It is a great ability to be able to conceal one’s ability

Good morning! I have no idea what I’m going to write about this morning. This is what happens when you try and stop yourself observing everything that happens around you in terms of how you will describe it in your blog. Also, I think that damn article – the one that I’m supposed to write and for which I have a deadline of Monday 18 July when The Boss gets back from his holiday – is interfering. I have told myself that I will work on it this weekend, even though it is a work task, but I can’t help thinking about it and feeling slightly peeved that I still have so much to do on it.

It has just been one of those weeks, where everytime I sit at my desk the phone rings or some long plaintive please- help- me- or- the- world- will- end kind of email arrives in my inbox. Ok, so I am exaggerating a bit (I’m a librarian, none of my clientele will die if I am slow to get back to them, the world won’t end) but man I’ve had a lot of things to do this week. Impossible to actually sit and just do a bit of thinking and constructing an article.

Today is going to be a busy day, as I will be it in the small library I supervise (gave the library technician the day off). Hopefully no one comes in with a fine to pay, because I invariably cause the cash register to crash whenever I try to ring up a fine. And I mean crash – where the cash register is completely unresponsive to the No Sale key, so you step back and take a deep breath and apologise to the client. Press the No Sale key again. Smack the cash register. Stop yourself from pressing the No Sale key again, wonder if you will be able to live it down if you ring the main campus library and ask what to do next. Apologise to the client again. Hit the No Sale key again. Apologise to the client again. Smack the Damn Machine again. Write down the details and give the client change from your own wallet. Switch the cash register OFF and go for lunch. Come back from lunch and switch the cash register on, only to find it is STILL STUCK. Refrain from picking the Damn Machine up and throwing it out through the Overnight Returns chute. Tell yourself to do something else and let it work itself out. Three hours later, take a look at the Damn Machine, which has miraculously fixed itself. Finally ring that fine up – why do you always do it flawlessly the second time around??

Heh. It is strangely liberating to have just revealed my Secret Shame online. My colleagues at the small library are resigned to the discrepancies in the till that occur everytime CW touches that cash register. I think the only reason they don’t think I am a complete loss – apart from the fact that I am their supervisor (hmmm, maybe they do think I am a complete loss!) – is the fact that other complicated, even technical problems don’t flummox me. How do I use letters with diacritics in EndNote? Bring it on! Where would I find a statistic to back up my wild statement about the state of the world today? Give me 20 minutes! How do I combine the 15 individual chapters of my PhD thesis into one master document? Piece of cake! How do I reference that scrap of paper I peeled off the sole of my shoe, but which has such a gem of knowledge on it, in my thesis? Sure thing! You want to pay a fine? Can you come back tomorrow?

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4 Comments

cherryripe 14 July 2005

*chortles* Had no clue about this ‘secret shame’ of yours. I used to screw up the cash registers at that brasserie in Northbridge, Perth (that shall remain nameless) on a regular basis as well. But i think i used to press clear when i meant to ring up the amounts, so frequently my supervisors would have a seriously overbalanced till. Guess it was better than being short, but still, i’m sure they used to think, ‘wtf? again?’…

CW 14 July 2005

Ya.. we write down all transactions on a tally sheet so it is really obvious when I have tried to ring something up on that till. My transactions usually have the word sorry! written next to them!

mooiness 15 July 2005

Isn’t it the worst when you can write an observation of your day and feelings (ie. general “crap” :p) but not what you are suppose to be writing? I appreciate what you are going through because I have to write technical documentation from time to time. Even if what I’m writing about is a task that I’d normally do every day, some day I just can’t put it into words. And what make it worse is that sometimes I have to dumb it down so that a non-techie can understand it.

CW 15 July 2005

Dumbing down is good though. Wasn’t it Einstein who said “You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother”? or something like that. Note I am not saying grandmothers are dumb.. 🙂