Tag: day job

How to Library

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A tweet talking about all of the good things that libraries do as a publicly funded entity which is probably why people talk about them being obsolete in an effort to be rid of them (I’m paraphrasing the tweet by a lot, but that was the gist) reminded me that I actually have inside knowledge about this that I could disseminate to the masses. Or the readers of this blog. Whatever.

For those of you just tuning in, my current day job is working as a part-time library clerk at my local small town library. Now, I’m sure you think it’s a great job, especially for a writer, to have because it’s a small town, so it can’t be that busy, right? How much work do you actually do? Especially part-time.

Kids, let me tell you…there is a lot that goes into making a library work.

Obviously, there’s checking out items, checking in items, and shelving them. I do a lot of that. It’s a basic of the job. And here’s some real insider knowledge: we all sing the alphabet when we’re shelving stuff. Always. Everyone. My boss is a librarian, master’s degree and all, and she still has to run through the alphabet while shelving. Think you know the alphabet? Work in a library. I guarantee you don’t. It’s amazing.

Other things we have to do every shift include getting the books out of the book drops outside (I curse the people who return half the children’s floor that way) and we get items on the pull list, which are items requested either by our patrons or patrons from other libraries in our system. Yes. You can order books from other libraries if your library doesn’t have it. Pretty neat.

But in order to have access those items they first of all have to be bought and then catalogued and then processed because yeah, this shit just doesn’t come in ready to go.

Cataloging involves putting each item in the system and then barcoding it. After that’s done, it has to be processed. What’s processing? Well, every library has their own way, but this is how we do it.. First of all, everything has to have the appropriate labels; spine labels, obviously, but also series labels on books and audiobooks; DVD’s, Blu-rays, and CDs have to have the appropriate color coded stickers for genre, as well as other relevant stickers; everything gets stamped or stickered as the library’s property; and then the books get covered. Which means laminating them. Paperbacks get hard laminate, which has to be measured, cut, and stuck on by hand. Hardbacks get soft laminate, which means the dust jackets are put through the laminator, cut, taped, creased, put back on the book, and taped down. Does this sound like a lot? Well, yeah, it kinda is. But we’re not done! Because after all that (or at some point during the process; depends on who’s doing it), everything has to be RFID’d. What’s that? That’s the system we use to check things in and out. So everything gets a special sticker and it’s encoded with that item’s information.

As an aside, we switched over to this system during the early months of the pandemic. I, along with three other of my coworkers, tagged every single item in the whole library. It took us about three months.

Anyway. That’s just a small portion of what my coworkers and I do on any given day, and that’s just the “books ‘n’ stuff” work. Because even my small town library provides the community with a lot of resources and services.

Like…

We’ve got an outreach program so people who are homebound or at the nursing home can get items. We’ve got three different book clubs. Do you like ebooks? Audiobooks? Movies? Music? We’ve got apps for that. Yeah, you can borrow items from our digital collection, too. It was a big hit when were shut down in March/April/May of 2020. Also, remember how I said you can order books from other libraries. You can do that online, too.

We’ve got free programs and workshops. From teaching kids how to make hovercrafts to teaching adults how to effectively compost. We made pillows for the local nursing home, painted bottles, made tiny art, made Mother’s Day and Father’s Day presents, made friendship bracelets, taught people how to make pollinator gardens, and had kids do their own Coke and Mentos rockets. There’s crafts and skills and lectures and all sorts of things we provide for patrons and members of the community to do and learn.

Speaking of programs, do you need space for yours? How about a party or gathering? Or just a quiet room to study in? Yeah, we’ve got all of those available for reservation. And again, you don’t have to have a library card to use them, but a few of our rooms do come with a fee.

We provide free computer access and free WiFi. You don’t have to have a library card to use it. You can get copies done on the cheap and you can send a fax for a dollar a page (it’s going back to 1994 after all). We provide free notary services as well. Do you need something laminated? We can do it for a reasonable price.

We can help you find whatever information you’re looking for. We’ve got a list of e-resources for patrons who are looking for work or housing or legal help, etc. We can also help you check your email, print things, use Google, and other basic computer/internet tasks. We can also probably point you in the right direction if we don’t know the answer to your question. And we rec books, movies, music, and TV shows just for the hell of it.

My library has the Library of Things, which allows you to check out things like Rokus, WiFi hotspots, an Amazon Fire Stick, and even ukuleles. We also have a seed library where you can “check out” seeds.

We also have an extensive archive collection relating to the library, the city, and the surrounding areas and people can actually request items to look at in person. They’re also frequently put out on display and my boss talks about them in a video series she does on Facebook and YouTube.

Oh, yeah. We’re on the socials. During the lockdown, we did a major pivot to video for the kiddie story times, which are now happening in person again. We’ve also got a website that’s positively loaded with info and reference links. And we’ve got a podcast that you should totally listen to. Not just because I run it (which is a good enough reason), but because it provides a lot of insight into what the library has and what it does. Also, I’ve done some cool local history episodes that are quite murder-y.

In fact, I just completed a series of episodes in which my coworkers tell you a little more about what they do at the library and how that translates to benefits to our patrons and our community.

And that’s just my little library. There are other libraries all over the place doing similar or bigger and better things.

So check them out! And support them! Libraries are good!

And return your shit on time.

***

If you’d like to listen to my library’s podcast, you can find it on Anchor as well as bunch of other platforms. Check the links there to find the one you like best.

The Purge, But for My Stuff

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Image by drewplaysdrums from pixbayAt the day job, sometimes we get projects. My first project involved going through the mess of empty DVD cases we have (they’re used for the collection of movies, TV shows, and games we have to loan out), weeding out the bad ones, and organizing the rest. It took a couple of weeks, but I got it done.

For an organizer like me, the project was great. For a pack rat like me, it was a challenge.

I’m the person that will hang onto the most random, useless things just in case. I will attempt to salvage things that can’t or shouldn’t be salvaged. It was tricky for me to get through that part of the project, but I eventually got the hang of it.

Then I brought it home.

I have a several To Do Lists. I have the writing To Do List of Doom. I have daily/weekly To Do Lists. And I have the To Do List of the Year. Stuff that needs to be done, but I don’t have a time limit on them. It covers things like getting new glasses (when I have the money), getting a tattoo cover-up (when I have the money), finishing sewing projects, transferring pictures from my phone to my computer. Stuff like that.

Many of the items currently sitting on that list involve getting rid of things. Cleaning out my writing drawer, cleaning out art drawer, cleaning out my make-up, cleaning out my nail polish, cleaning out my bookcases, cleaning out my email folders. Purging. Getting rid of that which no longer serves me.

This past week I brought my work home with me, so to speak. I’ve started going through my To Do List of the Year, accomplishing a couple of smaller tasks before setting my sights on the things that need to go. I’ve cleaned out all of my email folders. (Who the hell saves four year old coupon offers? Me. That’s who.) I’ve thrown out some nail polish. The make-up is next.

You see, not only do I have to seize these productive moods, but I also have to go with the pitch it flow. I’ve been throwing things out for two weeks now. I’m in the rhythm. I can carry that rhythm to moisturizer I’m never going to use and I know I’m never going to use. It’s okay for me to get rid of those things and create that much needed space.

I need to lighten my load, so to speak.

So if anyone needs any barely used eyeshadow, let me know. I might have your shade.

The New Day Job

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Now that I’ve been working at this new day job gig for a little over three weeks and we’re nametag official, I suppose I can fill folks in on the details.

I’m working as a clerk at the local library part time. Right now the hours are perfect for me. I make enough to pay the bills, but I also have time to write and podcast. Though the job is a lot more than just shelving books and checking them out, it’s not stressful. There is always someone nearby to answer any questions and so far, the training I’ve received has been very good. And thankfully, I’m getting the hang of things. It’s quite the departure from the last day job.

I know what you’re thinking. A writer working at a library? It’s perfect! Well, yeah, sorta.

For one thing, it’s exposing me to books outside of my reading comfort zones (which I’ve been trying to do in the last few years anyway). It’s also exposing me to books that I’d never read, but it’s still good to know they exist. Like Amish romances. I had no idea these were so popular, but let me tell you, we carry a lot. So, it’s definitely inspiring me to read more, which will hopefully translate to me reading more consistently so I can read more.

On the flip side, it reminds me of how much I’m not accomplishing. Processing all of the new books reminds me of the ones that are sitting unpublished or unfinished on my hard drive. I want to say that it inspires me to work, but so far it’s just been a bit disheartening. I see all of those books and I can’t find my place.

Though if there are readers for Amish romances, then I’m sure there are people out there that want to read whatever it is I write. Something for everyone, right?

Sure.

In the meantime, I suppose I better get to work.

August Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

So, it turns out that I was more productive than anticipated last month. Not only did I get the preview stories for Season 4 and Season 5 of Murderville done, I also got the cryptic teaser poems I do for $2 patrons finished and started work on the final revision/polish of Season 4 and Season 5.

That will be my goal for this month. Finishing the final polish on both seasons, getting everything formatted and scheduled and ready to go. If all goes well this month, Murderville will be finished. Well, everything except patrons reading it, of course.

However, there’s been an important life change since last month.

I got a new day job. The hours for this gig are steady and the gig itself should be far less stressful than the last one, which should help keep me pretty consistent when it comes to the writing side of life. But it’s going to be a bit of trial and error getting both schedules to work together in the best way. And there’s also the podcast to think about. I’d like to keep a reasonably regular production on that.

So, we’ll see how it all goes.

Speaking of Book ’em, Danno, episode two is up, discussing the first two regular hour long episodes of season 1, “Full Fathom Five” and “Strangers in Our Own Land”. So, be sure to give that a listen.

And the very last episode of Murderville: Rounds of Luck goes live on August 13th. But last is never too late. Become a patron for $1 an episode, or become a $2 an episode patron and get a nifty bonus every other month, like the one dropping at the end of this one, which is the Season 4 teaser poem.

 

All Aboard the Hot Mess Express

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

If you follow me on Twitter or read the September projects post, then you’ll know that the day job is no more.

It didn’t work out for various reasons. To be honest, the whole deal was a hot mess from the beginning.

The same day I got the job I was diagnosed with anemia, which I didn’t tell anybody about because, hey, it was just continuing to function with the extreme fatigue I’d been dealing with for months while I waited for the iron pills to do their thing, no big deal. My second shift I was offered a promotion because the store had been operating with only three people and they desperately needed anyone with experience to step up. I took it because even though it wasn’t what I really wanted for a day job, I wanted to help out and the responsibility didn’t sound too bad.

I was given maybe a week of training and then given my own shifts, call us if you need us, which probably would have worked out better if they answered their phones more often. Anyway, after about a week of being on my own and getting the hang of things, the tiniest Wal-Mart in the world, the one in my town, announced it was closing. Oh goodie. Now the small, two-register store I worked at was inundated with their business and complaints. The computer system was too old to keep up with the increase so it crashed at least once a shift, sometimes just needing the pinpad for the card readers reset and sometimes needing the entire register rebooted.

We were also still operating understaffed and the people we did have were new. I’d been there less than a month and was considered a vet. I was training the new cashiers. So, we had all of this new business and under-trained employees. When we had employees at all. I ended up working several of my shifts alone because nobody showed up or somebody called in. I also got called in early or on my days off pretty regularly.

There was also an increase in freight. Quite simply we were drowning in it. We couldn’t keep up with it because we didn’t have enough people to put it up and/or were too busy to put it up because of all the customers.

Meanwhile, I’m barely writing because I’m wiped out. The whole point of the day job was to supply me with a steady income because I wasn’t making enough by writing alone. This was supposed to take some pressure off of me. Instead, I was stressed and my anxiety was so bad I was having trouble sleeping.

There was a stretch when things were improving. First of all, my anemia got better so I wasn’t totally exhausted all of the time. We started getting two trucks a week, which made the freight easier to handle. The people we hired were getting better and showing up and sticking around. Business slowed some after the Wal-Mart finally closed in July because people stopped panicking about having to go out of town to get toilet paper. Someone that had hired in at the same time I did finally decided to become a key like me.

But then I found out that I was going to be the one training her. And I found out from her. The night I was supposed to start training her. And I was given less than a week to do it. She called me on her first solo shifts because she couldn’t get a hold of either of the managers. One day included four phone calls, one text message, and two trips to the store to help her out.

And finally, we got a new district manager who wanted pretty much everyone, including yours truly, fired because we weren’t doing our jobs well enough.

That was all she wrote for me. I called it quits.

The thing is that I didn’t feel at all relieved about quitting. I felt like (and still feel like) a failure. If I had been better, I would have been able to make it work. I would have been able to handle that job and write. I wouldn’t have been tired and stressed and anxious all of the time. I let everyone down because I couldn’t hack it. I couldn’t do what everyone else does: go to work, do their job, go home and function there. I couldn’t fucking do it.

I expressed these sentiments on Twitter after I turned in my keys and made it official and everyone was very kind (because I follow some awesome folks there) and assured me that I wasn’t a failure, but if that were true…I wouldn’t have quit, would I?

Yeah.

Since my last day, I’ve been struggling to right my emotional ship as well as everything else. I finally got my sleep schedule adjusted closer to where I’d like it to be and I’m actually sleeping most of the night instead of fighting sleep for hours because I keep dreaming I’m at work and not really sleeping until dawn. I’m working on getting off the retail diet, too. And, of course, my writing is happening more like normal again. Yet, I’m still frustrated that I’m not doing all of this faster and better.

Because the feeling of failure lingers.

I can’t quit it. It won’t take my notice.

September Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Some good news on the Murderville front. Season 2 has come to a successful close and I hope all of my patrons enjoyed it. I also finished writing the first draft of Murderville Season 3. It’s a damn mess and it’s going to need a lot of work and that’s what I’m going to focus on this month.

Last month I also revised and polished the Season 3 preview story. Normally, I’d put that out next month, but until I get a good handle on where I’m at with Season 3, I can’t commit to that. Unless I’m sure that I can have Season 3 ready to roll on time, I don’t want to get ahead of myself with the previews and such.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might know that the day job is no more. Due to various reasons (some of which I may detail in another post), it didn’t work out, so I’m back to where I was at the beginning of May. In theory, I should be able to play catch up this month and put everything Murderville-related back on schedule. But again, I don’t want to commit to anything considering I’ve basically been disappointing if not everyone, then at least myself all summer with my ability to live up to my commitments. It’s been a very frustrating season for me.

But, it’s not frustrating for my patrons because the ebook of Murderville: The End Of comes out this month. Become a patron now and get in on this sweet deal.

The Retail Diet

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

When I worked at Wal-Mart for the last time, some ten years ago now, my diet was pretty terrible. I believe I once compared it to eating like a racoon raiding a dumpster. I drank a lot of soda, ate a lot of fast food, Hot Pockets and microwavable beef stew being the extent of my cooking. By the time I quit that gig, I had cut down on the soda drinking, but that was about it.

After I quit, I made some dietary improvements, mainly by actually cooking meals instead of microwaving whatever I could find and making soda and fast food a rarity. And I managed to continue with this for the next ten years or so, despite the different day jobs, even while holding three day jobs at once, and even while technically working in retail.

But doing floorset isn’t the same as working retail. I wasn’t dealing with customers on top of resetting an entire store; I was just doing a lot of folding, rearranging, and swearing. Working retail means dealing with customers while trying to put up freight, answer the phone, and keep the store in order. It means walking two to six miles during any given shift and never leaving the store. It means having registers crash during busy times, people calling in and leaving you to work a Saturday shift alone for several hours, listening to customers say the same things over and over again thinking they’re the first to be so clever. It means answering the same questions over and over again, listening to the same complaints over and over again, and holding your tongue during both.

In short, retail can be (and currently is for me) a high-stress, low-wage job.

And it kills my eating habits.

In the past few months of my new retail day job, I’ve drunk more soda and eaten more junk food than I have in years. I’ve craved soda and junk food more in the past few months than I have in the past ten years. Working retail triggers in me the need for a garbage diet that I might be able to get away with in my twenties, but not when I’m pushing forty. Yet, here I am, despite all wisdom, going right back to it.

I’m guessing the combination of stress and anxiety is the trigger for me here. I can’t say that I’m much of an emotional eater. However, I think that the stress/anxiety combo wears me out to the point that my willpower is gone and I’m too tired to care about what I’m ingesting. That’s definitely how it feels. It’s not a particularly healthy mindset, but it’s hard to maintain one when all of my energy is focused on getting through another shift. It leaves little energy for the effort of making good choices.

Right now I’m struggling with it. I can only hope that the stress recedes soon (the anxiety, I don’t think, ever will) and gives me a break that doesn’t come in the form of a Kit Kat Bar.

I Shoulda Been…

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Do you ever think about what you could been? Or shoulda been?

Being a writer is a natural choice for me in many respects. I wrote my first story at six. I wrote and produced plays for the neighborhood kids in the summer. I wrote a radio play and we recorded it on a blank cassette tape using our old red radio. I’d make up stories for us to act out when we were playing pretend and then I’d try to write them down later. I was always starting stories that never got finished (that discipline came later). I read a lot and enjoyed living in those worlds, marveling at how those stories were created. Writing is something I’ve always done. I’m plagued with stories that demand to get out of my head even if I’m just telling them to myself.

However.

I probably shoulda been something else.

If I’m going to be honest, I shoulda been a bookkeeper or an accountant or a professional budget creator or something. Because I like money. And I like math when it relates to money. Since my mother first paid me to work in her daycare, I’ve tracked my money, estimated my paychecks, created budgets for myself, figured out payment plans for debt, figured out savings plans. I am annoyingly enthusiastic when it comes to finding new ways to manipulate and math my money. I’ll even math other people’s money.

Right now, I keep a monthly spreadsheet to track my income and spending. And I like it.

When people talk about making money by doing things they love, it’s usually said sort of wistfully, like what they love to do couldn’t easily be translated into a steady income. And here my love of crunching numbers is not only an actual job, but you can get a whole college degree in it.

I’m not exactly sure why I never thought about it as a viable career route, especially considering my limited college options at the time. My great-aunt had been a bookkeeper for years as well. It would have been an easy opportunity to explore. And yet…

It never came up. Never even crossed my mind as I budgeted the paychecks I collected from working in retail and worked in a credit union. Never thought much about it while I worked in the cash office of a store, calculating deposits worth thousands. It was right there in front of me and I never saw it.

If I had, maybe I’d be enjoying a day job of crunching numbers to pay my bills while I wrote.

Maybe I still can.

August Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Wow, look at that. August already. This year is just rolling by.

And I’m still working on stuff that I swore I’d have done in June.

Yeah.

So, this day job is turning into one of the hardest retail jobs I’ve ever had and what was supposed to be an easy part-time gig to help pay the bills is actually a huge time and energy vortex that I’m getting swallowed up in. My plan was to write at least a page on all of my current projects on the days that I work and then really rack up the words on my days off. The struggle with that, though, is that sometimes I don’t have the time (or energy) to get in my one page on everything, and then on my days off, I can still only manage the absolute minimum because I’m recovering from working.

If there’s going to be anything new, then August will see a shift in priorities. As much as I hate to stop working on a project in the middle, The Coop Run rewrite has to go on the back burner for now. Season 3 of Murderville needs to be my focus until I get it done, and I need to get it done as quickly as possible. Ideally, I’ll have it finished in the first couple of weeks of the month so I can let it rest a bit and then revise it in September. Because here’s the thing. Season 3 needs to be done all the way down to the eBook before NaNo. I’m already way behind my usual schedule. Now I have to play catch up and hope I don’t fuck up.

I also need to make some time to revise and polish next season’s preview story. But that’s a problem for next month me.

Right now, it’s all about finishing Murderville Season 3.

I’ll work out the rest later.

Speaking of Murderville, the very last episode of season 2, The End Of, goes live on August 14th. Don’t worry! It’s easy to catch up. Just become a patron and you’ll get access to every intriguing moment. $1 an episode let’s you read; $2 an episode lets you read AND gets you swell bonuses every other month, like whatever is happening on the 28th. Don’t miss out!

Writing with a Day Job…Again

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

When I set my writing projects for June, I didn’t have a day job.

By the time it posted, I did.

Life comes at you fast.

I’m back in retail, working at one of the local dollar stores. Every store does things somewhat differently, but a lot of the basics are the same. It’s like riding a bike. I haven’t forgotten.

Now I have to hope that I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to write with a day job. It’s been a while since I’ve been working out of the house for 15-20 hours a week. It’s been a while since I’ve had to write around that kind of schedule (as well as the other life things I have to write around, too). Right now everything is crazy because this day job happened very suddenly during an already busy time, both for writing and for real life. No doubt it’ll settle down and find a groove, but for now, I’m a little stressed and very tired.

I plan on keeping my June writing plan. The Coop Run is on a deadline, so it will get first priority, but I’m fairly sure I’ll be able to get a good chunk, if not all of season 3 of Murderville written. Hopefully, my productivity will be as high as my hopes.

Though the day job will alleviate an immediate need for financial support, like all of my day jobs, I view it as temporary. My goal is to make a (decent) living by writing.

I still intend to do that.