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.

Council of Elrond’s Anniversary

No really, if you check your calendar, you’ll see that I’m right. Google Calendar lets you download all sorts of calendars that you can “overlay” on your own. The Tolkien Calendar says that yesterday Boromir arrived in Rivendell and today is the Council of Elrond. It’s also the anniversary of the Big Quake and my high school friend Christine’s 32nd Birthday.

Since the Council of Elrond has come to represnt all things work-related, it seems fitting to muse on work today. It’s hard to avoid musing on the workplace, isn’t it, when that’s where you spend so much of your time (unless you’re retired, in which case you are free to eat your Council Cake, or should I say Lembas in peace) ? I have a second round interview for a job I’m not sure I want. In passing, multiple interviews are sort of a sick joke to those of us who normally wear jeans day to day. Like it wasn’t enough trouble coming up with something to wear the first time around.

Anyhoo, yesterday I realized that if a friend of mine were dating a person who treated them the way my current work place treats me, I would tell them in no uncertain terms to dump the fool. And yet, as in so many great bad relationships, the idea of leaving this library kind of makes me want to crawl under the covers and hide. I hate my job, and I love my job, all mixed together. There is nothing tacked to any of the walls in this office in handwriting I can’t identify. When I look up titles in our on-line catalog, ninety percent of the time I only have to type a few letters, and the autofill takes over. I’ve looked up most books before. Thirteen goodbye cakes. Was it fourteen? I’m the only person who has cracked the code of the filing cabinets…oh, you need a new label for that? Look under F, for “Forms, Masters.” Are there such things as Job Interventions?

Well, gotta go, there is a desk with my name on it. No really, I carved my name into the Circ Desk earlier.

~ by meteowrite on October 17, 2006.
One Response to “Council of Elrond’s Anniversary”

1.

The only cure for job boredom, and it is the worst kind of boredom, is job change. In 33 years of State service I worked in six different departments, just to keep from going postal. One of us must take the ring out of the library…

Goodyear said this on October 19th, 2006 at 8:37 am

Undercover in the library

I have an interview at a local public library on Friday. It just so happens, though, that I have never been to this public library before. Their website is somewhat short on information. So there’s not much to build a *vibe* on. Do I want this job? Dunno. So, this afternoon, I went over there to poke around. Sure, there’s no law about checking out some place you’re set to interview, but I felt like I was doing something sneaky. I lingered near the reference desk to see how they were answering questions. I stole furtive glances at the computer being used to check out books to see if I was familiar with their software. I checked out their hours to see if I could piece together any information about what a schedule at this library might be. I browsed their collections, trying to get a feel for their strenghts and weaknesses. I surveyed their collection of Kay books. I watched the patrons….did they look satisfied? What parts of the collection were they using? What did they think of the computer policy? I tried to get into the restroom. It was locked, in use apparently. One of my moments of triumph : at one point the door marked “staff only” opened while I lurked in the nearby stacks. They have desks in there! I knew it!

I still don’t know. I’ve never seen a place so completely devoid of a vibe. Or rather, with so neutral a vibe. Yes, it’s a small collection, but hey, I saw plenty of stuff I wanted to read. Lots of magazines, and plenty of books on tapes. They have a small teen section, but they seem committed to it. Their building was small, but it was busy, people were using it. And it was in a lovely small downtown area. Harrumph. Guess I’ll know more after Friday.

~ by meteowrite on October 11, 2006.
2 Responses to “Undercover in the library”

1.

Oh jenn! I think it’s a great idea that you scoped out the prospective job location. My advisor would have approved. You’re doing your homework like a good girl. And when they interview you and ask you that first conversational question: Have you ever been to this library before? You can breezily answer, why yes, yes of course I have. You have a lovely books on tape selection and you seem committed to your teen literature.

You have the edge!
Break a leg!

jean said this on October 12th, 2006 at 9:02 am
2.

Back in the dark days when I interviewed people for jobs as a way of getting a paycheck those people who actually had come to the work site to scope us out always got at least a 10 point head start. I figured A: they were motivated, B: they had the brains to follow through, and C: they had enough analytical skills to know what to look for. Well done. (But how was the military history section??)

Goodyear said this on October 12th, 2006 at 10:23 am

Application of my dreams

I spent Friday at work reviewing applications for the ILL staff position we have open. Twenty applications. We’re also going to be looking at applications for a student position we have open. And then I’m applying for jobs, so I’ve been filling a few out myself. Which perhaps explains the dream I had last night. I was filling out a job application, on blue paper, and reading the instructions carefully I found the following:

If you choose to deep fry your application, please use the appropriate setting on your deep fryer.

Just a safety tip for you, friends. Be sure to set your deep fryers to “job application” before dropping those pages in.

The 14th Cake

I made a list yesterday of all the “Last Day in ILL” cakes I’ve eaten in my time here. Well, really not ALL the cake, that would have taken more time than I had, and I’m sure there are many people who’ve left the library who’s cake I’ve eaten, who I now wouldn’t know if they turned up sitting on the sofa in my living room. The list had all the former ILL staffers who have moved on to better things. It didn’t even include people who sort of worked in ILL, like the Access Computing people, they aren’t on the list. Still, there were 14 names. Fourteen people have left ILL since I started almost eight years ago. It’s a shocking figure.

Which of course, put me in a reflective mood. Some of those cakes (and they weren’t always cakes, some were pies or tarts, but I’m grouping them all as “cakes” for the purposes of this post) were so thrilling. It meant the end of a long arduous relationship with coworkers who irritated me, for myriad reasons. Some were bittersweet, and marked the end of spending my days with very cool people who were moving on to better things. Some were really just an excuse to eat cake, as people moved from ILL to Other Places in the library.

We’ve got another Last Day Cake today (already included in my list of 14), German Chocolate from the Buttery, and as with each of the others, I wonder when I’ll get my own “Last Day Cake.” I can’t really imagine leaving this place, and at the same time, I have a hard time staying much longer, certainly not with my sanity intact.

At one point I decided that if I were to get a tattoo that represented my time in ILL (not that I would, but you know, it’s a good hypothetical question) it would be the phrase “pf11, in Elvish characters. Now I’ve decided that to this mythical tattoo, I will add the phrase The 14th Cake.” However, since I don’t know exactly how long I’m in for, I can’t get the mythical tattoo until I leave. Because I can imagine having to go back in again and again, having the artist slash out one number and replace it with the next. The 15th Cake, The 16th Cake and so on.

Crafty friends and family

Lately I’ve been the lucky recipient of several crafty gifts, all of which I’d like to showcase here. If you are the crafter who made the gift below, and you would like a larger picture than these, click on the photo for a bigger version. I’ll email you a gigantic version if that would be better. Thanks all!

First, a lovely plate that was a wedding gift. A Joy Baldwin original:

From blogstuff

Next, a quilt, made by Vicki Davis, in honor of our wedding:

From blog stuff

And then, lovely socks, made by Jean Kenny:

modelled by me:

From blog stuff

in their original packaging:

and modelled by the bunnies, Macaroni going for a traditional sock look, and Disco Stu going for a more scarf-esqe approach:

From blog stuff

Check this crazy math

My commute is 60 miles round trip. By not driving over the hill just one day a week, I’d be saving myself about 3000 miles of driving every year. Now I get 50 mpg (yay Prius!), so that’s about 60 gallons of fuel, or about $180. Okay, when I was working that out in my head, I decided it was $1800 I was saving, which is off by a little, but still! 3000 miles I’m not driving every year. That’s fairly awesome.