Well, that's the easiest $25 I've ever gotten

[jenett]

So, last week, I get copied in a fairly plaintive email chain from our math department chair asking for help getting a parent a particular article. They ask if I can help, and the request is backed by our overall Head of School (part of whose job is to make parents happy people.)

When I get a minute, I....
- Open a web browser
- Click through to our JSTOR link
- Search on the quite unique title.
- Save a copy as a PDF
- Write up a short but pleasant email saying "Here, please let me know if you have any problems, and I'll send a print copy." and attach the file.
- Go about the rest of my day.
(As in, this might have taken five minutes, including loading time on various pages.)

I have since:
- Gotten a very pleasant thank you from the parent.
- Got a glowing thank you from my head of school

... and just now, the parent walked in, introduced himself, and handed me a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble.

So, erm. Yes. There are days this school is a little schizophrenic (little direct support/understanding of the stuff that takes me hours of boring work, for example). But there are also days when five minutes makes someone completely happy and amazed.

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Yay for little things that make a difference, and for people who appreciate being helped.

[ckd]

Sometimes the little stuff isn't so little to the other people involved; I'm sure it would have taken most of the folks in that email chain more than five minutes, likely with a fair bit of frustration included in the mix.

[jenett]

Rather, yes.

And there's also a "Sorry to ask things of you during vacation" element here. Which is why I didn't say "Oh, you didn't need to" very firmly or anything. But still, one is periodically bemused.

(And then one goes back to moving massive numbers of books around. Oy.)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Sweet! My mother's theory is that when we become adult, we get very few pleasant surprises any more; almost all the surprises are unpleasant, which I suppose means that all the pleasant stuff in our lives is coveted and planned. (Gotta think about that some more-- I smell a new philosophical theory there.) Anyway. I'm glad you had one of those rare pleasant surprises.

By the way, you might be interested to know (since I asked you about librarianing before) that they let me into the Drexel MLIS program. So off we go into the wild, blue yonder...

[jenett]

Oh, congrats - I've heard good things about Drexel. Feel free to come have more librarian geekiness conversation (and I'm hoping to keep doing a lot more blogging about it, both here and on the professional blog.)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Where's the professional blog?

[jenett]

http://modernhypatia.wordpress.com

I have not been updating there, but it's on my list of things to add in in the next couple of weeks.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

After Hypatia, the last curator of the Alexandria Library, I presume?

[jenett]

Yep. As I say, the history about her is a lot more complicated than that. (She probably wasn't the last, nor the last Pagan, for that matter. But very cool woman actively engaged in learning more about the world and sharing it, yes.)

(It's a lot easier to figure out my legal name and where I work from that blog, which is why I don't directly cross-link them, incidentally.)