My journey through Graduate School to earn a Masters of Art in Education. I was on track to become a teacher, but now everything has changed, and I'm on the job hunt with a Bachelor's in Liberal Arts and a Master's in Education with no teaching certificate.

 
My new jobis quite exciting: lots of new things to learn, lots of fires to put out, and of course, people. I work in a library, so naturally there is some end user education called for in the job. Some folk just don't know how to use a library. That's fine. Some people call up and ask "Do you have journals for notes?" and then get a bit touchy when you don't know exactly what they are talking about. Thank God for my years in the tech support trenches. I know how to get people to tell me what they don't know. But my favorite part is the door. We want people to flow into thelibrary through one set of doors, but not be able to leave through that set because the exit is around the circulation desk. Therefore, patrons have to push the door open. People pull on the door, then when it doesn't open give me a pathetic "how do I get in?" look. Push, people, push.
Tonight we also learned how much hell it can be to run a library with no computer system. Talk about a headache so big it has 'decapitation' written all over it.
posted by Josh English at 10/20/2005 06:07:00 PM

 
It's done. Fini. Kaput. Through months of scouring the classified ads, the local employment office's job board, having experts look at my resume, and just plain begging, I have a job. I almost went so far as to apply at my last full time employer, knowing full well what kind of abuse I would have to suffer (10 hours shifts, less than 45 minutes a day of breaks, three traffic jams a day both ways). But what it comes down to is this: A friend of mine works at a library at a community college and they needed part time help. I needed a part time job. It worked out. I start tomorrow.

I do have to work a four hour shift on Saturdays, but my time for writing is free, and I'm surrounded by books. What could be bad about this job? It's a forty minute drive to work, about 20 miles on backroads (probably an hour on the freeways and 25 miles). That's the only disadvantage. I have time to return to my writing workshop (two hours away) when I want to go. Life is, for a small temporary moment, good.
posted by Josh English at 10/12/2005 10:48:00 AM