Category: Art

ballpoint and gel pen in steno pad
9 x 6 inches

We had another long meeting today, so I had a chance to do more doodling. The new stuff is in the right-hand third of the page.

I ended up changing my work schedule around this week. The roofers are working on the middle section of the library roof, which involves jack hammering right above our heads. The noise is absolutely unbearable. The good news is that they are supposed to finish tearing out the old roof (the noisy part) by 9-10 am each morning. I can stand an hour or so of the noise, but not much more than that. I can’t just get to work after 10:00, though, because it’s impossible to find parking after around 8:30. So, to compromise, I’m working 8-4 and making up time on Saturday, when the library will be blissfully quiet.

The roof work is supposed to be over mid-month. I hope they’re right about that, because I don’t know how much jack hammering I can stand to listen to.

ballpoint pen in steno pad
4 x 4 1/2 inches

We had our quarterly division meeting today. Thankfully, they’ve been scaled back to one hour long, but there was enough packed into that hour to piss me right the hell off.

First, we spent most of the meeting discussing IT crap. All stuff everyone who works here should know. All stuff there’s no excuse for anyone who works here not knowing. Like, how to properly log off workstations at the end of the day. We’re supposed to restart, not shut down, so that the machines are left on overnight. That allows LIT to install software when the network is the least busy. Duh. That’s been the official procedure since I started working here eight years ago, and I’m betting it’s been so much longer than that. And if there were people who were unclear on the subject (all of whom I bet skipped today’s meeting, because that’s how those things go) a quick, two sentence email should have been sufficient to clue them in. There was really no need to waste time on the subject.

Second, we were told that we will be required to take a series of workshops on such scintillating subjects as how to use MS Vista (because, after a year of using it, obviously we now need training? WTF?!), how to use Outlook (even more baffling, not to mention, our unit had to take a three hour long mandatory Outlook class last winter!), and something that promises to teach us “tips and tricks” for using web browsers. That last one should be especially exciting. And by exciting, I mean exasperating, because I would bet real money that it will cover Internet Explorer, a browser I do not use unless someone holds a gun to my head. The best part was that the guy in charge promised that there would be something to learn for all levels of expertise. And pigs might fly, but I’m dubious.

So basically, today’s meeting made the baby Shelly hoppin’ mad.

gel ink in steno pad
7 1/2 x 6 inches

This was a week of meetings and training sessions. Today’s horror was a 3 hour long workshop on using Outlook’s calendar. Three. Whole. Hours. The less said about it, the better, I think. Even though it was hands-on, I had plenty of time to doodle, and thank goodness for that, or I may have had to poke someone with sharp, pointy objects. It was only slightly less traumatic than Wednesday’s hour-long presentation on libraries in Second Life.