I don't need a minister

Okay, more as promised

2006-09-19T10:31:00.000-04:00

So, here's the promised update about my jaerb. I'm going to try to make both this post and the blog fairly anonymous from here on out, for obvious reasons. Just a little heads-up.

For those of you who don't know, at the end of August I got a new job working for a county public library system in my area. The position for which I applied was listed as "Reference Librarian," but when I came in for the interview, my interviewers indicated that they were instead interviewing me for a different position, one that would involve working for a new library branch (not yet completed) that would open sometime in the near future. This new library would combine an existing county government library with a small popular collection. I would split my time between this library and the county government's Information Desk, located in an office across the hall from the new library. The pay for this position was markedly less than the pay for the reference librarian job, and less per hour than my previous part-time position (and this position required a MLS degree, whereas my old one did not). But since I had sent my resume to about 15 places and this was only my second callback, I decided to proceed. The next day one of the interviewers (the Division Chief) offered me the job, and I accepted.

A few days before my first day on the new job, that same interviewer called to inform me of "a little change in plans." Gulp. Apparently, the new library wasn't close to being finished (and, as of this writing, still isn't), so now my time would be split between the info desk and a branch library located in the far fringes of the county. The info desk and the future library are/will be located steps from a train station, but in order to get from the info desk to the new library (which I had to do in the middle of the day three days a week) I had to take the train five stops, and either get out and walk uphill 20 minutes or try to catch the bus that passed every half hour. Keep in mind that I didn't know this at the time of the phone call. I reluctantly agreed, since no leads on any other job opportunity had presented themselves in the intervening weeks.

On my first day, I met my new boss. I really don't know how to describe her. In the initial meeting, she told me no less than three times that she'd be "the easiest boss I'd ever work for," and she's spent the last few weeks trying hard to discredit that statement. She's one of the most negative people I've ever met. Nearly every word she says is either hateful gossip about a coworker/superior, some other person in another office, or the people she helps at the Info desk (Can you imagine spending the forty hours a week making nasty comments to coworkers about every single person asking where the elevator is? I sure as hell can't). Of course, these types of statements really jive well with the Jesus/Scripture/positive thinking crap posted all over her cubicle walls. She complains constantly about her superiors, and on several occasions has refused to do the work they assign her because "it's stupid" or she "doesn't feel like it." More on that later.

So, after my first week, which was spending farting around doing nothing in the Info office, I shuttled between the Info office and the branch, cursing, wondering if I'd done a stupid thing by accepting a job that required so much, paid so little, and had caused me so many headaches. Work at the branch was fine, even though the building is old and too small for the collection. My boss at the branch informed me of my schedule for the next few weeks. I wrote down my hours and reported them to Info Boss to see if there were any conflicts. Then the shitstorm erupted.

Info Boss informed me that she was under the impression that I was to spend only one week working at the branch. I have no idea where she got this impression other than a bout of wishful thinking, since it was clearly stated to both me and her by the Division Chief. The thing about working at info is that there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO THERE for 40 hours a week. I spent my first week doing just that, sitting in the back, reading, browsing the Internet, and hearing one my coworkers curse out 80% of the people he had just spoken to on the phone. (Have you ever heard a man with inch-long hair sticking out of his ear canal make fun of a woman behind her back because she had a hint of a mustache? I have.) At least at the library branch, there was always shelving or other such busywork.

So, anyway, Info Boss refuses to accept her immediate boss's judgment that the branch is short on staff and really needs another warm body to help it operate. She crafts a nasty email to her boss, the Library Boss, a library administrator, the Division Chief, and in a kind gesture, blind cc's the note to me, I suppose to show some sort of "solidarity," that she's a-fightin' for me and my right to be at Info 40 grueling hours per week. Some very curt and vitriolic emails are exchanged over the next few days, and eventually the matter reaches the attention of the Library Director (!), who reinforces the earlier statement that I have to split my hours between Branch and Info. By this point I'm glad to hear that, since work at Info is boring and full of negativity, and Library work is familiar and fulfilling despite the commute.

Library Boss informs me later that week that the heads of all the branch libraries, plus members of library administration, Info Boss, and a few others were getting together to discuss my fate. I felt like a child in the center of a custody battle. The afternoon of the meeting, I get a call informing me that I am no longer working at the branch to which I have been assigned, but that I'm being moved to a different, albeit more transit-accessible, branch. And instead of splitting hours evenly between Info and New Branch, I will now work 32 hours at New Branch and only 8 a week at Info. At that moment, I wanted to shout for joy and kiss the Division Chief's bald little pate.

So how did it come to pass that I only get 8 hours of Info per week after Info Boss insisted I get 40 there? Simple. Like a scorned child, she decided not to participate in the big meeting. The heads of every branch in the library system (8 in all) came to try to pick me up for their shorthanded staffs, and she, the boss I report to, the one who was a-fightin' for me, the one who signs my timesheets, did not show up to claim me. Did she feel that her lack of participation would make everyone feel sorry for her? I don't know. She didn't go to bat for me, so she lost out. And guess what? She's not happy about it. Big surprise, eh? Info Boss even told me that when the Division Chief called her to inform her of the decision, she hung up on him mid-call. Professional, no? Sadly, one of my Info coworkers who was also splitting time between Info and a library branch had her branch assignment switched as a result of Info Boss's refusal to participate. In the words of Julia Roberts in that prostitute movie, "Big mistake. BIG."

After that weekend Info Boss and I discussed the new plan, and I made very clear that I was happy with it, without trying let on that Info work was both hellish and boring. Info Boss of course told me that my new Library Boss was a miserable person, impossible to work for. She said that Library Boss "doesn't trust her employees" and even goes so far as to (horror of horrors!) schedule when employees should take their LUNCH BREAKS. Yeah, sounds like a real tyrant, huh? A regular Genghis Khan. My guess that Info Boss simply can't stand authority, because nearly instance of talking to her involves some invocation of "they can't tell me/you what to do!," etc.

As it turns out, New Branch is even better than Old Branch, and the commute is a thousand times easier. The work is fulfilling and straightforward, and I'm even getting the opportunity to work on the Reference Desk like a person with a MLS should. The new boss is a little reserved and brooding at times, but she's very organized and hands-off, which I appreciate. It's so incredibly drama-free compared to the complaint-fest that is/was Info. Those eight hours a week I spend there seem nearly endless compared to the 32 easy hours doing working in the field in which I got this spanking-new graduate degree. So, overall, things are better.

I'm sure this blog will be peppered with all sorts of wonderful stories from my crazy-ass job for years to come. Count yourself fortunate that you get to read it. :-)

Lead balloon magnet

2006-09-12T11:22:00.000-04:00

Why am I such a magnet for negative people? Despite the impression you may get from reading these pages, I'm a pretty friendly, positive person.

But good lord my new job is slowly breaking my will.

More later after I make this anonymous.

Stranded on an island

2006-08-08T13:59:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm stranded on an island. A desert island, to be precise, since it's August and the mercury rises past ninety every day while the humidity continues to oppress anything that dares to move. My apartment is a tiny little rabbit hole, half underground--the view outside my living room window allows me to see the bare side of a bush that keeps its leaves all year round. Between me and that bush is twelve square feet of dirt and mulch, crawling with insects that look like they escaped the set of a horror movie.

I'm working only twenty hours a week, so there are many days when I'm in the apartment all by myself in the mornings and afternoons. With my trademark lack of a significant attention span and my hypocritcal aversion to housework (I can talk a good game, but damn if I ever feel determined enough to do anything about the piles of crap suffocating me), I feel the need to escape. But where can I go?

I live in the city. Granted, not THE city--that's a few miles to the north. I'm also not technically in the suburbs--though the buildings that comprise my apartment complex all look pretty much alike, there's a fair amount of grass and hundreds of trees to prevent the place from looking like the back cover of a Desaparecidos record. There's stuff around here, I'm told--monuments and museums and history and heritage and big green open spaces that contrast with modernity and urbanity in a most pleasing manner. It's over across the river, at least most of it. If I decide to go, I go alone (mildly depressing), and if I drive there's no guarantee I'll find a place to park. If I take public transit, the time it takes to get to these places quadruples (double time there and back). Should I stay long enough to meet Debbie? Can I make that work? Will she be mad that I don't have the car?

So, going into the city is out. So close, yet, cruelly, hours away. Maybe there's something closer that'll suit my desires. I live on a side street that motorists use to cut between two more well-traveled roads--during morning and evening rushes the street is full of vehicles carrying exactly one passenger to the destination that awaits them--home, school, work. But what's around here, really? A dilapidated park. Rows of ugly townhouses that no doubt cost the marginally attractive twentysomething couples who live there a cool three-quarters of a million. A strip mall under construction that boasts little more than a Rite Aid and a Subway. The only item of promise is the library, a mile away on foot (I refuse to drive), but you can't blame me for being a little burned out on those types of places.

Is trying to find something around here worth the trouble? Will I go somewhere that requires me to shower and put on decent clothes? Because the highly-touted salubrious effects of showering seem to melt in the August sun the minute I open the door to my building. Why the hell do I sweat so much? I guess I could go to the pool right next to my building, but that's no fun by myself.

Is there anything on TV? Nope. Is there anything online I could dig up to interest me? Probably, yet the prospect of doing so is depressing--and yet, I still find myself doing it.

Why have I lost my attention span? It makes reading so difficult--I can barely read anymore. I never really was much of a reader--sure, I was an English major, but discussion of themes and theory always excited me far more than simple narratives. I have a stack of books here I've never touched, as well as a stack of films my lowly ass should get around to seeing (again, a depressing idea, to watch movies while the sun shines [but, then again, am I really going outside? Probably not.]).

All of this cumlinates and ferments and leaves me feeling the way I do--depressed, unkempt, unwanted, and forgotten. When Debbie comes home, yes, I feel better, but I know that tomorrow will bring more of the same.

We have to move away from here. Debbie and I say this nearly very day. We have to go at least one more year in this area, but I want no more than that. We have to leave. Go somewhere else. A kinder town, a more walkable neighborhood, a less yuppie- and power-driven populace. We have to leave.

But I still can't even get out of my apartment, most days.

The "Done with Comps" Edition

2006-07-18T09:23:00.000-04:00

I'm done with comps. Here's a Kate Bush video that will brighten the rest of your day.

Entrevista Gigante

2006-06-22T16:20:00.000-04:00

Hey gize,

Not much to say here really. I'm trying to get myself to study for comps (it's practically a mirror of that final dreadful semester at Milligan when I had only ONE MORE FUCKING THING to do in order to graduate but I can't quite get myself to do it...). So, I'm busy procrastinating, being a horrible househusband, working, and fighting depression.

All that as intro this... I have a job interview tomorrow for a part-time reference position at a local public library. Despite only being part time, it'd be a great place to work-- it's literally within walking distance, for one, and it's a bump in pay and a little more prestigious than the job I have now. If you're the praying type, it'd be great if you'd do that for me. I'm a little nervous--I've told many of you that I feel library school has made me dumber and less articulate, so I'm worried that will evidence itself in the interview. Let's hope not.

What's funny is I interviewed the person who'll be interviewing me a few months ago for a class assignment. So far she doesn't seem to remember me.

I got my hair cut today and ate some incredibly spicy Chinese food for lunch. Tonight it's Coke + rum and study and prepare for interview.

The Reds lost today, but that's acceptable after the AWESOME finish to last night's game. I told Debbie I might leave her for Ryan Freel someday, but after last night it might turn out to be Brandon Phillips who plays the homewrecker.

Now go back and read my first sentence.

Come put it in my life

2006-05-07T23:38:00.000-04:00

Updated 05/16/06.

Ok, I'm selling a bunch of CDs. Make offers.

Here...

All American Radio/Somerset-- Instruments & Landscapes
The Appleseed Cast-- Low Level Owl Volume I
The Appleseed Cast--Low Level Owl Volume II
Belle & Sebastian--I'm Waking Up to Us (single)
Blenderhead--Prime Candidate for Burnout
Blenderhead--Muchacho Vivo
Brandtson--Letterbox (Steadfast Records version, not the Deep Elm re-release)
Codeine--Frigid Stars LP
The Colemans--s/t EP
DC Talk--Free at Last
Dr. Dog--Easybeat
Eager--Pre-release (This is the DJ/radio version of the album in a cardboard case. All the songs from the full-length are on it)
Fantomas--Suspended Animation
Ida--The Braille Night (cardboard packaging)
Ida--Insound Tour Support Series No. 11 (only 1000 of these exist)
Johnny Q. Public--Extra*Ordinary
The Juliana Theory--Understand This Is a Dream
The Juliana Theory--Emotion is Dead
Ted Leo/Pharmacists--Hearts of Oak
Microphones--Don't Wake Me Up
MxPx--Teenage Politics
One 21--When the Dragon is Finally Laid to Rest
Oneida--Anthem of the Moon (insert is water damaged, disc is fine)
Anders Parker--Tell It to the Dust
SeaLifePark--s/t EP
Seam--The Pace is Glacial
Lenny Smith--Deep Calls to Deep
Somerset--Discoveries and Illuminations
Suffering and the Hideous Thieves--Real Panic Formed
Summer Hymns--A Celebratory Arm Gesture
Training For Utopia--Plastic Soul Impalement
Unwed Sailor--The Faithful Anchor
Yeah Yeah Yeahs--Maps (single)
v/a--Songs from the Penalty Box Vol. 1 (if I have to explain, you don't want it)

Send me an email if you're interested... highlyarcane (at) yahoo.com. Vagrant friends send me a PM.

Thanks!

Hi.

2006-05-03T16:04:00.000-04:00

I'm alive. Finished a final today and one more to go.

It' s getting warm and my Reds are in first place.

From Dawn to Decadence

2006-01-13T21:41:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted in forever and neither have you.

Christmas was good, except for the visit to my mom's church (twas my church for 12 years or so... but it was my first visit for a Sunday service in 6 years). How were your holidays?

I started my final semester of lib school Tuesday. I'm taking a core course, Libraries in Society (should be interesting, as two activists-turned-librarians are teaching it), Humanities Information (taught by this man. I'm sure I'll be talking about it a lot, since it's so similar in structure and content to many of the humanities classes I took as an undergrad), and I began my internship at the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. It's tedious yet fun work and an amazing foot in the door.

I'm word-constipated right now. Hope all of you get back to blogging soon.

Your links no longer work,

2005-12-19T00:22:00.000-05:00

therefore you're all suckers. Behold my new blog address. This replaces the former title we're all ashamed of.

The new title is dorkier but less jaded-sounding. Update your links--I'd do it but I can't, since I lost mine in the war.

What say you?

2005-12-14T18:50:00.001-05:00

I'm thinking of abandoning this blog for greener pastures, ie, a new blog with a less-shitty name.

"Snarkylibrarian?" Puh-leez. Dumb dumb dumb.

Let me know what you think. If I change it, you'll have to update your links, but I can't even RECOVER mine since I deleted them, so y'know, cry me a river and stuff.

Weigh in.

Why does God hate amputees?

2005-12-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

So, I was looking up a word in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary this morning when I saw this at the bottom:

Ads by Google
Why Does God Hate Amputees?
www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com

Priceless. There's nothing like reading a critique of Christianity by someone who has done about 15 minutes of Google research. If you're a "religious leader," he'd like to challenge you to a Bible read-off on national television so he can use his giant intellectual "How Stuff Works" mandibles to crush you like the Leviticus proof-texting bug you are.

It's actually not as nasty as these things tend to be. He just makes stupid assumptions and makes them the basis of his entire argument. The funniest thing to me is that it's a sponsored Google ad on a frequently visited website. Weird.

Tonight I witnessed an assault

2005-12-02T19:12:00.000-05:00

Tonight I was driving from work to the library at school. Though I had been stuck in horrific traffic for most of the trip (a journey of 8 miles in 60 minutes), after I crossed the bridge into DC the roads cleared considerably. I was clipping along that lovely blighted strip of land known as North Capitol Street when I noticed something strange, yet utterly familiar. An aside: as a naive country boy plucked up and transferred to a mysterious big city, I was not aware of a certain activity local youths seem to find "fun." It consists of tackling your buddies, just for the hell of it. Sometimes it involves riding halfway up a metro escalator and then pouncing down on your unsuspecting buddy below, bringing him to the ground only inches away from the screaming electrified Metro tracks. All the white people gasp, and tourists are horrified, but it seems to be a big game of tag and I've never seen anyone get seriously hurt.

Well, tonight, I saw something different. As I approached what I think was North Capitol and R St. NE, I noticed two boys, probably 15-16 years of age, run toward what looked to be a homeless man. One tackled him (the other looked like he intended to, but chickened out) with the apparent intent of knocking him into an oncoming car (which would have been the car in front of me). After he was flattened, the man just lay there on the asphalt, motionless, while the two boys happily ran back to a group of about 15 (no lie) other kids standing on the corner and the cars kept shooting by. This all happened in a space of about seven seconds.

I didn't know what to do. At first I honked my horn, because I thought it was just moron kids acting rowdy. When I realized that they had tackled an old homeless man for no other appartment reason than to cause him physical harm for their pleasure, I called the police. I talked to two people on the phone (police and ambulance) and told them what happened, but I felt like it wasn't much help since I didn't know if the man was ok. I couldn't even provide anything more than basic descriptions. "Two black boys, 15 years old?" That's not much of a description, especially in this town. They sent police and ambulance to the scene, but I 'm sure there wasn't much to see when they got there except throngs of people eating take-out in the 30-degree weather.

Should I have stopped? Should I have gotten out to see if the guy was ok? Should I have tried to catch the kids and do something "heroic?" I don't know. Why didn't I stop? Was it fear that I would be attacked, just like he was? Was it because I didn't know what to do? Was it because I thought someone else would handle it? I don't know. Will the police even bother to respond when they have dozens of other calls involving assaults to look into?

I don't know, guys. But the incident shook me and unsettled me, and I guess it should have. Sadly, it's moments like these that bring out a mean streak of vitriolic racist bile that I forget I have at times. I hate to say it, but it's almost like I want an incident like this to happen so my feelings can be validated-- "See, these kids are definitely up to no good."

I don't know what else to say. I hope the poor guy is all right, and I hope the kids who nearly killed him think about what they did before they fall asleep tonight. But in the end it may be me who's up late wondering what exactly the hell went on.

Such an effing shame

2005-11-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

Read this.

(And no, smartass, this isn't about 7th Heaven or Kitchen Confidential.)

Write a letter:

Peter Liguori, President of Entertainment
FOX Broadcasting
10201 W. Pico
Building 100 Room 4450
Los Angeles, CA 90035

In hoc signo vinces

2005-11-10T17:24:00.000-05:00

Tuesday I met Barbara Boxer... if you don't know who that is, she's a US Senator from California. She's one of those tax-and-spend liberals your momma warned you about, but I got to shake her hand and talk with her a few minutes. Why? Well, she came to my bookstore to sign copies of her new novel. And guess what? She's awesome. I wasn't planning to do more than say hello, but my boss put me in charge of the event, so I got to stand there next to her and keep the line under control. She was very nice and down-to-earth, which is a far cry from how she's usually portrayed. I didn't ask any really in-depth questions (too many people) but we did chat about the VA gubernatorial election, which, by the way, was safely delivered into the hands of Tim Kaine. That's because he got my vote. My 0-6 voting streak is at an end. I'm partying like the Houston Texans.

That was my second-to-last day at B. Dalton. Yesterday was my last day, and next week I enter a life phase I haven't seen in over two years for more than a month at a time: I will have only one job. But since the pay is like 1.8 times the B. Dalton per hour rate, I'll actually be making a lot more with fewer hours.

My last day was uneventful. I actually felt like putting forth a little effort, and my bosses made sure I didn't just float on out on my last day. They gave me a card and gift certificate for the movie theatre. Sweet. What's odd is that I was dreading the final goodbye--not because it'd be hard not seeing these people anymore, but because there were some interpersonal tensions that were left unresolved. The "cashwrap supervisor," a person I worked with every day, suddenly ceased talking to me/started ignoring me about two months ago, and I never found out why. Well, we never talked about it, and she left work early on my last day without saying a word. So it stays unresolved. But I have no idea why it happened in the first place.

Anyway, no more 10 pm bedtimes and 5:32 bus rides for me! I feel like I'm growing up.

I'm also looking for a school-credit internship for next semester, and the National Geographic Society seems to want me. Hopefully, my interview next week won't reveal that I can't actually create websites with the ease they want me to.

This post has no title

2005-11-07T14:49:00.000-05:00

I got up and ran this morning. My legs are killing me. I've gained a lot of weight since the wedding, and my weight has always been a struggle, so I'm hoping that moving a little more will help me shed some pounds. I'm trying to eat better as well, but that's always the most difficult part.

I also smoked today... 3 cigs. Such a hard addiction to break. Guh. I've been doing pretty well lately, but I can't be trusted when I'm alone.

Trying to pay more attention to studies... I really buckled down and got some work done yesterday, but I'm still not paying as much attention to school as I should. Those of you who knew me as an undergrad know how I either studied way to hard or neglected studies altogether, and last year I barely studied or read at all (part of that was working 45 hours a week to pay rent, but hey...) so I'm doing better if you use that as a yardstick.

I still feel like I'm not approaching my life head-on. I need some friends up here.

Ok, enough of the ramblings. Great damn, I suck.

I'm also planning to make some mix tapes/CDs for friends of mine. I've lost some of my music edge (due to short funds, lack of free time, and my whininess about not having an iPod... I know, wah) and I want to use this to reconnect with people. If you're interested in one, let me know. I'm making one as a gift for my secret santa gift on Vagrant, and I owe Debbie's friend Alicia one too, so this will hopefuly be the start of regular thing.

Also, Joe, call me with your new #. I lost it.

Holy Crap!

2005-11-04T16:14:00.000-05:00

Whoa, I've finally got a blog! I'm not sure what exactly I'll do with it yet, but we'll have to wait and see.

I've been a bit depressed lately, and I know that's the worst reason in the world to start one of these things. Let's hope it doesn't turn into a collection of bad-eighth-grade-poetry ramblings. No guarantees though.

I don't really have much to say now. I hope this thing isn't a total disaster. Cheers for now.

On a very happy side note, my blushing bride turns 25 today! I tell you, being with an older woman is where it's at.

Here's a link to some distraction... enjoy. I want to be this guy.