These are a few of my favorite things....

...or, you know, things that make my job less annoying, or just bearable on certain days.

1. Carrying a clipboard; it makes me feel approximately ten times smarter, for whatever reason.  That is just the magic of clipboards.
2. I am given a list of books that are 60 days overdue and it is my job to check the shelves to see if they got put away without getting checked in.  The chances of actually finding one on the shelf?  Slim.  So how do you think it makes me feel when I find one on the shelf?  Awesome!
3. I have just reorganized/shifted/shelf-read an entire section.  Now I get to stand there and admire my handiwork before it gets ruined. 
4. Someone comes in looking for something and they looked kind of stressed out.  "I need books on child support.  Like legal guidance for child support."  I love being able to say "Right over here!" and see the look of relief on their face.  This happens even with less important things, like "Where are the Junie B. Jones books?" and they get crazy excited when I point them out.
5. Sometimes, all it takes is a baby making goo goo eyes at me and smiling.  I realize this could happen anywhere, it doesn't have to be at the library, but getting those looks while I'm working makes them even better.
6. At the end of the day, shutting down the computers... It means I get to go home soon and there is something very satisfying about hitting ctrl-alt-delete over and over again.  Who knows why.  This also reminds me of Kris every single time I do it, which makes me sad but happy.
7. Sneaking in reading while I'm working.  You have no idea how often I actually do this.  Once, I even read the entire first chapter of Dracula that was deleted from the final copy of the book, but is in several collections of horror stories.  I love Dracula, and I didn't know there was a deleted chapter until I saw it in one of those books as I was shelf reading, and I couldn't help myself!  No one saw me and told me to stop, which made the whole thing even better.
8. Watching parents read to their kids.  This is surprisingly rare.  Even more rare is a parent reading to their kid, and the kid is paying attention.  I've seen them give up partway through a book because the kid can't sit still and just wants to play the computer games (shudder...).  So when I see a parent, sitting with their child, reading out loud, and the kid is interested, following along, laughing, etc, it's one of the best things in the world.
9. There is this one old lady who comes in frequently, and she compliments me on what a good job I'm doing, and always tells me to have a nice day.  She's always pleasant.  Always smiling.  I wish there were more people like her out there.
10. Book smell.  You know how new books have a good smell?  I like that.  I don't like the semi-old books that have that weird, old person, did-someone-pee-on-this kind of smell.  I LOVE old old book smell.  Those really old, musty books...sigh.  There is one in particular in the library, printed sometime in the 20s, it's Florence Nightingale's notes or something like that, and it smells AMAZING.  I guess it's kind of gross to sniff old books, but hey, I never said I was classy like that.

Visitation Rights

As I’m sure you can imagine, working in a library can get very, VERY dull.  Not that I don’t like it there, but sometimes I'll be in the non-fiction books shelf reading, and all of a sudden I'll realize it's been hours since I've seen another human being.  Truthfully, it’s kind of nice when that happens, because sometimes I get a non-stop deluge of people wanting to know where juvenile non-fiction or young adult novels are, or how to use a computer, or what have you, and it gets to the point where I’m ready to punch the next person to ask me anything.  But it does get dull and sometimes I start to space out a little bit and it can be kind of depressing.  Needless to say, I enjoy it when a friend comes in to visit me now and then.  It rarely happens though, and the only friend I see on a regular basis is a guy that I met from working there.  It can get tricky though, because technically I don’t think I’m not allowed to have visitors, but I know that if I stand around talking for an hour, I’m going to get in trouble.  Anyway, there are certain visits that I will always remember.  Like the time a good friend of mine came in to visit me.  We were standing there talking, but he didn’t want to get me in trouble, so he kept a lookout for anyone walking by.  No one did for a long time, and none of the librarians came back at all, but at one point a lady came past and he stopped mid-sentence and said “So yeah, Stephen King...yeah.”  And watched until she had gotten out of earshot and then kept talking.  It was hilarious. 

Then there was the time my best friend came in and actually helped me shift books for a long time so that we could talk and I would still be working.  I love her.

And then there was the time that my old neighbor came in and was looking at movies while I put them away.  He’s an aging hippie, a really cool guy, but sometimes he says things that make you wonder just how much pot he smoked over the years.  An old man who comes in almost every day came over to look at the movies I had on my cart while my neighbor was still standing there.  Now, at the time, I was dating a guy who was kind of a jerk.  I don’t need to go into details here.  But at that precise moment, with the nice old man standing right there, my neighbor decided it would be a good time to ask me “Hey, you’re not still fucking around with that douchebag are you?”

There's really no right response to that.  I looked at the old man and wondered if I should apologize, then decided to just laugh it off and walk away.  It's times like that when I wish for the dullness of being all alone in the back.  At least no one can embarrass me there.