Some days I love my job
Sep. 28th, 2006 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadesfireHowever much I complain about being bored or the number of books on my desk (significantly fewer than Monday, thanks for asking), there's usually something in the day that brightens it up.
I was ducking out for a lunchtime coffee, an absolute essential if afternoon work is actually going to happen, when I bumped into (almost literally) an elderly couple trying to get into the library. This happens more than you might think. It's a pretty building, and so much of the university is open to tourists that I think people tend to forget it's also somewhere for students to come. We don't run guided tours for visitors, sadly, although if we did, they'd sound something like:
"And this is the third floor. It is absolutely identical to the four below it, apart from the books. The ones up here are mostly in Chinese, Korean and Arabic which few people in Oxford can read and even fewer know about. But they make the floor feel full and keeps the cleaners in a job, so that's alright. Yes, we do have windows and, due to our location, you can see Oxford out of them. Please try not to crush anyone in the rolling stacks as you leave."
Anyway, this very nice couple were insistent that they wanted to come into the library, and were rather crestfallen when I said they couldn't. The conversation ran several loops along the lines of:
Me: I'm afraid you can't have access to the library.
Them: But we're visitors.
Me: Yes but we're a working part of the university. You have to have a card to get in.
Them: But we want to see something inside.
Me: I'm sorry, but you can't just come in. You have to need to see something inside.
Them: We do need to see something. We're visitors.
[repeat from start]
We eventually established that they were in the wrong place and needed to go back to the museum to see Queen Margaret of Scotland's prayer book*. So I now have yet more useless information for my store of trivia - because my brain isn't full enough already - and I lost ten minutes of my lunch hour leaning away from someone whose concept of personal space was considerably different to mine. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Londoner. I can happily stand squashed against someone on the tube and barely let it interrupt my conversation, but when I'm standing in the lobby of the library, I tend to consider six inches a minimum safe distance. Minimum.
But they livened up my day and were very nice and happy that I could point them in the right direction. My only regret is that I didn't let our porter deal with them. He has trouble with grasping the real world at the best of times. It could have been even more entertaining, although they all might still have been there when I got back from coffee.
Hmmmm. Coffee. Must be at least forty minutes since I finished my last one...
*Apparently Margaret's husband, King Malcolm, suspected her of having an affair because she never came to morning prayers. One day he followed her and found her kneeling by a stream, using the prayer book and communing with God in solitude. He was so furious (about being wrong? or just because she was holier than him? Must look that one up) that he threw the prayer book into the river. It was recovered, barely damaged, six months later. Quite why it now resides in the Ashmolean** museum in Oxford, I have no idea. Will let you know if I find out.
**Pronounced "Ash-MOH-lee-an" Not "Ash-mo-LEE-an". This is important if you are not going to make people who know better laugh.
"And this is the third floor. It is absolutely identical to the four below it, apart from the books. The ones up here are mostly in Chinese, Korean and Arabic which few people in Oxford can read and even fewer know about. But they make the floor feel full and keeps the cleaners in a job, so that's alright. Yes, we do have windows and, due to our location, you can see Oxford out of them. Please try not to crush anyone in the rolling stacks as you leave."
Anyway, this very nice couple were insistent that they wanted to come into the library, and were rather crestfallen when I said they couldn't. The conversation ran several loops along the lines of:
Me: I'm afraid you can't have access to the library.
Them: But we're visitors.
Me: Yes but we're a working part of the university. You have to have a card to get in.
Them: But we want to see something inside.
Me: I'm sorry, but you can't just come in. You have to need to see something inside.
Them: We do need to see something. We're visitors.
[repeat from start]
We eventually established that they were in the wrong place and needed to go back to the museum to see Queen Margaret of Scotland's prayer book*. So I now have yet more useless information for my store of trivia - because my brain isn't full enough already - and I lost ten minutes of my lunch hour leaning away from someone whose concept of personal space was considerably different to mine. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Londoner. I can happily stand squashed against someone on the tube and barely let it interrupt my conversation, but when I'm standing in the lobby of the library, I tend to consider six inches a minimum safe distance. Minimum.
But they livened up my day and were very nice and happy that I could point them in the right direction. My only regret is that I didn't let our porter deal with them. He has trouble with grasping the real world at the best of times. It could have been even more entertaining, although they all might still have been there when I got back from coffee.
Hmmmm. Coffee. Must be at least forty minutes since I finished my last one...
*Apparently Margaret's husband, King Malcolm, suspected her of having an affair because she never came to morning prayers. One day he followed her and found her kneeling by a stream, using the prayer book and communing with God in solitude. He was so furious (about being wrong? or just because she was holier than him? Must look that one up) that he threw the prayer book into the river. It was recovered, barely damaged, six months later. Quite why it now resides in the Ashmolean** museum in Oxford, I have no idea. Will let you know if I find out.
**Pronounced "Ash-MOH-lee-an" Not "Ash-mo-LEE-an". This is important if you are not going to make people who know better laugh.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-28 07:27 pm (UTC)Your stories are so wonderful. I don't have anything charming or interesting happening to me today, just nervous students and lots of grading. So thanks for the pick-me-up!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-29 08:09 am (UTC)