I too have a PhD in horribleness

In my last post I mentioned getting further along in the interview process for a full time job than ever before, for my dream job and dream location, and ultimately being rejected as all of the stars and planets lined up except one (Fuck you, Pluto, I thought you didn't count anymore!).  So here I'll talk more about that whole process for you new librarians wanting to know how these things work.

First there was a phone interview.  I knew it went well for two reasons.  It lasted longer than it was supposed to, and he told me right then and there that he foresaw me moving to the next round.  Pretty big clue, that second one.  There's not much to say about phone interviews.  They're normal interviews, but over the phone.  I wore pants anyway, just in case.

Then there was an online webcam interview where I had to give them a 15 minute presentation.  Now, that wasn't the hard part.  Remember, despite my constant failure for so many years, I'm not actually someone with no experience beyond fieldwork or volunteering.  I've been teaching this stuff for 5 years.  You want a presentation?  Well I just happen to have 12 of those queued up right now, which one do ya want, punk?

However, it wasn't as easy as it should have been for a few reasons.  I was in the middle of my work week during a big grade crunch, so there was that.  Also, I don't tend to use powerpoint for my lectures, but figured it would look odd if I didn't have one for this presentation.  When teaching classes I prefer to write on the board so things are more dynamic rather than set in stone.  Thus, I had to create a powerpoint from scratch based around the lecture I chose.  Doable, except that grade crunch made it stressful.  Finally, I had a tight 15-20 minute window, and I'm not used to having to care about the time too much.  Where I teach there's plenty of time built into classes for them to do their work, so basically, when I'm done I'm done.  This one I had to rehearse over and over to make sure I was in that exact window.

despite the challenges and the very short and busy time frame, I came through.  I had my second interview, which consisted of yet more questions in addition to the presentation.  Again, it went quite a bit longer than estimated, although I wasn't as positive it went as well as the last one.  It must have, because the very next morning they called me to meet.  So now for phase 3: I make the 270 mile drive where I meet the folks face to face.  At this point, the job is riding on my winning personality more than anything.

Fuck.

I actually wasn't expecting yet MORE interview questions when I got there.  I'd already gone through two rounds of that, and the guy made it sound like it was really more of a meet and greet, just to make sure I didn't show up covered in children's blood (although their ability to distinguish child blood from any other kind of blood probably says as much about them as it does me).  But there were questions.  And at no point did it seem to go well.  One guy barely looked at me the whole time and seemed bored.  One gal was looking at me like she felt sorry for me the whole time.  Maybe that's just her normal face, I don't know, but it worried me.  The whole thing lasted 30 minutes, including the tour.  I drove 270 miles there, spent nearly 200 dollars, and after 30 minutes they sent me packing.  Not a great sign.

You know the rest of the story, I didn't get the job.  But for those of you wondering what the process was like, there ya go.

For the rest of my life now, I'll always be wondering if my life could have ended up completely different if only for one thing.  Would I have had a different job, a different location, a different spouse, different friends, different everything, if only one little thing hadn't gone wrong?  Maybe if only I'd thought to say something differently.  If only my sunglasses hadn't messed up my hair on the way.  If only it had been scheduled for after lunch.  Any one of those little things and I might have had a completely different life, for all I'll ever know.  All I can do is try to tell myself I didn't get it for a reason, but I have a hard time believing everything happens for a reason, when nothing ever happens to begin with.  I always flash back to that conversation in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:

Penny: Everything happens--
Billy: Don't say everything happens for a reason.
Penny: No, just, everything happens.
Billy: Not to me.

I think this is how Houdini died

My last post was hopeful, so you had to know I was in for a fall.

I mentioned having had two interviews, and one I hadn't been rejected from yet.  Well, now I have.

This is a huge punch to the gut for me, so I'm just going to type this out off the top of my head, no rough draft.  No polishing, I don't want to live with this longer than I had to.  Just a blunt, visceral stream of consciousness write-up.  Be prepared.

This was a job I wanted badly.  Not just the job itself, but the location.  You'll remember, perhaps, that I'm not being picky about where I apply.  So of the millions of cities in the US, what are the odds that I'd be rejected for 5 years straight and then be offered an interview-- and come closer to getting it than I ever have-- in the one exact specific place I wanted to be?  A place where, had I gotten that job, the rest of my life could have fallen into place instantly.  Millions and millions and millions of libraries, and the one place that comes so close to offering me a job in that time is in that exact city.  The odds of that have to be at least 3 to 1.

I don't know what this means.  The odds are too crazy to be coincidence, so how could that have happened for nothing?  But apparently, it did.  It was for nothing, I failed again, and I guess that's a dream I can shove in a hole to die now.

But enough about me, back to the focus of this blog-- what my experience implies for other new or new-ish librarians.  And that is this:

To get to this stage of the interview I had to travel, and I had to do it on my own dime.  The library was 270 miles away from my current home.  I put over 500 miles on my car in 2 days, set out early in the morning with nothing but my GPS and a case of CDs (thank you, Mansun, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Troubled Hubble, Electric Six, and Frank Zappa!), and hope.  I spent about 80 on gas both ways, 80 on an inn, and 20 dollars for dinner out (including two glasses of scotch, in a state where alcohol is not as dirt cheap as in WI).  So, about 180 dollars of my own money got spent just so I could see a rejection email no different from any other.  It could have been a bit cheaper, but I just wanted a place close to the job.  Subtract the difference between the inn and a more sensible motel, and not ordering the drinks at dinner, and I could have done this for 150, perhaps.  Still, that's 150 dollars.

The issue is, how sustainable is this?  Say you're a new librarian looking for your first full time job and you actually do get interview offers.  How much of your own money-- especially on your current non-salary-- can you spend going to interview after interview just to add to your collection of emails stating that while you were a strong candidate, they decided to pursue someone who more closely suits their needs?

The other implication for new librarians is this: sometimes this will hurt.  Badly.  The other rejections I got were easy to sour grapes.  I just made "sour grapes" a verb, get over it.  But this one, this one would have been everything I ever.  It was the perfect millions to one job that I'll never have a chance at again.  And now that dream can go fuck off and die forever.  I wanted this job so bad it literally hurt.  And I mean, before I was rejected.  It hurt how badly I wanted it, and I was not misusing the word "literally" when I said that.  I came so close to it, beating incalculable odds just to do that, but it was for nothing.  I fail.  Game over.  And sometimes, dear new librarian, that may happen.  Not every rejection can be brushed off as "oh well, at least I won't have to move there" or "I figured it was out of my league, but it was worth a shot."  Sometimes you'll take a punch to the gut.

I don't want to get off the floor right now.  Let me just lie here for a while.

Not dead, just buried

I feel I owe an update to the dozens of spambots and the zero real, actual people who read this blog.

There has been news.  Kind of a lot of news, actually.  The problem is, I've been busy.  And when I'm not busy, my depression demands that I do nothing but sit here in my sweatpants playing Skyrim for 12 hours straight.

But enough about my crippling mental disorders, here's the news.  In the past 2 months I have had two interviews for full time jobs.  To put that in context, the last full time job I was interviewed for (not counting This catastrophe, which I don't and neither should you) was about 4.5 years ago.  So I went from nothing year after year after year, to two interviews for full time positions in two months.

I got my MLIS in 2008.  It is now 2013.  That's 5 years and change.  That was how long it took for me to turn a corner where my experience is now enough to get me looked at.  As you may recall, my experience all this time has been adjunct info lit instruction, so maybe it's not as bad if you're the lucky kind of son or daughter of a bitch who can somehow land a part time job that's actually in a library.  I don't know how such a thing as possible, but eh, people get lucky.  Maybe you did fieldwork where there just happened to be an opening.  Good for you.  You son or daughter of a bitch.  Anyway, if you're one of those people then I guess you probably didn't have as long of a wait.  If you're like me and your only job has been teaching info lit as an adjunct (I know I'm not the only one!), the the magic number you're looking for is 5.  Five years and just maybe your resume will start getting looked at (albeit, only for jobs with a heavy instruction component).

And if you didn't hit the jackpot and stumble ass-first into a part time position right out of library school, AND if you didn't make the connections to get a teaching gig at the very least (in which case you must think me the son or daughter of a bitch), then haha, wow, I have no idea what it's going to be for you.

I may be jumping the gun, though.  I'm aware that two interviews doesn't prove a pattern.  It could very well be that getting two interviews was luck, and the fact they were 2 months from each other is coincidence, and now I'll be back to another 5 year dry spell.  Could be, but honestly I don't think so.  It's kind of hard to admit, but I actually have a good feeling about this.

I got rejected from that first job, by the way.  The other one... well, we'll wait and see.

Swimming against the current

When I was just finishing up library school and getting ready to face the nonexistent odds of attracting an employer’s attention with very little experience to my name, a friend in the field let me know about the one positive I could look at, namely my currency.  “You’ll be more current than the person who hires you.”  That was the bright side back in mid 2008, and now it’s an edge I’m rapidly losing.  At this point-- five monkey-fucking years into my search for a full time position-- it’s no longer completely ridiculous to think I may actually be less current than the person who will hire me.  Don’t get me wrong, I am more than happy to trade that dull edge for my five years of experience (even if it’s just as an adjunct instructor), I’m merely reflecting on how ridiculous it is that I may get my first full time job from someone who is an even more recent graduate than I am.

I also need to consider at this point, how current am I really?  I have to admit, aside from the word “festschrift,” I remember roughly jack about cataloging.  I may remember using Dreamweaver in my digital libraries class, but I don’t really remember how at this point.  What I’m saying is I’ve lost a lot of the knowledge from all those years ago.  Not exactly current.

Besides, after five years, is any of it really still “current” anyway?  Perhaps you could call it “more current” than ten years ago, but a closer miss is still a miss.  “Current” today seems to revolve a lot around mobile devices and apps.  There were no courses on using either of these things to a library’s advantage when I was in school.  Nowadays, however, I see a lot of jobs calling for knowledge of mobile devices, and even experience with designing apps.  That sort of thing is far out of my league, and always will be.  You see, I don’t freaking have a mobile device and have never used an app.  And this is a place where I’m going to have to draw the line and be left behind.  I am simply not going to pay for a device and a monthly fee that I really can’t afford for a product that I don’t have a personal need for and do not want, just to be able to say I know my way around mobile devices and apps.  Librarians like to talk about the digital divide, and this is where I’m a victim of it; I’m being left behind because of the tacit expectation that I’m electronically keeping up with the Joneses, and am willing and able to spend all the money it would take to do so.

I’m not a neoluddite.  I know how to use IM, I know how to create profiles on social media, and I’m obviously on a computer right now (with Windows 7).  But holy crap, people have got to be able to draw the line somewhere, and for me it’s paying a monthly bill for something I don’t even want, just to have the latest technology.  But again, this decreases my currency even further in terms value in the job hunt.  How long do I have to land a job somewhere before I'm considered so out of date that my odds of being hired go from one in 999 trillion to a flat zero?

Have I actually become a dinosaur in my field before ever landing a full time (or even half time) job?

On the bright side: death

I’ve found that I’m far too candid when people ask me how I am.  No one really wants to know.  I know this by the way they keep walking without giving me a chance to answer.  I know it by the way I’ll say something completely nonsensical and they’ll respond with “good!”  I’m well aware of the social convention where I’m supposed to say “good” or “fine” (no matter how I actually feel).  And I don’t do that.

No, instead the most awful crap will fall out of my head.  I will tell complete strangers, or people whose faces I know from seeing them around maybe twice a month or so, things like “I constantly fantasize about dying of cancer, and I sincerely want that to happen.”  Today it was: “I think I’ll give it til the end of the year, and if I still don’t have a full time job I’ll just do heroin until I die of AIDS.”

That… that is pretty fucking dark.  And rest assured, I do not think I’m being “funny” when I say these things to people.  I may not literally want to die of AIDS (though the cancer thing?  Completely true, actually…), but the sentiment does reflect my mood and how I feel about life.

For the most part, I consider saying these things to be a kind of revenge.  They asked a question they didn’t want an answer to, so I get back at them by giving them an actual answer.  Just my little way of saying: “there, we both feel awkward now.  Happy?  Let that be a lesson about asking about stuff you don’t want to know about.”

But still, holy crap, it is getting really fucking dark.  Like, really dark, to the point where this isn't ok anymore.  My honest answers are taking a turn for the worse.   The misery of my unemployability has gotten to the point where dying of cancer is my favorite fantasy.  I just imagine how nice it would be for all the weight to be off.  No more stressing about how my clock is tickin’ and I still haven’t found a job.  No more wondering or worrying about what will become of me.  Finally, an answer.  A final answer.  I would just know that nope, I’m not going to get what I wanted out of life, but I could be at peace with that because I’d know that I won’t have to worry about it any longer.  I'll be dead soon, so nothing I wanted is actually going to matter anymore.  I’d fulfill my obligations to work, if possible, then leave that miserable place, and spend my last days enjoying the little things in life while my loved ones—the few there are—all tell me how awesome I was and say their goodbyes.

That’s true, every word of it.  I mean, I’m sure the physical agony of cancer would be hard to take, but aside from that, just emotionally, knowing it’s over and being at peace would be so wonderful.  I can’t stop thinking about that.

To be clear, I’m not saying I’d kill myself.  I wouldn’t.  I’m just saying that a large part of me hopes to have it taken care of for me.

That’s another fun thing to consider if you want to be a librarian: how emotionally strong are you?  What effect will years and years and years of failure have on you?  Think you can take it?  This is probably a career to stay away from if you, unlike me, might actually have it in you to find that easy way out.  

Because sometimes, I can't help but pray for it.  Sadly I know it will not happen, for I am simply far too pretty to die. 

Wash it down the drain

As I think of how unprepared I feel to do most of the jobs I find on the job hunt, and how scary everything seems, and how hard and how much work, I often think I’m trying and failing to do something I have no business doing.  I know that my life has been a never ending cycle of me thinking I don’t have the competence to do something, and then doing it well.  And I know I earned my degree, and I did well in my fieldwork, and I’m doing at least well enough not to get fired with my current position, but none of that makes me feel prepared or capable of doing 99% of the library jobs I see.

As I sat (alone.  In the dark.  If you must know) tonight, dwelling on that very issue, I couldn’t help thinking about how I’ve set myself up for failure by trying to do something I’m just not good enough to do, and then I thought: “All because it was so fucking important for people to think I’m smart.”

I mentioned before why I chose to be a librarian, and all of that was true, but it’s also true that my motivation for a lot of things in life stems from wanting to show that I’m smart (and in my previous explanation, that was indeed my reason for getting into reading before I found that book that really made me into reading).

I know “Librarian” doesn’t say “genius” the way a medical degree or something would, but I’m not smart enough for a medical degree.  But I am (or thought I would be) smart enough to be a librarian.  And hey, librarians are considered smart.

The only problem is, now that I’m trying to get that job I really don’t think I’m smart enough at all.  I mean, I’m smart at a few things.  Reading, of course.  Logic, of the “if X, then Y” variety.  And I was a good student because of that, being able to see patterns easily.  I still remember one example.  Elementary school, some guest speaker was talking to us all, grades 1-6.  I was probably somewhere in grades 1-3, can’t say where for sure.  He had a long rectangular box with doors on both sides, and he put a ball in one side and asked where it was.  Someone pointed to the side he put the ball in.  He tilted the box so the ball rolled to the other side, then opened the door the kid pointed at to reveal it wasn’t there, and asked again where the ball was.  Another kid points to the side the ball rolled to, and he tilted the box the other way… etc.  This went on for several rounds, and I was /dying/ for him to call on me.  I couldn’t believe that no one else had figured it out.  Simple, point to where the ball isn’t and he’ll tilt it and that’s where the ball will be.  Simple pattern recognition, right?  He was calling on all the older kids, and none of them got it.  I’m sure I was one of the few who did.  He even made a comment at some point, along the lines of “you’d think they’d figure it out by now” before giving up completely.

And in the post I linked to above, you see that my kindergarten teacher didn't think it was even possible for someone to read fluently at the age of 5 until I was her student.

So where does all this insecurity come from?  This driving need for people to see me as intelligent?  Easy.  I had another trait as a small child: I liked making people laugh.  So I tried to do that at every chance I got, getting myself a bit of a "class clown" reputation.  I didn't know it at first, but apparently the stereotype is that class clowns are dumb.  That's just the stereotype: the kid seeks attention because he's not good at anything else.  I eventually realized that the other students weren't aware of the smarts I had, they were only aware of the clown persona, and applied all the usual stereotypes to it.  Everyone was treating me like an idiot, and it was the worst feeling in the world.  I never got over that.  to this day nothing gets under my skin quite like someone insulting my intelligence.

Therefore, it was important to me all my life that people see me as smart.  Therefore, reading and higher education.  Therefore, librarian.  When I dig further back into my past than the post linked above, I see it was my insecurity that took me here and drove me right off the cliff of failure.

The thing is, even though I was actually a pretty sharp little kid, none of that potential I had amounted to anything.  I think I was an exceptional child who, through sheer lack of motivation, became an average adult.

I spoke before about a song lyric that applies to my life, or more specifically, the part of my life I describe in this blog.  There’s another song lyric, much less optimistic, that also applies.  From a song called Farewell Mona Lisa:

“Don’t you ever try to be more than you were destined for, or anything worth fighting for.”

That one hits me every time.  I feel like that’s exactly what I did.  I bit off more than I could chew, tried to become something more than I was worth.  And now this is my life: struggling and fighting to do something that I don’t honestly believe I can do, and the thought of doing it scares me senseless.  Fail or succeed, I feel like neither option can end well for me.

All those employers I’ve sent resumes to have been right not to put their trust in me.

Top 5 uses for an MLIS

After 5 years now of having a Master's in Library and Information Science, and spending that much time and counting trying to get full-time (or even half time) employment, I have decided to put together a list of things that an MLIS can actually be useful for.  Here is what I've come up with:

Uses for an MLIS:

-Tuck your degree into your shirt before tackling a plate of ribs.
-Make an incredibly expensive yet stylish paper airplane.
-Wipe away your tears of failure.
-Glare at it while drinking alone each night.
-Give yourself a paper cut to procure the blood necessary to complete the ritual that summons Belphegor, ancient demon of greed, and beg him for a crust of bread.

What an MLIS is NOT useful for:

-Getting a job in the library field, or any field.

Subterranean homelife blues part 2

I mentioned previously that I live in my parents’ basement.  That’s the life of an aspiring librarian: 30 and in a basement.

I’d like to talk a little more about what it will actually be like for you when you’re living in a basement, waiting to find a job that will employ you at least half-time after you get your MLIS.  If you predict that it will suck, you are so incredibly correct.

I recently came to realize that I’ve been living in basements for 12 years now.  As an undergrad at the age of 18 I moved into my grandparents’ basement to be close to my school (I didn’t have a car then), and watch their place when they were away traveling for months at a time.  After my undergrad days I moved back with my parents while getting my MLIS, and have been here since.  My old room was now my sister’s room, and my sister’s old room had been converted into a computer/study room, so I got the basement. 

12 years spent living in ugly, smelly basements.  Basements are going to be ugly and smelly no matter how you dress them up, that’s just the way it is.  You can dress up a pig, but… it’s still a pig, isn’t it?  You know what else a basement is like?  Cold.  Freaking cold.  As I type this it is late Spring, and Spring is actually the coldest time of the year for me.  Winter isn’t that bad because the heat is on, but come Spring the heat gets turned off and I’m sitting here wrapped in blankets, wearing sweatshirts, shivering.  No one as hot as I am should ever have to be this cold.  There are people who have literally frozen to death who have never, in their lives, been as cold as I often am in the Spring.  The only time it’s really nice is Summer, when I’m actually cool while everyone else is suffering from heat stroke.

I could deal with all of that… I mean, it’s not awesome, and I’d still walk around with a general sense of sadness on the inside that has leeched into me from my dank surroundings, but you know, I could deal.  Except for the other thing that is a common fixture of basements that you just can’t fight no matter how much carpet you put down…

Bugs.  Fucking bugs.  Running spiders as big as your hand.  Centipedes.  For those of you not “blessed” to live in a region with house centipedes, just imagine someone took ten long-legged spiders and glued them together.  That’s pretty much a house centipede.  I’d link you to a picture, but then I’d have to see it myself.  Even pictures of them make me uncomfortable.

I have always had a psychotic, paranoid fear of bugs.  I cannot live with having to share a planet with them.  The very thought of it makes me want to cry.  There’s only one thing that gives me just enough peace of mind to sleep knowing those things are skulking around: I sleep with a bug net around my bed.  Well, sort of.  It’s really less of a bug net and more of a pretty princess/harem girl kind of thing, but whatever, it does the job.  I’ve only seen a spider inside the net with me maybe two or three times in these past 8 years.  More often than that I see them outside the net.

I always have spray within reach at all times.  For the past 12 years I’ve been spraying powerful bug poisons near my bed, and I’m not sure exactly how well ventilated these basements are.  And I don’t care.  Lex Luther wore a kryptonite ring until he himself got cancer from it, because he hated Superman that much.  I don’t know how many years I’ve taken off of my life, but it’s something I need to do.  I said I can’t live on the same planet with bugs, and I meant it.  I will slowly kill myself to take as many of them with me as I possibly can.  And yes I realize I’m the supervillain in that analogy, and I’m ok with that.  What, am I going to pretend that someone who has declared all-out war on all bugs—and actually believes that the bugs are aware of this and are fighting back in coordinated efforts—is all that sane?  So sure, I’m the bad guy, I don’t care.  Say hello to the bad guy, you cockroaches.

But God damn, am I ever sick of living in basements.  More than a decade of this… success is really this impossible?  This is the new American way? 

Those of you who are just getting your MLIS, I hope you’re less afraid of bugs than I am.    

Where jobs grow on jobees.

I said I couldn't do it.  I couldn't face one more semester in this hostile work environment, especially not with Spring approaching, notoriously the worst time of the year for student behavior.

Did anyone really think things would turn out differently for me than they always have?  Of course I'm on the schedule again... and it turns out I'm not the only one who has asked/begged not to be placed on this particular campus again due to the student behavior, ensuring that I will be shoved into this slot over and over as more people leave, since I don't have the luxury of demanding to be placed at a different campus "or else I won't come back."  I don't have another job.  I need the money.  I'm the only one willing to take this kind of abuse.  Well, not "willing" exactly, but I don't have a choice.

The "good news" if there is any, is I'll only have one section, and on Saturday morning.  This leaves me lots of free time and flexibility to find and work another job, maybe some crap minimum wage job that will undoubtedly suck, but will probably be less stressful and pay as much or more.  There's only one small problem with that.  It would have to be possible for me to find another job, even a crap one.

I've always "loved" how people say "get a job" as if it's just that simple.  We no longer live in an age where you can walk into any store and remove the 'help wanted' sign from the window, and you have a job.  We no longer even live in an age where you can walk into a McDonald's, fill out an application, and automatically get that job.  And I'm someone with reliable transportation, no convictions, and an able (if crappy) body... I'm what used to be the bare criteria for hire-ability in a dead end job.. but none of that cuts it anymore.  Just "get a job"?  Only one reply seems appropriate to that condescending advice...


So this summer, I strap on my job helmet and finally search for some crappy, dead-end minimum wage job, since this whole library science thing worked out so well.  Wish me luck.  Or death, I'll take death, actually...

No end in sight to my suffering

It may seem like I've forgotten about this blog, but I do have more to say.  This issue right now is a combination of being very busy and being completely demoralized from losing all of the pre-written posts I had when my hard disk died.

So just to keep things going for now I'll address a question that no one asked: does anyone know about this blog?

Well, no.  I mean, like, no one at all.  I'm positive no one follows this.  Even people I know.  I've told some people I have a blog on this topic, but I haven't told them how to find it.  For the most part, however, I haven't alluded at all to the fact that I have this blog.  And that, of course, is a big part of the reason no one follows it.  I don't advertise.  I can't.

The thing is, I figure as long as no one who might ever read this knows who I am, then I'm free to say whatever I want.  If I were writing this keeping in mind that my friends, relatives, boss, co-workers, what have you, know about this blog, then I'd be keeping in mind as I write it who may be watching, and making adjustments based on that.  If no one knows, I'm free to say anything I want without ever even thinking about whether or not I should phrase things differently, omit things, etc.

so when will I ever tell people about this blog?  when it becomes a finished product.  that day will happen.  I don't know when, but it will.  It will be when I'm no longer a failed librarian.  And that'll happen either when 1-- I've found that full time job, or 2-- I've given up so utterly and completely that I'm no longer looking for library jobs or planning to ever look again.  If the former happens, I will no longer be a failure.  If the latter happens, I will no longer be a librarian.

When this is a finished product I will share it with the people who I consider it not inappropriate to share it with.

So if anyone was wondering if this very blog was one of the obstacles I've been having to getting that elusive job, hell no.  I'd rather every view be from a spam-bot than give myself away right now.  for now I write uncensored, freely, and (preferably) drunk on absinthe.

My "favorite" interview question, and answers.

Why do you want to work here?

-Because I need money.

-Because I’d like to stop being a failure now.

-Because I have to start somewhere.

-Because I sent out a million resumes and this was the only place to call me.

-Because I spent all day yesterday lying in bed.  Come dark, the shadows danced on the ceiling until they blurred together into non-Euclidean shapes with glowing red eyes and gaping mouths.  Their dispassionate, echoing laughter filled my ears as they swirled around, laughing, mocking me.  They made me feel bad about myself.  I lay there mesmerized, forgetting about my body.  There was nothing but them, me, and the laughter, God the laughter.  They saw inside of me, right through my skin and sinew, into my soul.  They found it empty.  Empty, lost, and forever alone, leaning out for anything but never touching something real.  They laughed.  It all went away that night.  The whole world went away.  I don't know if it was just me, or if I actually unmade the entire world with my mind.  I don’t know when I lost consciousness, but eventually my eyes blinked open as the light of a new day hit my face.  I still felt paralyzed.  For another hour, some part of me wanted to go back.  Wanted the world to go away again, just wanted everything to go away forever.  I’m afraid of what will happen if I spend another day like this, if one more day of me being a failure with nothing else to do were to go by.  I might lose myself again.  I might unmake the entire world forever.

-Because please?

I'll think of an awesome title for this someday.

A little something I just composed.  I'll probably kick myself later for posting it because I like to tinker with things for a long time and I'm sure I'll decide later that it looks better another way, maybe add a verse or two, and I'll definitely think of a way better title (currently I have none), but screw it, here it goes:

What can you do when

An economy collapses?

You send out your resume

But you won’t get any chances

You did well in school,

Hoped you’d be a success.

But soon you’ll be forced to

Eat your MLIS

The years still go by

And you’ve had no luck yet.

Your life has been ruined from

Your massive student debt

You flip burgers for nothing

But yet you’re still trying.

You’ve lost all your hope,

But you keep on applying

Maybe someday when

You’re a septuagenarian

You’ll be able to say that:

“I am a librarian.”

The ice is getting thinner

Please bear with me.  As I mentioned not long ago, I recently lost all of the posts I'd written out prior to starting the blog.  This style of typing up a post as I think of it instead of "perfecting" it weeks or months in advance is a little alien to me.  Hopefully this won't hurt the quality that I'm pretending my posts used to have.

I have just entered the new semester, and I hope to God it is my last.  Obviously I've always been hopeful of that just because I was hoping I'd get a full time job in the field.  By now I've given up on that hope and I'm looking for literally anything else so that I'll never have to teach at this place again.  If I can find a job flipping burgers at Wal-Mart I will take it and never look back.

I mentioned before the behavior issues the students have, especially in this post:

http://failedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2012/12/paying-dues-when-doing-doesnt-pay.html

(skip down to "the workplace environment...")

I would love to go into more specific details, but quite frankly I'd be giving away too much if I did.  In the off chance anyone who knows the school were to read this, they'd know which school I'm talking about, because this kind of crap couldn't possibly happen at any other college.

Next semester will be Spring semester, and I have never had a good experience in Spring.  I don't know what it is, maybe it's the heat, but for some reason Spring brings out the most antagonistic, combative, and hostile students, and every single one of them ends up in my classroom.  I can't face that again, I just can't.  I can't, I can't, I can't.

Unfortunately I'm still wrestling with one not-so-minor problem.  Being a librarian is all I know how to do.  I don't have extensive experience in anything else.  If anything, I'm pretty sure that having a Master's degree hurts my chances of getting a job at a gas station or something.  And much to my detriment, I'm one of the apparently few people who isn't smart enough to hide that kind of thing.  It would just mean too many white lies during the interview.  Maybe not all white.  Maybe a few greenish ones, or even a crimson one.  I'm just not very comfortable with lying.

This is all I know how to do, and all I've ever done for any serious length of time.  I'm a librarian, I'm not qualified to flip burgers.  Where can I go?  The clock to Spring has begun...

What's so happy about it?

As of a little over a week ago, it is now finally official.  I am the quintessential go-to example of a loser stereotype.  I am a 30 year old living in my parents' basement.

I explained the whole parents' basement thing in this old post:

http://failedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/subterranean-homelife-blues.html

And now I've finally hit the "big" 30.  I don't see what's so big about it, though.  The only difference seems to be lower car insurance rates, and the sudden inability to eat pizza before bed from now on.

But that's neither here nor there.  The point is that I am 30, have had my MLIS for almost 5 years, and have yet to find any employment in my field that even qualifies as half-time.  Anyone surprised?  Show of hands?


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Yep, that's what I thought.

FML

So, my hard disk died.  I had almost nothing backed up.  The disk is so thoroughly fucked that it would cost 1200-1500 to even attempt to repair it.

What does that have to do with this blog?  Well, aside from having had several blog posts written out in a word doc in advance, I also had my cover letter templates on that disk.  Yet another beautiful setback in my job hunting, like I needed one.

I also lost some statistics I was keeping, such as a list of every job I applied to.

This is all really the least of what I lost, but it's the only part relevant to my blog, so I'll leave it at that.