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.

Paying dues when doing doesn't pay

The focus of this blog, really, is to to describe the employment situation our field is in, especially to new or potential librarians.  So when I bitch about seemingly personal issues, the message behind it is always: "this is what you will probably go through if you decide to become a librarian."

That being said, I hate my job.

This is the kind of profession where you may very well end up paying your dues in thankless and degrading ways for a long, long time in hopes to get the kind of job you someday want.

This is my current situation:

I work at a career college as an adjunct instructor.  I won't say where because obviously.

It was pretty good when I first started.  I liked my colleagues and boss, I liked the students, and I felt like I was contributing in a meaningful way.

I still like my colleagues and boss.  The ONE good thing I still have to say about this place is that the people I work with are very supportive, and I like to think I do my part to be helpful and supportive back.  It shouldn't be a surprise, it's a pretty common trait for a librarian.

However, when I started I was only teaching 1-2 classes, and I was doing it for the experience, not the money.  I had an office job that was my main source of income.  That business folded (through no fault of my own.... probably), and I was left with just the teaching job.

That's my brief history, now on to why you never, ever want to work in a place like this.

First of all, there is no work/life balance.  None.  The job follows you home.  You will spend your "days off" grading papers, replying to student emails, and preping lectures.  It is an all-consuming job you will be doing for.... hold on, let me move to my next point:

Second of all, the pay is garbage.  You will do this all-consuming job for no benefits and crap pay.  I am currently making $1126.13 per month after taxes.  Notice I said "making" and not "earning" because I earn far more than I'm given.  The powers that be have NO concept of how much work they're realistically asking.  This is not my personal experience, it is the experience of every single employee I've spoken to there.  Every one of them works far more hours than they are paid for.  This might be understandable in a high position where you're already making a large paycheck (I would not agree yet, but some could make that argument).  However, I repeat: 1126.13.

 By the way, this is the maximum (raises not withstanding-- I've gotten 3 or 4 since I started in 2009).  This is what I'm currently earning for teaching 3 classes, which happens to be the maximum I can teach.   Last semester there was only room for one spot on the schedule for me (which is pretty typical of Spring semester, and not uncommon of Winter either) and I was making 394.66.  Yes, that's per month.  On my Master's level salary.

So the pay is worthless and the workload sucks.  What about job satisfaction?  It started out ok, like I said I felt like I was contributing.  But more and more, the students are making things not worthwhile.  What I'm about to describe may not be typical of all schools, but it's typical at mine:

The students give exactly zero fucks.  Exactly zero.  I counted.  Twice.

At a normal school, a student who misses class will contact the instructor and ask what they missed.  That's what we did in college, right?

The students here won't do that.  So I email them.  At the end of each class, an email goes out to every one of my students with the work attached, saying "here's what you missed," and a re-hash of the instructions for the more in-depth papers.  Care to guess how many students can be bothered to take the initiative of checking their God damn email?  If you said "not a one" you are the lucky winner of this lovely set of not a damn thing, because I already told you what I get "paid."  But you would be correct.

I could understand meeting them halfway, but we don't just meet them halfway.  We go up to their door and knock.  And they can't be bothered to put on a pair of pants and answer it.  That's just their attitude: they don't want to take even a minimal amount of personal responsibility.  And yes, we all explain to them how college works.  Admissions does it, the advisors do it, the instructors do it.  We all tell them "seriously, you need to go to class."  And "seriously, you need to do your work."  They've all heard it, they don't care.

The problem with job satisfaction is, it's now to the point where most of the students are not putting in a serious effort, and the few that do are often the ones who don't really need a ton of help anyway.  I feel like all I'm doing at this point is weeding out the students who are wasting their time, and "angel of death" is not a very satisfying job.

And when they bother to show up?  Well that brings me to the last complaint, the workplace environment ranges from "borderline hostile" to "fucking hostile."  This job involves far, far more degradation than I am being paid to take.  The students fight and push back at you at every turn.  No matter how much you lower your standards, it's not enough to make them happy.  I gave up on trying to get them to stop swearing in class, all I asked is that they not use racial slurs.  I tell a guy not to say it, he immediately repeats it to my face.  I had a student rant and argue about every rule I tried to enforce, telling me "I don't like this class and I don't like you." And it wasn't just me.  He put 3 instructors through his brand of terrorism before being removed from the school. I had a student (not even one of mine) come into my room and start swearing as every other word out of his mouth.  Particularly something that started with "Mother" but then took a pretty hard left turn.  I ordered him out, and he walked out swearing at me now with a huge grin on his face, obviously very proud of himself.  And he was right to think he got one over on me-- he did.  I have no idea who he was, and thus no way to report him.  I went to a noisy room next to mine (more loud abusive language.  Of course plenty of racial slurs) and asked them to be quieter.  The whole time I'm talking to them one of them repeatedly barks "NO!" at me.

...I could go on.  For pages.

Even the students who aren't complete assholes by nature wear you down.  There's only so many times you can pass out the most dumbed-down research paper you will ever see-- (4 pages long, and we give the students a list of suggested sources.  They don't even have to find or evaluate the sources themselves, and we call it a "research" paper, because we've given up expecting more of them)-- and being consistently and unanimously told that "you're giving them too much work" and hear about how cruel you're being before you lose any shred of sympathy for the students, and for humanity in general.

Now to bring the point back around: yes, I'm venting.  It had to be done.  But this isn't all about me talking about myself.  The other point I want to make is this: this has been my job for four years now.  This is what I'm putting myself through week in and week out, because as terrible as it is in every aspect (unreasonable workload for crap pay and utter degradation), this is the best I can do in the library world.  This is exactly the kind of thing you may find yourself doing for years on end, week in and week out, in hopes of MAYBE one day being able to land something better.  How many years?  Well, four isn't enough for me so far.  I'll keep counting.

How badly do you want to be a librarian?