Disgruntled...long whiny post from MW

OK, yesterday was really and truly the first time since I started at WPL (last August!) that I left work feeling less than fulfilled by my own actual work there. File this whole post, if you like, under “W” for “whining,” but I hope to suggest some easy solutions to the things that bugged me today.

First, allow me to pick on the lovely Queen A, who asked me several weeks ago to prepare craft stuff for today’s Books & More session. It was my pleasure so to do, and minus some electronic communications snafus, I think I had all the stuff you needed for today’s session—except, oops, books related to today’s theme for the participants to take home. Let’s just say that half an hour before the program, at the busiest time of day on the busiest day this week was NOT a good time to be scrambling for books, while real human beings were piling up waiting for help at the gazebo. As politely as I can possibly ask, I would LOVE to know (for craft AND book purposes) what you think the themes/crafts for the next three sessions might be; I’ll also make a note to add to my own supply checklist the need for books to offer.

Next, we come to the Summer Reading Program. I have to return to my question of a couple weeks ago, about how the reading program “works.” I understood that there were essentially no changes from what we did last year—and last year, when kids who had not participated in the actual first week of the program were eager to join in later on, we regularly asked them whether they read each day, and then let them join the program by filling in their name and # on the Week 1 card, depositing it immediately for the drawing prize, and collecting the Week 2 card to fill in at home as well as this week’s prize offering. I understood that this was both fun for the kids and good for our numbers. Laureen (thank God!) was double-booked with me at the desk for the hour of Books & More; she helped gather the books AF needed for her program, but even with two of us, we were barely staying afloat. Laureen seemed, however, to get the impression (from AF or Jason??) that no one should be given anything other than a bare-naked Week 1 card to start the program. Clarification would be useful ASAP, thanks!

Then, prizes: When I asked two weeks ago who would choose the prizes each week, I was told this would be my job—since I’m the first body at the gazebo on Mondays. AF then recommended (and helped pick out) pencils last week, and the bookmarks and comics, this week. Today it became clear, early in the day, that the comics would be gone by mid-day, and although Jason was able to scare up an additional small stack of comics (thank you!!), they too were gone within an hour. (Can you spell B-U-S-Y??)

When we ran out for the second time, I remembered that last summer we often gave away books as the primary reading program prize, so I pulled a few of these from the “drawing prize” box Jason pulled together this morning (thank you again!!), mostly because they were at hand and we were (did I mention?) SWAMPED. When Jason discovered the choice I had made, he was not pleased. I understand that he would like to have “book” prizes reserved for drawing winners, but I feel I’m back at square one in my understanding of how prizes are chosen. Jason set out more pencils to hand out today, but (to my mind) this makes our Week 2 prizes identical to our Week 1 prizes. I promise that I’ll be happy to hand out whatever anyone says should be handed out, but I have two important-to-me requests to make: a) that the discussion of what we are handing out should not happen in front of a crowd of patrons, when there are many of them standing nearby and wishing for assistance, and b) that the choices of what we’ll distribute should be clear at the START of the week, with a list of backup selections so that, in case we run out, we don’t have to hunt each other down to get approval for what to do next.

Sorry for being disgruntled, and for the long post. I’m aware that this whole thing is as serious a matter as sticky jewels (thanks for mine, Jason!), construction paper, and sparkly pencils…and would rather find answers than stew about silly stuff.

Thanks again for any light you can shed…