Friday, September 01, 2006

Cleaning up

My house is a mess, and it's all Library X's fault.

I have no will power to clean my domicile after spending eight hours picking up after 20,000 students.

I don't HAVE to pick up after the students, but when I see five empty plastic bottles beside the recycling bin, I tend to stop and drop all five bottles in. I don't know why the students can't make this little connection in their heads to do the same, but I can't stop myself.

It's not like it's only the students either. Last night, I went into the break room and found chocolate sprinkles covering the counter. There was no cake in sight. Just chocolate sprinkles on the counter to mock me. I got a damp paper towel and wiped them up, but I left the dirty dishes in the sink. They can sit and rot. I use disposable dishes and plastic utensils for this reason. (We do have cleaning people for every floor of the building, but they can only manage the mess.)

Straightening furniture, throwing away trash, putting away books all evening at work just makes me go home and ignore everything at my house. My cat Caper is disgusted with me. But what's to be done?

I try to not pick up the trash, but if I don't, we'll eventually drown in discarded student papers, drink bottles, pizza boxes, and half eaten fruit. Maybe the library tutorial should include a simple trash can demonstration. If the students can understand how to use a complex library catalog, they should be able to grasp the simple task of throwing trash into the proper receptacle rather than placing their refuse on the edge of the table beside the bin. We have just have to show them.

If that's successful, we can include a stapler demonstration. Or we can save that for the advanced class. Don't want to overwhelm the tykes.

BTW, I only had a week off work. I stayed home and, you guessed it, cleaned, or rather had every intention to. I hope Caper doesn't find the SPCA's phone number. She's good company.

2 Comments:

Blogger listie said...

Oh, and after demonstrating trash disposal and stapling, can we have a demonstration on how to place unwanted books on a reshelving cart?

8:44 PM, September 04, 2006  
Blogger Vampire Librarian said...

Now now, we don't want to educate them too much. There's still a little something called job security that we need to protect.

10:33 PM, September 04, 2006  

Post a Comment

<< Home