#34 Replacement

Dear diary,

I get a lot of different duties as a shelver. Sometimes I'm a sweeper, other times rubbish collector, heavy lifter, patron usher, search engine. Today I added babysitter to that list. Bron came in today with her teenage son whose name is, oddly enough, Bronson. She told me she wants him to start working as a shelver, and that the best way for him to learn would be to follow me and observe. Sure, why not?

When Bron said observe I thought she was kidding, but Bronson did just that. As I shelved he took notes. He studied the order in which I shelved the different sections, the way I organised my trolley, the volume of books I picked up in each hand at a time. At one point he took out a tape measure and measured the height and length of the shelf tiers, for who knows what purpose.

I tried talking to him but he's really shy. Also he was completely engrossed in watching me shelve. After a while I gave up trying to get him to talk, and after an even longer while I had an idea. I delegated responsibility of him to Shannon, reminding her of he duty as a volunteer to help the public. I walked away feeling quite happy with myself, having gotten rid of the timid Bronson and annoying Shannon in the process.

My pleasure was short-lived, however. Shannon found me twenty minutes later and handed me the pick-list. Normally there's only 30 or so items on the list, but this one had 227. She smiled cruelly and shoved Bronson towards me, saying as she walked off that I should show him how to do requests. I sighed and handed Bronson the small manuscript to carry.

The list took us over two hours. When I went to show Bronson how to check-in requests I noticed that the first few books didn't come up as on request. It was like that for almost everything on that list. I was fuming. Smelling a rat, I checked up Shannon's card and sure enough, she had around 200 deleted requests, all within the last couple of hours.

Bron noticed me staring red-faced at the computer and came over to see if I was alright. I quickly hid Shannon's details: as much as I don't like her, I don't want to rat on her, not after what she did last time.

At the end of the day Bron thanked me for showing Bronson the ropes. She said she hopes Boudecia will accept him as a new recruit, seeing as there'll be a vacancy coming up soon. I'm glad I hid my reaction, because it could've gotten nasty otherwise. Vacancy? Does that mean that someone's going to be fired? I'm worried that it'll be me, as I'm the newest (paid) staff member there. Plus, no-one seems to notice or care about Shannon's hostility towards me. Shelvers are pretty expendable and easily replaceable. This isn't looking good!

-Jay