~Service Learning Entry #5~

I've had a couple more exciting experiences at the JPL since I last posted. I'm going to try and remember what happened each time, but I make no promises. The first of these was last Saturday morning. I was in Circulation for most of the morning, which just begins to tell you how busy I was. As usual, there was nothing "prepared" for me to do, but she found a way to get me out of the way. (If I sound frustrated with the people, I'm really not. They're all incredibly nice to me. I just don't like being bored and useless.) Anyway, they kept me busy that morning searching for missing books, only this time they were ones that might have been shelved before they were checked in. In the two and a half hours I was looking, I found three of them, which sounds bad, but really isn't. Again, I'm pretty sure she didn't expect me to find any of them.

Now, the last 45 minutes I was there were actually fairly enjoyable. It was a Super Saturday in the Children's section. That meant that, instead of just having Storytime, they also got to put together crafts and have snacks. I got to go help with crafts and snacks after they had finished Storytime. The kids made kaleidoscopes, which are actually pretty neat. I mostly helped a little girl named Ebony put hers together. Once the crafts were assembled, we passed out snacks, which were incredibly gooey Rice Krispies Treats. Overall, it was a lot of fun.

On Sunday morning I discovered why Susan, the Circulation director, has been so busy and stressed. She had mentioned something about getting ready for a retirement party last week, but I hadn't really thought much about it. In the Sunday paper, though, was a large article about one of the library directors retiring. My dad pointed it out to me, thinking that I might have met her, but I hadn't. From the picture in the paper, I think I might have seen her once, but never met her. Now that the party planning is over though, I'm wondering if things in Circulation might go a little differently.

I think I have been prepared for this experience for several reasons. For example, library work is something I've been doing for several years. My mom is our church librarian, and I've been helping her with that for as long as I can remember. Also, I spent a lot of time in the library during high school, I think because I was bored everywhere else. Because of all of this, I was pretty thoroughly prepared for the actual "library" job. I also think I was prepared to deal with the differences in the organizational culture, though. I really stepped out of my comfort zone earlier this year when I took a job at Wilson's Leather. I had worked at Wilson's before, but this year I was the only returning employee. There I dealt with new (and definetly not positive) management. I learned there that the best way to get through a situation with new people is to stick it out and not get discouraged. I honestly almost quit several times at the beginning of the season, but I stayed, hoping that things would get better. As it turned out, that was for the best. By the end of the season, I had been promoted to Assistant Manager and was one of just two employees remaining from the beginning. As a result of all this, I learned how to deal with different types of people, and how to get along with them all at the same time. This has been very helpful to me at the library, as I've met a lot of new and very different people, and so far I don't think I've managed to offend anyone.