And on the third day...

I was wondering how long it would take for the cranks to start showing up. Figures it's the day when I'm actually supposed to be the person in charge. That was my first surprise, arriving for my Sunday shift to learn that there were no other supervisors coming in today. Hey! Well I guess a trial by fire is a good way to see how much I've learned so far, right?

Crank number one was miffed that we couldn't help him with his PIN. As virtually everything now at Harvard is done online with one's Personal Identification Number, it's a pretty important thing to have. Unfortunately we also have absolutely nothing to do with it, although when something goes wrong with it, we're the first to hear about it. A veteran studeny employee here did her best to defuse the snittiness of the user and convince him that we couldn't really help him, but nevertheless I felt a vague sense of unease at his appearance, as if he were a harbinger of worse things to come.

Enter crank number two. This one was a textbook library asshole. With hundreds of books charged out to his account, which I presume he hordes and wallows in like the great dragon Smaug of Tolkein's "The Hobbit" (check his underbelly and it's probably covered with long-forgotten monographs), he decides to make a stink about one particular book that someone else had put a hold on. I have no time for such idiots, but as it's part of my job not to push them over the edge into full-blown psychotic episodes, I did my best to convince him that it would be a good idea to surrender the book. Again one of the poor students bore the brunt of the assault - I have to keep reminding myself that it's my place to jump in and stop the madness.

All crankiness aside, it's still an unbelievably laid-back job. I really need to bring something to work on in my free time, because I have oceans of it. Yesterday I emailed everyone I knew and still had an hour or two left over. Now I'm compulsively checking my account to see if anyone has taken the time to write back. As if people do anything involving a computer on a gorgeous day like this.