What a Day!

This has been a day and a half!  I had to stop this morning and get a birthday cake for our guard whose birthday it was today.  I offered to get a cake once and it has now become my job to get everyone's cake.  I think when it comes to my birthday Jerry will say to me, "Want to pick up your own cake tomorrow on your way in?"  Ha, ha!

So I got in late (an excused lateness) and that was the last calm moment I had.  So much shelving to do.  I got done mine and all of Diane's who is on vacation this week.  Then entered some books.  OK.  I can handle this.  

Then the doors opened and the public came rushing in.  "Do you have this book?"  "How do I get a card?"  "How do I get on the internet?"  "Is your photocopy machine working?"  (This is a question we get asked almost every day because no one can figure out how to turn on the machine.)  

Because there were only two of us, Donna and I had to be on the desk every other hour.  That is hard because you don't have time to do anything in your off hour that takes any amount of time.  And with two trying to do the work of three it's really tough.

The topper though came during my hour at 3:00 p.m.  For an unknown reason all the computers in the building stopped working.  Jerry was out today, so Peggy called downtown and told the Information Technology Department what was going on.  They tried to fix it remotely, but it was beyond them, so they called Verizon.

Meantime people still wanted to return books and check them out so we had do "hand charge" them.  This is where we write down all the card numbers and the book numbers to charge to the card.  We just put the returns in a tote.  Tomorrow when the computers go back on we will have to put all this information in by hand.  I actually stamped cards which I haven't done in years to put in the backs of the books.  One man told me it was a "blast from the past."

On top of everything, my knee slipped out of place and swelled up to over twice its size and I could hardly stand or walk.  I have kept off of it since I got home at 5:30 p.m., elevated it, and took some aspirin.  The swelling has gone down a lot so I hope I am OK to go to work tomorrow.