We’re all bananas!
After a few slightly more serious blogs I thought it was a time to lighten things up a notch or two. Something I’m apparently very good at according to my colleagues.
Take the situation on Friday morning. There were interviews, two candidates for a role within my team. When the team and candidates got together for our morning tea we found ourselves sat in a fairly big circle. After the introduction there was nothing to say. Uncomfortable silences are bad at the best of times, but with the memory still clear in my mind of what interview day is like, uncomfortable silences can be no less than horrific. As everyone else was quiet, and I am the communications officer, I felt a responsibility to say something. Anything.
“It’s a bit strange having morning tea without bananas”
Yes. That is what I said to break the silence. Of course I then had to go on to explain that this was because approximately half the staff in the library (including myself) seem to produce bananas at morning coffee time in the staff room.
Luckily for me this didn’t just result in blank stares. It actually resulted in a full blown conversation about bananas. Who was for and against bananas (there was a split in the group). The contraptions available to keep bananas fresh (I relayed information I’d had from a previous banana conversation about one of these contraptions) another colleague had found a banana bag from Lakeland had kept their bananas fresh for FOUR weeks! We even had a conversation about the randomness of the banana conversation. And from our newest member of the team the assertion that she’d never imagined in her life that she would be a part of a five minute conversation about bananas.
As that drew to a close it went silent again. So I turned the conversation to the fact that it is nice to have diverse topics of conversations in the staff room. It was part of the library dynamic. It gives us a good giggle when things are all getting a bit too serious.
Another colleague pipped up to support this example. “Yes, the other day I walked in on a rather interesting conversation about werewolves”.
Except as everyone turned to look at me it did not prove the point that WE have these strange conversations in the staff room. It did however prove that I start random conversations in the staff room. As I was responsible for the werewolf conversation too (it was with another colleague about Twilight, I will say no more apart from the New Moon trailer ruins book 2 completely anyway!)
As silence descended on the group once again someone then asked “So Helen, is there a conversation we can have about bananas AND werewolves?”
Oh I know the feeling well, Helen. My problem is that I COULD think of a story about bananas & werewolves and it would be humorous & probably inappropriate especially for a minister of the Gospel. However I’d not notice that I was the only one laughing until the setting sun got in my eyes, interview time was over, and what few people remained looked at each other wondering which of them should call the authorities.
This proves a thought I’ve held for a long time: people who work in libraries are inherently awesome.
Leave your response!
RSS Feed
Find me on Twitter
NaNoWriMo
Blog with Integrity
Blogs
friends
Tags