Encroaching Doubts — Doubts arose that last week. I wondered if I was making a mistake. After all, I’d specifically gone to graduate school for this career. Libraries had taken up a solid decade of my life in some way or another. I’d been an official librarian for over six years. It wasn’t…

One More Story Time for the Road — The staff I left behind at Cyprus was vastly different from the one that had greeted me two years before. Aside from only a few people, I felt I hardly recognized the group anymore. There was a new manager, a whole new children’s department, and a whole new teen department…

A Financial Opportunity — At lunchtime the same day of the branch’s second gun scare, I sat in the break room with Quinn and a few others, feeling numb and detached from everyone and everything. After the excitement of the morning, the rest of the day seemed tame in comparison. I munched away on…

The Week from Hell — Buckle up. It’s about to get crazy. I finally made some progress on my library exit once August hit. But this only came after I suffered through Hell Week. It all began on a Tuesday afternoon. Uncharacteristically rough storms passed through that August afternoon. Rain lashed the trees outside and…

The Hallmark Bandit — My time working in libraries could not be complete without at least one more notorious patron who plagued the library system as a whole in some newly creative yet ridiculous way. The last was known as the Hallmark Bandit. To explain how he ended up on our radar, and how…

Personal Chaos — As if unsuccessfully charting a path toward a new career in the midst of summer reading weren’t enough to deal with, my personal life was still not the greatest. And though hope had returned to my outlook, as was often the case, something in my reality sent that hope crashing…

Still More Issues (Come On, Man!) — I returned to work Tuesday feeling much better, mostly because I’d made cookies the night before and cookies make anything better. Plus, the local zoo came out with tons of neat animals. Seeing an owl and a bearcat inside the library is always a treat, and the day only got…

Barb’s Parting Shot, aka The Goodbye I Didn’t Want — It had fallen to me over the last year to organize everyone’s farewell party when someone left. I had organized Amy’s baby shower, Martha’s goodbye in January, Amy’s goodbye in May, Ajay’s goodbye in June. So when I heard of Barb’s departure, I wanted to be the bigger person and…

Barb Spirals — The next day dawned and I traveled back to work. Barb was there, but as predicted, I witnessed no blow up. Quinn was hanging her hopes on Barb interpreting this as the last straw and quitting. I hadn’t reached the hope that Barb would leave until that moment. I’d spent…