The Clock on the Wall

For those of you just tuning in, I work at my local library. It’s a small town library, so we have a staff of less than twenty people. I have to admit that it’s probably the best job I’ve ever had, thanks largely in part to the people that I work with. They’re a fun bunch.

Which means I get away with shit that I probably wouldn’t get away with at other jobs.

For example, the clock on the wall.

When you work the circulation desk like I do, one of your responsibilities is signing people up for the library computers that sit behind the desk. It’s very low key. We just write down their name, what computer they use, and what time they sign in. Part of this is for computer usage statistics, but it’s also in case someone leaves something behind at the computer. Knowing their name and the time, we have a better idea of who it belongs to. Who leaves things at the computers? Everybody. We’ve found all sorts of things over there.

The computers sit along the wall behind the circulation desk with the computer screens facing us (we don’t care what you’re doing, but we will take a glance now and then to make sure its library appropriate). There’s a sort of half-wall partition that separates the computers from the aisle just behind the circ desk. On one side of that is a where a clock usually hangs. That’s where I and several of my coworkers automatically look when we sign people in for the computers.

For whatever reason -be it poor mounting, poor clock design, bad luck, or the ghost of our very first librarian Mrs. Rose- the clock that we had liked to fall off the wall. Just take a leap. Sometimes we could attribute it to someone walking by, but sometimes it just happened. A couple of times the clock was damaged, but repairable. Once it was fixed, it went back on the wall. It’s final fall was a fatal one, though, and a few days after its demise, it was replaced.

That clock lasted a few weeks before it, too, fell off the wall.

The decision was made not to put the clock back up there. Instead, we have a small clock that sits on the back of the circulation desk. Everyone knows its there. I know its there. And yet-

I still look at the damn wall when I sign someone into the computer.

I cannot seem to break this habit. Even with a clock in front of me on the desk, even with a watch on my wrist, even with my phone in my pocket, I still look to the wall for the time. And the time, folks, is not there.

In an act of desperation to help me break the habit, I put up a new clock, the clock that you see in the picture. A clock to remind my dumbass that the time no longer sits on the wall. I end up looking at that 404 clock multiple times a shift because I. Will. Not. Learn. My director and my coworkers thought it was funny and were apparently fine with its existence.

The other day I came in for my shift to find my clock on the circ desk. I thought a coworker had revealed their buzzkill nature and took it down, but no.

It fell off the wall.

I guess Mrs. Rose is the buzzkill after all.