Today I am taking the day off for because of illness. In this time of economic uncertainty I really should be grateful that one of my old office jobs gave me temporary hours.
Nevertheless it is outlandishly difficult to continue to work these jobs where I am given no responsibility and no decision making power. I have all of this training and all of these skills ready to go , but I feel like it is impossible to teach, to engage with a community through outreach and advocacy, to create a welcoming space for students to learn without a position to support that work.
I also wish I could write more, both formally and here on the blog. But I am sick of living my life in books, and ready to examine a community and tailor my contributions towards the needs of that community. But I don’t have a community to minister to (using a metaphor from one of my favorite library books, Sacred Stacks by Nancy Kalikow Maxwell).
I’ve had a few interviews over the last few weeks. Before this latest round I completely messed up my last one because I thought it was my last change at a position before being unemployed. So I was very nervous. Now that I have somewhat steady employment I am beginning to settle in for the possibility of not having a job long term.
There are some pros and cons of this process:
Pro: Being graciously welcomed into so many libraries, meeting so many wonderful librarians and other staff, and hearing about so many exciting projects in the works.
Con: Being treated extremely unprofessionally in interviews and enduring personal attacks of my passion and my professional philosophy (seriously!).
Pro: Having all the time in the world to read all of the books I didn’t get to read during my master’s degree.
Con: Having my university library card turned off because I am not a student anymore. (This makes is very difficult to study for interviews!)
Pro: Having a completely open field to make a contribution through reading and thinking about the issues surrounding libraries.
Con: The writer’s block which comes from not having an opportunity to really experience what those issues are at the grassroots level, with the fear of straying away from evidence based practice and into irrelevant and self-indulgent navel-gazing so prevalent in all fields.
Pro: Not having to dress up every day. (I take it back, I enjoy dressing up)
Con: After almost a decade of living like a student and being recently unemployed, not having the money to even keep up a nice set of interview clothes.
After graduating in 2007 and applying to multiple jobs in and out of the state and having only three interviews I don’t see a lot of pro’s in the situation. I too received the looks of disdain because I did not have current library experience. Like I wasn’t passionate about being a librarian and all that it entailed. I am now at the point of considering going back to school to become a teacher. It makes me sad though to give up my “passion” for helping people find information. The pro though is I will no longer be twiddling my thumbs in the hope of finding a job where I can see the amazement of learning how to read or just learning anything.