Tales of a Librarian
Thoughts on librarianship and service.
I’m Fully Staffed Again!, or, I Needed a Drink
Recently, a candidate accepted a job offer to work for me. This means that for the first time since the end of June I’m fully staffed in my department. Prior to that I was fully staffed for 4-6 weeks, maybe. Other than that, from October 2017-May 2018 I was down one or more positions in my department.
So, Where Am I Going, Anyway?
In reference to my last post, and maybe in continuation of it, I’m asking a question about the rest of my career. This is also a continuation of the question that I first asked in my earliest blog posts,”Why do I want to be a librarian, anyway?”
Swimming with Purpose
In a few short weeks the new semester begins. This will be my second academic year in this position. Over the last year there have been so many changes at work including a roughly 83% turnover in personnel in my department. That means that only myself and one staff member are doing the jobs we were doing at this time last year. Another position was moved under me that I didn’t have at that time, and yet another position has been created out of whole cloth.
Nevertheless, He’s Anxious
As you can see from my previous post, it’s been an up-and-down year for me. Equal parts joyous and difficult. Right now, things are going well for me. I’m being productive at work. My biggest problems are that I have another two positions to fill, one planned and one not. Those searches are both in process. The planned open position is a newly created one that fills out my staff and gives us redundancy. The unplanned one came up when one of my staff — how should I say this? — decided to seek their fortune elsewhere.
It’s Finals. How Are You Doing?
I’m at work. It’s Saturday. I don’t work Saturdays. I’m closing, which is not that unusual, but I’m closing at midnight. My bed time is around 10:00. This all feels so wrong. I remember the days when staying up until midnight was no big deal on any given night of the week. I remember regularly staying up until 3:00 AM playing cards. Rummy, of all things! I’m not Kenny Rogers. Read More
Optimism: a.k.a. Depression Lies
So, last week was rough for me. I was feeling mentally exhausted and by Friday was beating up on myself for making a simple and entirely fixable mistake. By Saturday night I was sitting alone in bed — Wifey had fallen asleep on the couch — with that old familiar depressive feeling and wracking my brain to figure out why I was feeling it. This, by the way, is a Sisyphean exercise, as depression needs not have a specific trigger.
Emotionalism, the Trials of Public Service, & Vulcans
We’ve all been there. You’ve got a line backed up to the exits, the phone is ringing off the hook, and a patron is standing there wanting to argue policy with you. You could be working in retail, a public library, an academic library, or anywhere there is a front-line public service desk. It is difficult. It is stressful. It is rarely fun. About the only positive thing you can say about it is that it makes the time pass quickly. Thirty minutes or an hour can pass in a few seconds. Read More
Breaking Up with Facebook…For Real, This Time
If you’ve been watching my Twitter, lately, you may have seen that I have permanently deleted my personal Facebook account and the associated page for TOAL. I’d threatened to do this several times over the last five years, or so, but I finally went through with it yesterday (03/20). Technically, it still exists and my personal Twitter is still feeding into Facebook, causing some confusion as to my status. This is still happening because Facebook, naturally, doesn’t want you to leave so they kindly keep your site active for fourteen days hoping that you’ll change your mind; hoping that after a cooling off period you’ll run back to their open arms. Read More
Recent Comment Cards
Posted on March 27, 2018 by Jeffrey
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I don’t get a lot of mail in my inbox at work, so it was a bit of a surprise when I got up and saw a stack of comment cards inside. I thought I’d share them with you. Read More