The ugly wall.

An update from my last post to begin:

First, I did not get that job I mentioned I'd applied for toward the end.  I did apparently do well enough to get an in-person interview and for them to ask me to consent to a background check, but it was just another case of "close but nothing," and as we know, close doesn't count for anything.  All nothings are equal, no matter how close to something that nothing was.

But the "good news" is that I actually do have a section of my usual job to teach after all; a section got added three days before the start of the semester, so I got it.  It's not going well for various reasons that I suppose would be tangential to get into, so I won't.

What I will get into is another reason I said "good news" in quotation marks above: namely, the fact that this job is no longer a sustainable option for me.

Now that they got rid of one of the two courses I'm qualified to teach, I can no longer count on this job to keep me in the black.  Time was that I could usually count on two sections per semester, and now I'm lucky if I get one.  Getting one is by no means guaranteed at all, and even if I were lucky enough to get just one per semester, that does not keep me in the black if I want any kind of entertainment budget.

I still have enough savings that I can keep this rate of pay up for quite a while, but I really don't want to see myself hemorrhaging all the safety net money I've worked so long to shore up.

So this brings me back to that age old question I've been asking myself ever since I began this blog in 2012: when do I finally stop throwing good years after bad, accept that it's time to walk away, and find some crap low-pay job that at least pays better than the job in my field I have now so I can join the ranks of the working poor where I clearly belong, according to the library profession that will not have me?

If I were smart, clearly I would have done this years ago.  But here's the thing.

I'm going to take you back to a time long ago, when I was in high school.  I don't like going back to this time, so I will try not to stay long.  But here's a story that relates to the problem I have today.

In high school, I had a friend.  I know, I'm surprised too.  Let's keep going.  I'd walk home from school with this friend every day.  I was about a 12 minute walk from home, and for him tack on another minute or so.

This friend started dating someone.  So it goes.  One day he told me he'd be out soon, that I could wait for him.  He was going to make out with this person in the cafeteria, where people cooler than me often hung out at the end of the day.  I didn't understand why the cool kids wanted to hang out at school of all places when the day was done, but whatever.

So I'm sitting at my locker, non-existent butt aching from the hard tile floor,  staring at the very ugly wall in front of me.  For 15 minutes.  20.  30.  45.  An hour.  Longer.

I don't remember how long I ended up waiting, but it was long enough for me to be justifiably mad.  He never came out to tell me, "just go on without me," because he figured that after 10 minutes I'd have figured that out for myself.

The problem wasn't that I was "too stupid" to figure out myself that I should just walk the 12 minutes home alone, like that's a big deal.  The problem was that I was always afraid that if I left, it could be literally three seconds after I walked away that he might have come back out of the cafeteria.  And every second longer I stayed, the more likely it was that the next second would finally be the one.  It wasn't that staying was the "smart" move, it was just the fear that, after having invested so much time into waiting, I could be throwing that away when just one more second might have made all of that waiting, while a waste, at least not a complete waste.  At least all of the time I'd spent staring at the wall wouldn't be for nothing.

That's where I am now.  I'm 34.  I've lost.  I'm too old to accomplish the non-career goals I had in life (which were more important that my career goals to me).  It's over.  My life is ruined because of all of this waiting for my MLIS to pay off so I could finally pursue those goals.  At this point I should probably just cut my losses, join the working poor, and while away the end of my life because there's fuck else for me to do.

Yet here I sit staring at an ugly wall, because if I walk away now, I'll never know if waiting just one more month would have finally made all of these years something less than a complete waste.

The happiest of holiday news...

My situation for the past 6+ years has been that I’m a severely underemployed librarian; I teach info lit as an adjunct and make just enough to cover gas, car insurance, and student loans with a little leftover for a CD (because I’m old) or a bottle of scotch (because I’m awesome) or whatever now and then.  Meanwhile I'm living with my parents at 34 because after that I have not enough money left for food and rent because my life choice to be a librarian was terrible, which is what my entire blog is about. 

OK, so my situation has changed.  For the next 4 months of my life (at least) I am not an underemployed librarian anymore! No, I’m just straight up unemployed now, and just in time for the holidays.  Yeah, so that has now happened.  There wasn’t room for me on the schedule for next semester.

To be clear, this is not because of my performance.  As far as adjuncts go, I tend to be taken care of, in part because my boss is nice and knows my life sucks, but also in part because I’m actually pretty darn good at what I do.  No, the enrollment just wasn’t high enough and the full timers need to be put on the schedule first, so I’m out.

And now I get to figure out what to do for four months, and this is not wonderful.  My options for employment outside of my field are just about as good as options inside my field, which is one of the several reasons that supplementing my income with another part time job hasn’t been an option to begin with.

Problem one: I am a very small, weak person.  Last I stepped on a scale, I was 108 lbs of nothing that even remotely resembled a muscle.  I have a frame and a back that were simply not designed for digging ditches, hauling pig iron, or pulling rickshaws.  Hard physical labor is not an option.

Problem two: I have very little in the way of experience in anything outside of my field.  An office job would be doable—in fact I kind of enjoy mindless data entry.  But how often exactly do you see office jobs that don’t require years of experience?  I do have a couple years of very part-time experience in an office, but that organization has since folded (not my fault, promise), and my old boss is, um, probably dead.  That was not a joke, by the way; I think she literally died.  The organization was the two of us—her as the executive and me as the assistant—so there’s really no one around to prove I ever did it, much less speak to whether or not I was any good at it.

Problem three: I can also cross giving blood off the list.  I looked into it and you apparently need to be at least 110 lbs, and you can refer to problem one to see why that’s a no go.  That’s right; I’m not even qualified to give blood.

So I’m seeing three options in front of me.

Option one: Coincidentally, before this crap went down I applied to another crap, no pay, horrible hours job in my field that would put me behind a reference desk in an academic library, and I just had a phone interview that wasn’t a disaster as far as I could tell, so maybe I’ll get this job.  Putting aside the hours that will see me being awake for 18-19 hours straight on Sundays and then driving home at night in that sleep deprived state, this would actually be pretty great in the fact that it would give me more varied experience for my resume.

Option two: Cashier.  I wouldn’t be making much money, but “literally better than nothing” is pretty much my only salary requirement right now, and this is something I could physically handle that wouldn't necessarily require a lot of experience.  I would not love this job, but a librarian’s gotta do what a librarian’s gotta do (and in most cases this means “anything but actually be a librarian”).

Option three: Start studying science.  Master the field.  Invent a time machine, go back to me at 22 and tell myself, “DON’T BECOME A FUCKING LIBRARIAN.”

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.”

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?

Member$ only

I got that dreaded email today.  “Renew Your ALA Membership.”  This email signifies another 65 dollars out of my pocket for absolutely nothing.

I’m not hating on the ALA.  I’m sure a membership is a nice thing to have if you’re working in the field.  But for a severely underemployed person who doesn’t actually work in a library?  This is pretty useless.  The ALA joblist is visible to me with or without a membership, so there’s only one reason for me to have it:

I keep renewing my membership in hopes that it looks good on my resume.

When I was in library school I had a professor who said that if she had the power, she’d make it mandatory for us all to have ALA memberships simply because it helps our resumes.  But as you know if you’ve been following my blog since the beginning (and I understand that’s not all of you… or any of you… or anyone because there is no hypothetical “you” and I’m talking to myself >.>) I’ve given up hope that it’s possible for me to get a job in this field.  It’s over, throw in the towel, I am a failure.  Despite this, I am still sending out resumes because, crap, I didn’t waste all that time and money not to try.

This is my first time being asked to renew my ALA membership since officially giving up, and I’m not sure exactly what to do now.  Do I waste my money on something I know is futile, or do I keep paying because, if I’m going to keep sending these resumes out, I ought to put my all into it?

How exactly is it even improving my resume, given that I have done precisely dick with it in the 5 years I’ve had it?  Wouldn’t it be just as well to write “I’d purchase an ALA membership if you gave me a reason to have one”?  Of course I’m speaking practically, and practical is not always the same as realistic.  Of course that wouldn’t look good on a resume, but for all intents and purposes it would be the same thing except I wouldn’t be wasting money that I desperately need.

I will grant you that 65 dollars for a year isn’t a lot of money.  In return, I hope you will grant me that it is a lot of money when I’m already operating under a yearly net loss from bills alone (thank you, student loans for a career I now know I can never hope to have!).

Is $65 in my current predicament worth the ability to tell myself that I did all I could, or is it time to cut another loss in a loss-filled life?

Subterranean homelife blues

You may now be wondering, if I’m really making so little money, how is it possible that I’m, you know, alive?  I wouldn’t be a proper failure if I couldn’t tell you, without a trace of jesting, that I still live with my parents. 

I am 29, nearing 30, and live with my parents.  That doesn’t make me sound like a failure yet?  You say there’s an increasing trend of adults post-college who are being supported by their parents, and I’m in fairly good company and not completely pathetic?  Ok, wait a second.  Let me be more specific.

I’m currently 29 years old, almost 30, and I live in my parents’ basement.

I have no idea why living in their basement makes me a bigger loser than living with them in general.  I know it does, but I’m not sure why, and I find it interesting that it works that way.  When I meet people I will tell them without hesitation that I live with my parents.  Might as well, you know?  But if I even remotely care what that person thinks of me, I will intentionally avoid giving them any kind of indication that I live in the basement.  There are people who have known me for years and know that I live with my parents, but still don't know I happen to be underground.

It’s not like I’m in the basement because I happen to think it’s good to be there or anything.  It’s just that after I initially left during college, my sister got my old room and her old room became a computer room.  The basement is just where there was room for my bed, that’s all.  Not that I’m making excuses, it's just a fact.

And it's not like I spend all of my time down there taking drugs and playing video games, as per the stereotype.  I've never so much as tried illicit drugs, and.... ok, I do enjoy video games, but not at the expense of having a job or trying to have one.  I play when I have time, and it's not that often these days.  I still realize that doesn't make it sound any better.

Either way I live with my parents because I’m a grown adult who is more or less a waste of a life.  Would this situation really be improved if I slept across the hall from them rather than downstairs?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the perception, I’m just wondering where it comes from.

In any event, that’s my life.  I work as an instructor at a college, then I come home to my parents’ basement and grade college papers.  Imagine if my students knew that.