All in a Day's Work

Well, if the rest of the year keeps up at this pace, I might not make it to April.

Granted, I haven't been doing anything glamorous. I've been spending most nights haunting the aisles at K Mart and Target, obsessed with getting everything just right in the new place. Tonight's excursion included Lowe's, to look for an adaptor so I can replace my shower head, new drawer pulls to pep up the kitchen cabinets, and paint chips to decide on colors for doing a faux finish in the kitchen and bathroom. I couldn't find the adaptor, the drawer pulls are a fraction of an inch too big, but I did decide on colors (Yukon Gold for the bathroom, and Bright Cerulean for the accent wall in the kitchen - I've been watching Trading Spaces a bit too much). One out of three. I celebrated by restocking my liquor cabinet; as much as I hate my "new" Kroger's -it's too big and I can't find anything - it has a bank and a state liquor store located within. It's a handy convenience to be able to buy a bottle of Captain Morgan and soap in one trip.

I also bought a sturdy yet attractive plant stand which is exactly the right size for my phone, answering machine, and phone books (the miniature ones). I am too clever for words.

OK, enough boring news about home decor. On to today's subject....

I know I've mentioned it before, but I have a not-so-normal job. I figured I'd give a rundown of what a typical workday for Myo looks like.


8:55 am: Arrive at work feeling rather smug about being early. Spend next five minutes digging through purse looking for office keys.

9:00 am: Turn on computer and write the morning's meetings on the whiteboard in the lobby while computer boots up. Reassure Mary (the building services person assigned to the Education Center) that she did the room setups right, and she can stop panicking. Thank the Powers That Be that we have someone assigned to our building again, since I did the majority of the setups during Festival of Lights.

9:03 am: Greet supervisor as she enters the building with several bags of notebooks and a large animal carrier in tow. Try to figure out if it's Telly (the Waldrapp's ibis) or Elsie (the cattle egret) in the carrier. On most days, she'll bring in one of the two to allow them some socializing time; they're both "demo" animals in our education programs that are regrettably underused.

Today it's Telly. He greets both of us, but his vocalizations sound very much like someone hocking up a loogie. I giggle to myself all the way back to my desk.

9:05 am: Pick up voicemail. Three messages. The first is someone who wants to bring their Girl Scout troop to the zoo for an overnight program. Forward call to registrar that schedules Nocturnal Adventures.

The next call is from a woman who is helping her grandson with his homework. She wants to know what the collective noun for a group of ducks would be. Look for the information on the internet (flock when they're in the air, paddling when they're in the water, or team in general), and make note to call her back.

The last call is from a teacher who wants to bring her class to the Zoo in April. Write down name and number, and make note to call her back.

9:10 am: Check the headlines on CNN. Notice that a release date has finally been announced for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Do happy dance in chair, and email the link to Zappagirl.

9:15 am: Call back grandmother with the duck question.

9:25 am: Realize that body is horribly uncaffeinated. Go upstairs in search of coffee and Diet Coke; come back with both, as well as leftover donuts from Volunteer Educator meeting yesterday.

9:35 am: Call the number that teacher left on voicemail. Leave a message with surly receptionist at school. Wonder why most teachers insist on leaving their number at school when they are next to impossible to reach there.

9:45 am: Answer emails from summer camp coordinator who needs to schedule rooms for her programs. Block off every available room for every morning in the month of June, July and August on room reservation spreadsheets.

10:30 am: Take a call from a woman who wants to know if spiders have a sense of smell. Realize that I don't know the answer and seek out the answer on Google while a co-worker consults a book in her desk. (Apparently, they don't have olfactory senses. Logical, but I had no idea.)

11:00 am: Take a call from a teacher who wants a program about penguins. Explain that we don't have anything that specific, and give her a brief overview of available programs. Try to contain temper when she interrupts three times to again ask if we have anything that focuses on penguins.

11:30 am: Say hello to designer from Graphics department. Agree to attend happy hour on Friday; spend twenty minutes gossiping until he realizes that he's going to be late for a meeting.

12:00 pm: Run up to restaurant to get lunch, with a brief pitstop at the Nursery to check on Otji. (As usual, he's sleeping.) Laugh at peacock who is happily displaying his impressive tail for shrubbery rather than the peahens behind him. Grab a slice of pizza to go, and get back to desk.

12:30 pm: Receive panicked call from woman who is trying to plan an outdoor wedding next summer, and is concerned about the emergence of the local brood of 17-year cicadas. Advise her that she might want to look into a later date or an inside facility, because next year is indeed that time.

1:00 pm: Take registration from a teacher who wants to bring her students to the Zoo next month. Verify the school's ZIP code that she has given, since it doesn't correspond with the city where the school is located. She vehemently insists that her information is correct. Check address before entering registration and discover that she was wrong, and probably would have called screaming if paperwork was returned. Sigh heavily, and be thankful that she at least knew her street address. At least half of the teachers I speak to have no idea what their school's address or phone number is, and deny having an email address merely because they haven't checked their account in a year and a half and can't remember what it is.

1:15 pm: Answer call from man who wants to know if his tarantula is dead (it hasn't moved in two days). After further questioning, conclude that it's just taking an unusually long time to molt.

Since my office is located in the library, I end up fielding a lot of strange animal questions. I answer what I can (and I have the internet pulled up at all times to search for assistance), but a lot of the calls just leave me puzzled. I had a guy call once to ask about prairie dogs; turns out he bought one at a yard sale on a whim, and wanted me to tell him how to care for it. He'd done absolutely no research, hadn't located a vet that knew anything about exotic pets - he just thought it was cute, and plunked down his money. People, please think these things through. We get calls on a daily basis from people that bought Burmese pythons without thinking or think that a monkey would make a great pet. There are plenty of animals at your local shelter that need a good home and won't become destructive upon reaching sexual maturity. Cats and dogs are domesticated animals, lions will look at your three-year-old as a tasty treat.

1:30 pm: Take a call from a teacher that wants someone to come to her school and speak at a Career Day program. He wants the speaker to bring animals - "you know, elephants and tigers." Patiently explain that we don't bring out those kind of animals (our education animals are more manageable species like African hornbills and striped skunks). Mention the Cat Ambassador Program, and offer to transfer him to their extension. He decides he doesn't want to pay for his program (especially since his class won't be allowed to touch the animals),then asks if he could bring his class to the Zoo for a behind the scenes tour. Um, no. I work here, and I've only been behind the scenes on very rare occasions (I got to see an okapi calf that was born last month - from a distance, on the other side of the enclosure). Our liability insurance simply doesn't provide for 25 unruly middle school students wandering around behind Gorilla World, and it wouldn't be beneficial to the animals' well being.

2:00 pm: Direct confused parent to the Children's Zoo, where her child's class is located. Apparently she didn't bother to read the confirmation postcard that said the class would be held at the Otter Creek Outpost in the Children's Zoo. Smile politley while she tells me it's my fault that little Johnny is going to be late for the program.

3:00 pm: Answer call from the teacher that left the message earlier in the morning. Despite the fact that she left a number where she wouldn't be available all day, she actually has her act together and books a guided tour about classification.

3:30 pm: Teacher calls back, needing to change date of field trip because she can't get buses for the previously arranged day. Change date, and explain that her confirmation packet is already in the mail with the old date, but we will honor it on the new date.

3:45 pm: Take call from woman who is doing her son's homework. Not helping with it, doing it. Well, that's not quite right. She wants me to do it. After she asks a few incredibly general questions that could be answered by opening an encyclopedia, I suggest that maybe her son should go to a library to start his research. She states that she doesn't have time to take him to the library.

4:00 pm: Give a little cheer when volunteer that comes in daily to exercise our program skunks arrives. (She is quite knowledgeable about skunks and has been doing this for years. She's one of the few exceptions to the "no contact with the animals" rule.) Sneak across the hall to watch the skunks run around a classroom. Feel very honored when Chanel decides to take a break and curl up in my lap. Laugh at Daisy, the smallest of the skunks, as she threatens me by stomping and sticking her tail up in the air. (We refer to this as "the stinky dance.") Excuse self from skunk break as my phone rings again.

4:45 pm: Receive call from the leader of a 4H club that wants to schedule a Zoo Careers tour. Explain that I can only schedule school classes, not extracurricular groups. Explain further that our tours run in the morning, when her kids would be in class. Offer to transfer her to the Wildlife Comes to You registrar. She declines, stating that her budget wouldn't cover the fee.

While I sympathize with her, there really isn't much I can do about bending the rules. Unfortunately, we don't have much to offer for after school programs, and what we do have are programs with fees attached. I wish there was a way that we could offer an education program to every person that calls for one. I wish we didn't have to charge folks to come in the door and learn about animals and conservation, but things just don't work that way. Animals have to eat, we have to pay for their upkeep, and unfortunately it costs a great deal of money. Take into account how much it costs you to feed your pet the best food, take him to the vet, provide him with bedding and enriching toys. Now multiply that times a whole zoo, taking into account that it costs a heck of a lot more to care for a Sumatran rhino than a cocker spaniel.

5:15 pm: Start to clean off desk, since it's past quitting time and it would be best to get out of there before another parent calls with a request for a behind the scenes tour or a meeting with a keeper. There's always tomorrow to deal with those calls. That's what the voicemail is for, right?

5:35 pm: Make way out to car, eyes on the sidewalk to avoid stepping in peacock poop again. Because, damn, does that stuff stink.


Yeah, it's a desk job. But it sure ain't normal.