Never Enough Time

I often joke that if every day was 36 hours long then maybe I could get all the things done. This is true personally, of course, but here I'm writing mostly about what it means to me in my workplace. In my elementary school library, I am the only employee. I'm responsible for doing everything from ordering and processing books to planning and teaching classes to wiping down the tables after a lunch group. I check all the books in and out, do all the shelving, the weeding, repairs, displays, organizing and reorganizing. And also there are my non-library tasks - those things that just come with working in a school community. I have curb duty every morning when students are arriving, recess duty once a week, and just this year I've begun to supervise a reading intervention class for half an hour every day. For several years now, I've also volunteered to care for all the tropical plants in the solarium by the front doors of the school.

Which is all a very long-winded way of saying, what limits me the most is time. Time, that precious

commodity. No matter how I wish for it, I can't get more than 24 hours in my day. And since one must also sleep, eat, walk the dogs, care for the chickens, not to mention the family, and maybe, just maybe, get a few minutes to oneself, there's not much time to spare. 

I pack a lot into my eight hours at work. Whether it's one of my days where I teach five classes and have time for little else, or one of my days with only two classes and a ton of back-room work, I am going from 8:15 to 4:15 and usually a little beyond. Our school district asks us not to, but most of us continue to work for a little longer after we've clocked out, and of course, there's the work we do at home. Before I started writing this blog, I checked my email and sent out some responses.

Because of these limits on my time, there are long lists of projects I'd like to get to, but realistically probably never will. Cleaning out and organizing my store room? Forget about it. I'd need a full week. Reorganizing the book series' on my spinning rack? I might get to it by Christmas. Purging my map and poster drawers of all the outdated items? Well, I got one drawer done. Only five more to go. Absorbing my short story collection and oversized books into general fiction and picture books? Maybe next year.

And in a way, I guess what limits me is also money. Our school district, like many, struggles with funding every single year. I've heard amazing stories of the budgets the librarians used to have back in the 80s, when the state was flush with oil money. Even a few years ago, there used to be money to pay for an assistant to help with shelving and book repair for 15 hours a week. Not anymore. What I have is my friend Jill, when she can spare me a few minutes. I'd be happy to work a couple of extra weeks into my summer in order to get some of the backlogged tasks done, but there's no money to pay for it, so they won't let me.

Unfortunately, this isn't a problem that really has a solution. I know what happens when you mess with the time-space continuum, so I'm stuck with this timeline. And unless our governor and legislature suddenly reverse course, we will be stuck with sub-par funding for the time being. What's a dedicated librarian to do? All I can do is prioritize, work hard, and focus on the kids. My library and my collection may not be all I'd like them to be, but as long as I'm reaching kids - teaching them something they didn't know and helping them become lifelong learners - then I'm doing my job. My library itself will always be a work in progress, but I have a love and knowledge of books and reading that I hope is contagious. If even one kid looks back on their time at school and says, "Remember Ms. Zayon? She was a really great librarian!" then I'll consider it a job well done.