Still in Greece, today Athens spills ahead of us like some kind of crazy concrete quilt. I have IPM today, but I’m not too worried by that. I’m fortunate enough to have done the tour to the Acropolis already, and we went on a day when it was drizzly and slightly overcast which means that we had the benefit of a far less crowded site than those going today in the bright Grecian sunshine! So, since I’ve already got my photographs and all that remains for me to pick up from Greece is a few more memories and the still-eluding-me-statue of Artemis (seriously I’ve found everything but!) for my shrine back home, I’m perfectly content to chill by the pool during my lunch break and let Shadow go out and enjoy the city for the first time.
That’s a typical example of how thinking of someone by a nickname makes that nickname stick. Shadow was originally going to have a much cooler nickname (though I hadn’t come up with it yet), something that better fits her massively outgoing personality, but I have been referring to her as my shadow since she came on board, so Shadow she has become.
Truth be told, as far as work goes Shadow is not well…really my shadow anymore. She’s more of my parallel. She’s learned really fast and I already trust her to run the place by herself, so for the first time ever, I’ve fallen into a world cruise schedule split on a ship that isn’t the flagship. With two librarians in place it eases the hours and cuts down on the stress of the job by about half. Suddenly you have every other morning/evening off and can do things like go to shows and have relaxed dinners. Suddenly you have time to do things again and you’re not exhausted at the end of a sea day. It’s a nice change and one that – unless Head Office changes its mind again (which is certainly not all that uncommon) will be in place until October. I’m trying to treat it as an experiment, because this happened by accident (Shadow was – obviously – sent here to train, and it’s only by some scheduling chance that she’s staying so much longer than a normal trainee would) – but it’s something that the more senior librarians have been pushing towards for ages, since it actually enables us to serve the guests so much better (which is, I suspect, why they always have two of us on the flagship)…so we’ll see how it goes. For now, we’re just enjoying it while it lasts. And I’ve told her not to get used to it.
It almost feels strange, being this content while I’m working. I’m used to work being well…work-like, a long (though amazing) slog that’s punctuated by breath-taking moments of total wonder (much like life itself really) but this contract is…different.
And so far, I really, really like it.