Monday, November 20, 2006

My Un-vacation Ends

I was very clever. I scheduled 10 days, TEN days between my last day at ILL and my first day at LGPL. Ten days. You should see the list of things I was going to achieve. It was a beautiful list. I was going to re-watch every episode of the West Wing. I was going to finish reading all the books remaining on my YALSA book list. I was going to start reading a new list of kid lit, so I’d be ready for those shifts on the reference desk in the kids room. I was going to pack up the whole apartment, since we’re moving. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, I had TEN DAYS. After eight years of working, I treated myself to ten days off. Then it turned into 11, as my start date switched from today to tomorrow. ELEVEN DAYS.

I’ve been so cheated. I got SICK! On day TWO! I was sick the whole week. All kinds of sick. I mean, I understand what happened. It’s like when you take a pass on Jury Duty, because something’s going on in your life, and then when you get called again, somehow, it’s even more inconvenient. My immune system had been trundling along for awhile, letting me get a lot of work done at work, but then, when my vacation popped up, my immune system felt like it deserved a break as well. All kinds of sick. In a generous mood, I started to recover last Thursday-ish, and by Friday, I was doing pretty well. But come on, that’s just a long weekend. That’s not 11 days. I really think I deserve a do-over.

Anyhow, at least I don’t have tuberculosis. I had to go in for a physical for my new job, and I had a TB test. All clear. Whew. That was a close one.

So, tomorrow’s the big day. A First Day of Work. I haven’t seen one of those since 1998, mind you. Totally different millennium. I haven’t really put a lot of time into thinking about it, what with the being cheated of my vacation and all. This morning, before I decided to get out of bed and try and finish my 11-day To Do List in one day, I was remembering an ILL staff meeting we had when Josh was new there. Kim and Sarah and I rolled up to our table with our lists of things to figure out. Josh rolled up to the table with some paper from around the office, for taking notes. We started to build our agenda. Josh held up some paper, one of those print outs from a fax machine that tells you what has been sent to which number, and said “I’d like to talk about the fax logs I’ve gathered.”

In the five seconds or so before we figured out he was kidding, Sarah and Kim and I were all trying desperately to remember what task we’d asked him to do that would require looking at the fax logs. We assumed we’d set him to a project, and the fax logs were a part of it. And then we realized he was just kidding, he was going to take his notes on the back of the fax logs.

I bring it up, ’cause that’s what I’m looking for in an office. The sort of place where it’s just assumed that everyone is on to something, that everyone is working as hard as they can, as creatively as they can. And if you don’t understand why they want to talk about fax logs, it’s just because you haven’t followed their train of thought yet. It’s never assumed that it might be just plain lame to look at fax logs. I’m also looking for a place with a dry, deadpan sense of humor. That always livens up meetings. No fear of silliness.

Time will tell, I guess, if that’s where I’ve ended up.