ALL STAFF DAY

Yesterday was our annual All Staff Day at work.  All the libraries in the city close and we all meet at the central library for a day of lectures and workshops.  It is usually deadly dull.  But surprisingly yesterday wasn't bad at all.

I picked up Bob and Diane and then we went to Jerry's house and he took the three of us down.  We did this because he had a free parking pass and I would have had to pay for parking.
 
We were split up into A-L and M-Z by our last names so Diane and I hung together all day.  I got to see a lot of my friends from other libraries and it was fun talking with them again and catching up.  The first thing they did was feed us breakfast!  Lots of all different kinds of muffins, juice, coffee, tea, water.  And was it ever good!

The beginning of the day was spent in the auditorium with our president, Shioban Reardon, talking about the future of the library and answering questions.  We had a break where they gave us soft pretzels, but I didn't take any.  I was still full.  Then we had a second session on customer service which was really interesting with lots of funny examples.  Did you know that if you get good service at a place you will tell maybe 20 people.  But if you get bad service you tell about 100 people.  The speaker said people like to complain!

Then we had lunch.  We met up with Jerry and the three of us sat on the marble steps of the grand staircase to eat.  They had all kinds of sandwiches and salads but the three of us got the tuna sandwich, cookies, an apple, a bag of pretzels and a mint.  It was good.  I looked on google to see if I could find an image of the staircase, but it wasn't there.  Someday I am going to have to take my camera down there and get a few shots.  It is beautiful -- like a museum.

In the middle of lunch music started playing and a "flash mob" of library employees started dancing.  Even some of the vice presidents strutted their stuff.  It was cool.  Of course I didn't have my camera with me, but I grabbed my cell phone.  It's not great, but you get the idea.

  
In the afternoon we went to a workshop on time management.  As if I haven't been to a million of them.  But this one was interesting, interactive and fun.  I actually learned a few things too.  I will never be organized like this lady is.  I just don't have it in me to schedule and account for every minute of my day.  But I can make things better.

Then there was another break.  There was fruit, trail mix, granola bars and cupcakes.  Cupcakes?  I was good and had a banana.  By this time my sugar was going down and I could tell my potassium was low so this was the perfect thing.  I also saw a lot of my former co-workers and got to talk to them.  It was awesome.

For the final workshop Diane and I decided we just could not sit through another hour plus of a lecture so we took a tour of the Rare Book Department.  What a good idea.  It was fascinating.  I had never been there.  We saw their latest exhibit of the works of Robert Lawson.  He was an illustrator and what a great artist he was.  You may have seen some of his work in the children's books Ferdinand the Bull and Ben and Me.  But he also did drawings of the  French countryside when he was in WWI and advertisements for various magazines as well as illustrations for adult books.  Marvelous!  And then we went into the department itself and saw a complete set of first edition Charles Dickens books, maps from the 1500s, a desk used by Charles Dickens in which he carved his initials, a cuniform tablet that was 4,000 years old and a copy of the Magna Carta printed in 1402 among lots of other things.  Everything was so interesting and the librarians were so great to us.  I want to take a group of my friends there to do a tour.

The Rare Book Department is on the top floor of the building.  The walls and ceiling are all carved.  I didn't have much room to take pictures on my cell phone, but here is one of the hundreds of medalions.

And they had these beautiful chandeliers.  They were very tall and made out of metal of some sort.  Brass maybe?  You can't see it in the picture but the top looked like lots of lit candles.  I really have to bring my camera next time.  This library was built in 1927 and is unbelievably beautiful.

As we were leaving for the day, the Staff Association had free water ice for everyone.  Diane and Jerry got lemon and I got mango/peach.  What a nice way to end the day.

Well, it was nice up to a point.  When I got back to my car I found there was a nail in my tire.  I didn't dare pull it out because I didn't want it to go flat before I got home.  After I dropped Bob and Diane off I ended up hitting rush hour and a 4 car accident.  My usual 15 minute ride took me 45 minutes.

Today was my late day so I took the car back to the garage.  The tire was still under warranty so they fixed it for free.  I thought it would take awhile, but it was only 10 minutes.  Then I dropped some things off at the Salvation Army and went to Shop Rite before I came home.

Diane had had her birthday while we were still closed with the water problem, so we celebrated her birthday today.  I got a chocolate strawberry shortcake for her.  She was very surprised because she thought we were just going to skip her birthday this year.

So now it is a little after midnight and I must go to bed and get some sleep so I can get up for work tomorrow.  Or should I say today.  Thanks for coming on my trip through the All Staff Day.  Goodnight folks.