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Stumpage Reports
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003 :::
What The Hell Do You Do All Day?
People ask me: what do you do at your new job? What exactly does a Technical Processing Assistant IV do that deserves more pay than someone who has worked five years in the trenches of telephone reference?
In a nutshell, 900+ people a month email and snail mail the archives asking for photocopies of documents, usually for genealogical research. Here's how I tried to help those people on Tuesday:
8:30 AM Show up at work. My immediate supervisor and I put our heads together and make a plan for the day. He also points me to a couple things I could not find last Friday when he was not there.
8:45 to 9:45 AM. Pulling microfilm and making copies from it. This day it was mostly Death Certificates. Also a couple of Revolutionary War Payment Vouchers.
9:45 to 11:00 AM I prepared the above items (plus some stuff I copied on Friday) for mailing. This involves all kinds of bureaucratic rubber stamps, writing down citations, keeping stats, printing and stuffing envelopes.
11:00 to 11:30 AM I pull original Will and Estate Records in preparation for photocopying them. I can pretty much do that in my sleep now. Somewhere in here the lady from the railroad company where I moonlight comes in, and I'm able to schmooze with her for a few minutes.
11:30 AM to 12:30 PM I have to help cover the search room desk because someone is on vacation. This is fun for one hour a week. In that time I have to pull a bunch of Black Mountain College records. That is a bit of an adventure because they are on the third floor of the stacks, which I'm not that familiar with, and they are in two different places. I also pull a couple boxes of Wilkes County Estate Records for a guy, and some family bible records for a lady from Tennessee. The remainder of the hour was spent figuring out and helping a little Duke student with the index to original N.C. Supreme Court Records.
12:30 to 1:30 PM I cover the front security / registration desk while that guy goes to lunch. Usually I do that from 12 to 1 but above vacation screwed that up. I try not to swoon from hunger. Somewhere in here a guy from my old job shows up, he gives me some shit and we do some catching up.
1:30 to 2:30 PM A well-deserved lunch.
2:30 to 3:15 PM Photocopy the Will and Estate records I had pulled that morning.
3:15 to 4:00 PM I pull and photocopy some odds and ends of stuff including War of 1812 Pay Vouchers, Secretary of State Land Grant Records, and a few more Estate Records that appeared in my inbox.
4:00 to 4:30 PM Prepare the above stuff for mailing.
4:30 to 5:30 PM I once again cover the security / registration desk because thats when that guy goes home. Then I get to go home.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, but less desk time, and I have a bunch of Civil War Troop Rosters and Pension Records to pull.
Thats it. I love my new job. Its going to get even better tomorrow when a new employee starts. Her main job will be backing up the security / registration desk guy, so I won't have to as much anymore. I know her from class and we like to laugh so that will be nice too.
::: posted by tom at 10:56 AM
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