First Day Nerves

I slept badly last night.  I went to bed early, at 10.30pm, feeling very tired, but woke up once my light was out.  I think I finally fell asleep around 1.00am, having got up for a while and printed an alternative route to work, on the Tube rather than the bus, much quicker, but also more expensive.  Then I woke up around 4.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I eventually decided that I might as well get up early so that I could use my SAD light before leaving.

By 6.30am (when I was planning to get up), I felt incredibly anxious and also rather guilty that I didn’t go back to the library a second, longer, look before suggesting what I could or couldn’t do for it.  Possibly I am expecting too much of myself here, given that I was doing that consultation work for free.  I did at least have time to check the Tube fees for the faster route, and it’s not that much more expensive than the bus.

I got to work on time.  Work was a bit crazy though.  I’m not sure what I can share here exactly.  I measured up the shelf space and calculated the approximate number of books in the collection.  I thought about the pros and cons of moving stuff around.  I won’t go into all of thought processes behind it, but there’s some ideas to balance about strict order versus ease of use bearing mind the users are not librarians or even academics.  I did a lot of tidying and eventually got three or four bookcases looking much more ordered than before.  I’m still not entirely sure where this is going and probably won’t for a while.

What did surprise me a bit was the number of people in the room during the day!  I can’t go into why this was so surprising without revealing too much about the institution, but there were a lot more people going in and out, or in and staying in, than I expected, and a lot more noise from elsewhere in the building than I expected too.  I also spoke to some of the people there and… again, it’s hard to know what I can say, but I think there will be more office politics here than I expected and also more stakeholders in the library than I expected, which is difficult as I’m not always the most savvy person with office politics and trying not to upset the stakeholders, but also recognising that one or two people are a lot more important stakeholders than some other people.

I did feel quite overwhelmed and tense and had an earlier lunch than I intended because I needed a break.  I discovered later that although no one had objected to me when I said I wanted to work from 9.30am to 5.30pm, this is not possible because the site shuts at 5.00pm.  In fact, the security guard started locking up the library about 4.50pm.  So I will have to work slightly earlier, but this should not be too much of a problem if I am going on the Tube, the quicker journey.  I did cope with the afternoon better and felt like I was making some kind of progress by the end, although I still have many questions in my mind about what I am going to do with the library once it’s more orderly.

My parents said I was “buzzing” when I came in.  They think I feel positive about the work and the responsibility.  I guess I am, on some level, even if I feel anxious too.  I also think that, working two days a week, there is work here for at least the better part of the year, which is good, assuming the benefactor wants the work done, and me to do it.

***

Part two of Doctor Who was OK, polished, but over-familiar and under-written.  I think I should go back to my idea of not reviewing new episodes on a first viewing, as it’s too easy to get caught up in the negatives.  Apologies to those to whom I promised to send a review.