For the past two years, I have complained a bit about the job I am leaving today. I knew within two months of starting the job that this proprietary university mumbo-jumbo was a bad deal, but the pay was decent, the stress was low, and the commute was manageable. So I wasn’t in too big a rush to find something better, and I didn’t want to be back in the situation that forced me into this job. I worked three different permanent jobs in three weeks…yes, that’s a true story.
While I was complaining about my job on a weekly basis, I was also checking Houston-area, Fortune 500 company (preferably oil and gas) websites for open positions that matched my skill set and applying to anything that remotely resembled something I could do. Friends and family kept telling me to get a headhunter, but I knew my pickiness would eventually become an annoyance to anyone who didn’t really understand. In the task of finding a new job, I was able to practice a high degree of patience, and I had faith that it would pay off the way it has. I announced a couple of weeks ago that I was resigning from the second-longest job I have ever had (I stayed at a community college as a cataloger for over three years…I actually loved that place and those people, but it was too far away). What I didn’t say is that I’m going to work for the second-largest oil and gas company in the United States as a Business Analyst in their real estate division. I will be working downtown, but the pay raise, the benefits, the company, and just the overall “betterness” of this job surpass that one negative by miles. Most importantly, my daughter gets to go to “church school”, just like I did.
I plan on setting a record for the longest I have ever stayed at a job. I think it’s about time.
At the end of the highly controversial Brawlers vs. Betties bout last night, Elle McFierce exclaimed over how I would write a happy post today. That was right before I fell over from exhaustion.
It’s not like I did anything to become exhausted. Except for one grand slam, an almost inefficient backwards whip given to Audiomind, and a fun little blocker takeout while jamming on Becky Booty, my performance was pretty much dismal. I wasn’t expecting it to be much more than that after a couple of weeks of forced inactivity.
I also wasn’t expecting the Brawlers to win, but we did. I really shouldn’t admit that I don’t have a lot of faith in my home team, but we all remember the tough year the Brawlers went through in 2007. 2008 was starting to look almost identical, but now we’ve won a game somewhat early in the season. I’m positive we can take another one if we all get and stay healthy. I still heart my Brawlers, even though the rest of my body is consumed with HaRD Knocks.
So I’m feeling alright today, even though I could barely walk last night. Then I get the bad news that I won’t get a job interview I was pretty sure I would nail. That just boggles my mind, because I look great on paper, and I’m even better in person when I really, really want the job (and who wouldn’t really, really want a job at a prestigious private school?). Damn. So I keep reminding myself it’s probably better that I don’t take a new job while my personal life is so stressful, even though I do have an interview with a major player in the oil & gas industry in a couple of weeks. Sweet.
Yeah, Elle, this post was a little bit happy, but a little bit bummed, too. I seriously need to get out of this funk before the summer gets outrageously busy with bouts, bouts, and more bouts on top of my obsession with finding the perfect job as well as getting a big girl ready for kindergarten. Oh, happy posts!
Great news from the hard-working IT guy at my dysfunctional workplace:
I hope this is cool with you.
Since our budget being very tight this year, I am regretfully to tell you that your blackberry will be collected so we can distribute it to our new Financial Aid Director. As soon as I have more access to blackberry, I will make sure to hand you one.
Thanks for understanding.
Doesn’t matter that I told the grammatically-challenged boy wonder that I didn’t want the damn thing in the first place. The only thing I understand is this place sucks.
A coworker has pissed me off yet again. Over the past two years, I’ve been able to turn the other cheek, but it has been really hard these past few days. Partly because I might actually be out of here soon, and partly because I found something that might actually justify legal proceedings. Yesterday, I had to tell our HR guy (oh, excuse me, Director of Human Resources) to quit talking to me because his unethical ideas of how things should be around here and distorted notions of how things truly are around here were making me sick to my stomach. Really what I said was “this conversation is going nowhere” and thankfully he got the message without my having to kick him out of the library. And that’s all I have to say about that.
So today, some loser from admissions (yes, he is a loser because he earned a degree from this joke of a university; therefore, the only place he can find employment is said joke of a university) actually accused my part-timer of drinking on the job simply because she has repeatedly helped an alcoholic student when nobody else would. When I calmly stated that she doesn’t drink, he actually dropped his jaw. So I proceeded to inform him that she has been suffering from pancreatic cancer for the past year and a half, and we are lucky that she chose to continue working two jobs. Could that be the reason she seems a bit off sometimes? Hmm. I hope he feels like the dumb-ass he truly is and refrains from participating in the petty gossip that permeates this toxic workplace, at least for a few hours. Who am I kidding? I’m sure he ran off and told the first person he saw about his run-in with the librarian bitch (oh, excuse me, Director of Library Services Bitch).
I’m actually going to talk about being a librarian. I felt it was necessary due to my supervisor confirming the fact that I’m an afterthought around here. Yesterday, he asked me to complete the manager’s portion of my performance review, because he does not know what I do. Yes, you heard me. He actually said that, and then I did my own performance review. This is really the least of my worries in the dysfunctional place that I call work, and just another reason why it’s hard for me to get up and go there every morning.
It did get me to thinking about a list of library director tasks I saw a while ago, and how at the time I thought I could adapt it to my daily tasks and maybe convince someone somewhere that I do have the skills and experience to do something other than just library work. The question is can I send something like this along with my resume for the people outside the library world that just don’t get it?
Hmmm…where would I rather be? On the phone with other disgruntled library directors or on the cold, wet streets of Houston with a few of my leaguemates?
Yep, you got it! I hate my job more than I hate Winter.
I’ve been thinking a lot about bloggers’ rights since a bunch of people with whom I am very close decided that not everyone is entitled to his/her opinions. I have never been very keen on using del.icio.us. You may ask how those two sentences warrant an inclusion in the same paragraph? Because…I’m testing the use of del.icio.us link rolls and decided to include my bloggersrights link roll here. Wonder and wander away.
I don’t write too much about my profession (I’m a tad burnt out over it at the moment), but every once in a while, I come across tidbits relating to libraries that actually impress me. Servers for the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, store 20tb of data. Servers for the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series stored 103tb of data. Do the math…more than five Libraries of Congress. Wow!
