Why I Never Talked about Being a Librarian.

As you may or may not know, I accepted a job at this place back in February.

As much as I enjoyed the community at Northwestern College, it was a dead-end office assistant position with no room for growth.  Also, like 6,000 "restructurings" happened since I started and I didn't want to be "restructured" out of a job when I had my back turned (apparently "restructuring" is what nice companies do when they want to fire people but don't have the heart.)

So I applied and got a job at Minitex.  I was a little hesitant going into the job interview because the hours for the position were 11:30-8:00 p.m., which isn't ideal, especially if you're going to grad school at the time.  But, the more people I asked, the more they said, "You should totally take that job!"  So I did.

It kind of went downhill from there.  On my first day of work, there were papers all over my desk, no staples in the stapler, no keys to lock up my belongings, and no lights working above me.  Then, of course, there was my supervisor.  Her name was Joan.

This is not Joan.  But this is the image that pops up when I Google her name.  So this is how you will visualize Joan.

Joan was the 7th person ever hired to work at Minitex.  Joan is very proud because she has "taught herself everything she knows."  The problem with this is she has never successfully taught anyone anything since then.  You see, as I found out on the 2nd day of work, 5 people have held my position in the past 5 years.  As I found out a month ago, the reason for this is Joan.

The first thing I learned from Joan was something like this.  "We're going to do the sort.  You need to first separate the DTU requests from the VDX and OCLCs.  Then you need to separate the loans from the copies.  The copies need to be stamped with either Ariel, Article Exchange, Photocopy, or MEDD, based on the library codation system.  Okay?"

Joan was not good at teaching people.

Joan was also really strange.  One time, when she was "training" another girl and I in the Government Documents Library, the other girl had a small dizzy spell.
"Oh, I have to sit down for a minute," she said.
"Are you okay?  I think the air changed!  I felt it, too!" Joan threw her arms partially up in the air, as though she were feeling for the shifts in air pressure.

By far the worst thing about Joan was that she was a micromanager.  If I wrote a code a half inch to the left of where she thought it should be, it was incorrect.  If I wrote "Harper Collins" instead of "Harper Collins Co," it was incorrect.  Note: None of these things are actually Minitex policies.  They are just Joan policies.

When Joan couldn't watch what I was doing all the time, she emailed my coworkers to make them give reports on what I accomplished during the day.  I didn't find this out until later, when my coworker told Joan I left my shift early one night and got called in for a meeting with Joan.

"Sally tells me you've been leaving early," Joan croaked.
"What?" I said.  I couldn't think of any time I had left early.  I never leave early.  I'm a hard worker.  I...wait.
"I never leave early.  The earliest I've left is....what... 7:55 on Tuesday when everything was done?" Is that what she meant?
Yes, that is what she meant.
"That's not 8:00.  We're paying you to work until 8:00."
What.
"The work was done...I'm sorry, I just... there was nothing left to do," I was a little annoyed and confused.
"There's always work to be done.  Are you telling me you've never worked in a position where you get punished for not completing your shift?"
What. WHAT WHAT.

The meeting continued in this fashion.  A whole lot of crazy, which resulted in Joan wanting me to keep record of how I spend my time during my shift.  I was to send her daily reports, that went something like this:
11:30-11:35 - Turned on computer.  Checked email.
11:35-1:15 - Completed 62 requests.
1:15-1:22 - Went to bathroom.  Played Temple Run on phone while pooping.
1:22-1:37 - Applied for other jobs online.
1:37-1:40 - Contemplated existence.

This may not sound like "that bad" of a situation, but it really kind of eats at you after a while.  Sending Joan updates made me feel not trusted and constantly watched, not being trained properly made me feel stupid at everything, having my coworkers send Joan reports about me made me unable to develop relationships in the workplace, and being greeted by a stack of mistakes I made in the morning made me not want to go to work.

I almost quit.  By almost quit, I mean this: I had written a letter of resignation.  I had taken all of my sick days.  I had looked over Nathan and I's budget to see how long we could live on only his income.  I had told people I already quit.  I was very close to quitting.

But then, one fateful Friday, after being told by Joan I wasn't allowed to ask coworkers questions because they don't have the proper authority to give me answers, Dave showed up out of nowhere.

This is not Dave.  But this is the image that pops up when I Google his name.  So this is how you will visualize Dave. 

Dave had heard from Joan that I was a horrible worker, and he wanted to talk to me, because he had helped hire me and thought I was really smart.  Dave came over to my desk, asked me to come to his office and asked what was going on.  He had heard such negative things about me.  He knew I was smart.  Something wasn't lining up.

So I told him everything.  What did I have to lose?  I was going to quit, anyway.

Dave was completely baffled.  "I'm going to make things change for you," he promised.

The next day, Dave became my supervisor.  The next week, he encouraged me to apply for a different job at Minitex.  The next month, I had a new job with daytime hours, a great supervisor, more responsibility, more happiness, and making...well, the same amount of money.  But unimportant.

I am now the Library Assistant for Minitex that supervises the students and happenings of the St. Paul campus.  The St. Paul campus has 4 libraries that all mainly have to do with animals and trees.  This means we get a lot of requests for things like this:

But I love it.

I also get to ride the shuttle to Saint Paul every day, which is basically Paid Book Reading Time.

The Saint Paul campus is really lovely.  It kind of feels like Bethel, or some Non-Major-University.  It's its own little world.

The campus libraries are kind of spread out, so if I need to check on happenings in different libraries, I get to walk around campus, which involves a lot of this:

And also a lot of inconspicuous Me blending in with the student body.

And I couldn't be happier.


There are 3 morals to this story:

1. When you're interviewing for a job and the interviewer asks, "Are there any questions you have for us?" ask some freaking good questions to find out if your supervisor is a jerk.  Like "How many people have held my position in the past year?" is a good one.

2. Just because a person has worked for a company a really long time doesn't mean they know how to be a supervisor.

3. Kind people you barely know can turn your life around.