Frankie reads 2012

[anisia]

I signed the contract today, I met the boss of the bosses and she seemed really nice! I start work on Thursday morning, I cannot wait I've already started going to bed at a reasonable hour so I won't have too much trouble adjusting to the new regime. And I've already been to some sections of the library that the customers aren't allowed in, I already felt like I was a regular worker and privy to the inner workings of the library

 

I'm also really happy about the fact that I will now have to walk 40 minutes everyday to get to the library and back home, and I'll be also spending a lot of time on my feet, arranging the bookshelves and all. If I stick to a healthy diet, I think I'll be able to shed some kilos without having to make a huge effort.

 

I honestly can't remember when I've been this excited about my life.

 

This all sounds so exciting

Also walking to and from work is definitely helpful and it gets you in a certain rhythm I guess - at least that's how it went for me. It was daunting at the beginning, but now I can't imagine taking the bus unless it's very rainy.

[frankie]

Only a tiny anecdote to share before my dinner's ready:

 

When my boss showed me the women's locker room, I got my own locker and lo and behold. I noticed the number of the locker was coincidentally rather meaningful. I looked at my boss and said, "if I was a bigger Douglas Adams fan I would find my locker numbering extremely amusing", while I was pointing at the 42. She laughed

 

Must. Eat. Now.

[Karsa Orlong]

So did it contain the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

[frankie]

So did it contain the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

 

Maybe! *knowing, mysterious smile. Oi the cheek!*

[Janet]

Awesome locker number! Glad it's going okay.

[frankie]

I had a pretty great day at work today. As it was a bit slow, I was looking over the shoulder of a co-worker, to see how she did some of the things I've yet to learn, and tagged along. Later that day I was assigned a similar task to what she'd been doing, on my own, and I managed just fine. It was something I'm not supposed to do yet, but the girl in charge of the reservations gave me the tasks anyway It was fun!

 

I'd also been dying to go and see the storage room of the older books and ones of which the library has a lot of copies, I've always wanted to go and check it out. And because it was slow, I asked one of the senior workers if I could go and take a peek, and she said it was fine. It was so exciting! They actually had these shelves that you can move from left to right with a handle, to save space. I don't know what those shelves are called even in Finnish, so I really have no idea what they are in English. I first looked at the rooms where they kept to copies that needed some repairing (so many mishandled books ), and then I moved on to the actual storage room, and I could actually notice the difference in the air of the room, it smelled of old books

 

One other thing: I told you guys last week that I was going to work at the International Federation of Library Associations satellite meeting. Well, later that week I went to see my work schedule and I noticed I wasn't signed for the IFLA meetings, I was to have just normal work days. I was pretty bummed, but I thought it's just as well, I have so many new things to learn and remember. I'd given up on hope However, today, after the info meeting of the staff, this co-worker of mine came to talk to me and asked if I would feel comfortable working at the registration of the meeting. I would be greeting the guests and taking their names and handing out info packets etc etc. I was pretty thrilled I was asked! I bet it's totally down to me being an English major, they wouldn't have asked me otherwise, there are temps there who've worked there way longer than me. I just have to remember to let the experienced regular staff person who's going to be there with me to take charge and be in control, and I'll only be there to assist in case I'm needed as a dictionary.

 

Still, pretty exciting!

[Karsa Orlong]

Sounds great, Frankie

[chaliepud]

Sounds like you're having a great time, long may it continue!

[chesilbeach]

I hope you realise how jealous you're making a lot of us feel! Sounds brilliant, frankie.

[Kylie]

Exciting stuff, Frankie. We call those moving shelves 'compactus' in English. I used to use them at the bank's library. They didn't always stay put when I moved 'em and I nearly got crushed a couple of times.

[anisia]

Sounds like you're enjoying work Love hearing the stories!

[Sofia]

Glad it's going really well

[Devi]

A belated congratulations on your new job Frankie so jealous! It sounds like so much fun.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Devi

[frankie]

Thanks everyone for the congrats, I'm still over the moon about the whole thing! It's sunday, I have to work tomorrow, but I only feel happy and excited, I'm not sad to see the weekend end, not one bit!

 

And the walking to work will be good on the budget to save on gas, on top of being a healthy routine for you .

 

I don't own a car so I'm not exactly saving money or the environment by walking to work, but I'm happy about the exercise. I'm also on my feet most of the time at work so that should burn more calories, too, at least more than I would sitting down.

 

Are you allowed to come in and give us a heads up on a new book that arrives, so we can go hunt it up in our area ?

 

I suppose I am, although I'm not really sure how helpful that would be to you. Most of the new books that come to the library are Finnish translations, and by the time they are translated into Finnish I bet all you people already know about the books And I'm not sure who's responsible for ordering the new books to the library, I should make it a point to find out. Good thinking, Julie! =)

 

Also walking to and from work is definitely helpful and it gets you in a certain rhythm I guess - at least that's how it went for me. It was daunting at the beginning, but now I can't imagine taking the bus unless it's very rainy.

 

Walking to and from work, and having a job with relatively set hours is definitely helping me to adjust to the 'adult' world with certain responsibilities and expectations. I feel so grown up

 

I hope you realise how jealous you're making a lot of us feel! Sounds brilliant, frankie.

 

I promise I don't mean to make you guys jealous Although I have to say, if I was reading some other member's reading log and found out they got to work in a library, I'd be mighty jealous too.

 

Exciting stuff, Frankie. We call those moving shelves 'compactus' in English. I used to use them at the bank's library. They didn't always stay put when I moved 'em and I nearly got crushed a couple of times.

 

Thanks for the word of the day I'm hoping next week someone will order a book from the storage and I'll be able to tag along with whoever goes to fetch the book.

 

I've now worked for 7 days and it's been a blast. On Thursday morning I met the boss of the bosses and she quickly showed me around the staff lounge and the rest of the staff facilities. She gave me a leaflet of the rules of the library and we went over them quickly. Then she left me off at the children's section and I was off to work! The things I did that morning are the things I now always do if I'm working the morning shift: first off I take one of the picture book trolleys ('returned today' trolley) and see to it that the books on it are in an alphabetical order, then I start organising them in the picture book shelves. After that I take the trolley that has all the picture books for little kiddies and organize them too. (All the while I'm making sure the books already on the shelves are in an alphabetical order and that they are nicely organized [Kylie would love this!]). Then I start with the fairy tale section. Any books that are out of place or at the end of each shelf I am to put in their rightful place and see that it's all nice and tidy. I usually have some time after this, and if there's no one telling me what to do next, I will go over the non-fiction books section and tidy up a bit, as well as the fiction section etc.

 

By then it's time for lunch. Then I'm off to the adult section, where I go behind the book returning automatic machine and start shelving the books that are returned in the correct trolleys. For the first few days I was only allowed to shelf the children's books and the books that are fiction or non-fiction and which the machine has been able to sort out. Last Monday I was taught how to deal with another book section: the one where all the books end up that the machine hasn't 'recognised', or ones that have been reserved by a customer. They made it seem like it would be very difficult and the librarian who taught me how to figure it out at first didn't think she would teach me that because I'm only there for two months but she showed me the procedure and it was a piece of cake.

 

I'm also now fetching books from the adult + children's section that the customers have reserved: no one taught me how to do it and I think I'm not even supposed to be doing it yet, but the person who hands out the reservations to the staff decided I was good to go and I've been successful so far.

 

I also took the initiative and asked if I could go and look at the book storage where all the old and not that often borrowed books end up in, and it was beauuuuutiful

 

Oh yes, and I also got to work for the IFLA conference. I was doing the registration, welcoming guests and handing them out their conference info packages. It was pretty weird having to talk all official-like English all of a sudden. I met people from Sweden, Norway, the Philippines, Romania, the UK and the States. I also took care of the guests luggage on Friday. Oh and I had to make a 'autumn' poster for the kiddie's section, that was probably the most unnerving task I've had to do at the library, I'm not good at anything to do with arts =D

 

The staff's really nice and everyone's been very welcoming. The temps are really nice, too, and I feel a kind of solidarity with them, eventhough they are all younger than me.

 

A few bonuses: Ever since I started working at the library, I've been trying to see if anyone would return the first novel in the Jo Nesbø series. And this week I got lucky, somebody returned a copy and I snatched it right off =D I was going to get my library card when a staff member said I wouldn't need one, we could borrow the book for me with the computer we use in the back room when returning books. So I got to borrow the book. And! I was rather embarrassed to mention that I had a fine of 1,60e which I should pay, but the staff member said 'heck no, we'll just erase it '. And there we go, I'm back to no fines

[Brian.]

Making fines disappear sounds like a great perk to have.

[frankie]

Making fines disappear sounds like a great perk to have.

 

It's was very magic-like

[Kylie]

Personally, I'm far more impressed that you get to spend the day arranging books on bookshelves! I'm sure I've commented before that it would be awesome to be paid for that. You're so lucky!!

 

And yay for getting in first to borrow all the good books.

 

ETA: Any chance of some pics of the library?

[frankie]

Personally, I'm far more impressed that you get to spend the day arranging books on bookshelves! I'm sure I've commented before that it would be awesome to be paid for that. You're so lucky!!

 

I knew you'd be most excited about that

 

And yay for getting in first to borrow all the good books.

 

I like this perk better than the swiping off my fines. It's so cool! Although, I've felt like borrowing about 2-5 books everyday at work, and you can only imagine if I did. When would I ever get to reading the books?

 

ETA: Any chance of some pics of the library?

 

Here you will find pics of the return/borrow - customer service desk and the back room behind the book return machine, and also an overview of the front of the library. (It's on FB so if one doesn't have an account, too bad!) I'll see if I can find any other pictures...

[frankie]

And here's a picture of the library I'm working at, it's the main library of Joensuu.

[Kylie]

I like this perk better than the swiping off my fines. It's so cool! Although, I've felt like borrowing about 2-5 books everyday at work, and you can only imagine if I did. When would I ever get to reading the books?

 

Yep, I wondered if that would be a 'problem' for you! Haha.

 

Here you will find pics of the return/borrow - customer service desk and the back room behind the book return machine, and also an overview of the front of the library. (It's on FB so if one doesn't have an account, too bad!) I'll see if I can find any other pictures...

 

I first thought 'wow, that was quick of Frankie to take photos and upload them!' but then realised it's the library's photos. I love the library. It looks so modern (inside and out) and very spacious.

 

ETA: I'm so impressed that you're doing lots of work they thought you wouldn't be ready for. You're showing initiative and I just know you're hella better than the other interns. I kind of wanted to leave a message on the library's photos saying 'Hire Frankie! <insert lots of nice compliments about Frankie>' but I wouldn't embarrass you like that and besides, I wouldn't want to risk upsetting them.

[frankie]

Yep, I wondered if that would be a 'problem' for you! Haha.

 

Definitely a problem

 

I first thought 'wow, that was quick of Frankie to take photos and upload them!' but then realised it's the library's photos. I love the library. It looks so modern (inside and out) and very spacious.

 

I love it, too. It's like a second home to me!

 

ETA: I'm so impressed that you're doing lots of work they thought you wouldn't be ready for. You're showing initiative and I just know you're hella better than the other interns. I kind of wanted to leave a message on the library's photos saying 'Hire Frankie! <insert lots of nice compliments about Frankie>' but I wouldn't embarrass you like that and besides, I wouldn't want to risk upsetting them.

 

I wouldn't say I'm better than the other interns. They are doing the same things I am behind the book return machine, and they've spent more time there because I have to do the children's section as well. For example the other interns are already doing customer service at the desk, no one's even been talking about me trying it out yet

 

The only difference between me and the other interns is that as far as I know, I'm the only one who actually wants to make a career out of working at the library. The others haven't expressed such inclinations.

 

Gotta go now, work awaits!

[chesilbeach]

Wow, what a huge library! I know I live in a small town, but you could fit our entire library in about 5 times just the space you can see on the first photo.

[frankie]

Wow, what a huge library! I know I live in a small town, but you could fit our entire library in about 5 times just the space you can see on the first photo.

 

Oh wow I thought that every library in the UK had to be bigger than ours! It's a shame that there aren't any pics of the whole library, and the children's section where I'm assigned.

 

A weirdish day at work. I went there in high spirits, and it seemed like everyone else was 'meh, Monday'. I went to the book return machine section where I usually go when it's after 11 AM, but they immediately said that they already had enough people there and that I should go and find something to do at the children's section. Okay, I'll do as I'm told, but I was rather bummed. I like working at the return machine section the best...

 

So, it turned out there was nothing really there for me to do except start going over the returned CDs that all need to be cleaned and checked out before returning to the shelves. I've dreaded the moment I need to do that, because it seems so boring. And it was! But I did it anyways, of course.

 

After my lunch break they suddenly needed me at the adult section and I was returning books like a madman. There was a new staff member there, one who'd probably just returned from her holiday, and when she found out I'd been fetching book reservations from the children's and adults section, she started giving me a whole lot of reservations, which was brilliant, I think that's one of my favorite tasks at the library. She also gave me reservations that needed to be fetched from the non-fiction section, which was a new one for me, and for that I was really happy, she seemed to trust that I would do okay. And I managed fine, there was only one book I couldn't find but then I found out that none of the staff members had been able to find it, so there And another book that I couldn't find, but that was because it had not been returned to the bookshelves, but it was in some trolley, and as it was nearing closing time I didn't really think I would have the time to start looking at probable but not so likely places to find the book in question.

 

And when the day was finished, one of the workers actually thanked me for having been such a big help that evening. It was so nice to hear that

[frankie]

Oooh, I forgot! A few colleagues were working with a new display at the lobby today, and as I had my break I went over to see what they'd come up with this time. There was a display of things that have been found between the pages of returned books! It was so great

 

One of the display 'boxes' was filled with bookmarks. There were some really beautiful ones in it. There was also a picture of Justin Bieber and somebody had written on it, 'It's okay to be' and had drawn a heart on his cheek WTF! Another box was filled with postcards. The two other boxes contained rather random things. A lighter, a comb, foreign currency bills, origami animals, a box of matches, you name it! I couldn't believe some of the things that were there on display. I need to take a closer look tomorrow and try and memorize the list of 10 most found things between the pages of books

[Kidsmum]

And when the day was finished, one of the workers actually thanked me for having been such a big help that evening. It was so nice to hear that

 

 

It's always nice to be appreciated

 

I'm so envious of you working in a library Frankie, our library has those new machines as well & i hate them something always goes wrong when i'm trying to check books out & it drives me mad i'd much rather give my books to the lady at the counter like you used to do but if you try that now they just direct you to the machines .