we chatted for a while. He's intimidated by me. It's awesome. I told him I was head page - which is kinda true, except the title is self-appointed. So he bowed to me! It was really quite funny. The guy's gotta be about mid-to-late 20s, and there he is, bowing to me, the 18-year-old high school graduate. It's pretty great. Actually, the 30-year-old page that I work with kinda "looks up to" me too. I like having this air of psuedo-authority. See, I technically don't have any authority whatsoever as "head page", but people think I do, so it all works out. It's pretty great.

Anyway, one of the reference staff comes up and reminds Walter to get back to work. "Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll shut up now, I was just introducing myself to Miss Head Page over here."

I was a little embarrassed. Uhhh, my bosses don't know that I have been putting down "Head Page" on all of my recent job applications, and I hope they don't think I'm a pretentious asshole who's overstepping her boundaries.

So I ran into Walter on my break later, and he's all like, "What's your name again, Nancy?" I guess people have a problem remembering my name, because this is not the first time someone has mistaken "Lacey" for "Nancy". I don't get it. And then our boss walks in and starts chewing out Walter because apparently, he wasn't even supposed to do inventory today! Lol, it was kinda great.

Later, my boss also told me that she's not that fond of Walter. "He lacks focus, and he gets off task a lot." Uhh, yea, I can totally see that. :P

Whatever. I kinda like the guy though. He can stay. He should just do something else besides inventory though.