Cascading downwards

Saying "I didn't want that job anyway" after you didn't get it is usually a case of sour grapes. But in the case of my recent experience, new information has come to light: that department is going to be moving its offices to Long Island City. A commute that involves going over the Whitestone Bridge and taking the Long Island Expressway during rush hour.

Boy! am I glad I didn't get it after all.

Granted, they aren't actually moving for quite a while, but still.

I was doing really well at posting regularly for a while, and then there was a crackdown on surfing at work, and I felt it would not be a good idea to go to LJ. And at home, it's such trouble to dig out the keyboard to the tablet, and the handwriting recognition editing gets old quickly, so....

Anyway. The latest news is that there was an opening at work in the department I've wanted to work in for several years (Branch Libraries' Information Systems - internal QA, kinda), so I jumped right on it. I'm still waiting to hear, since the application period only officially ended on the 30th. I got my first interview about a week after applying, and my second a week or so after that, so it's very promising. And I heard that only three people got a second interview. Cross your fingers for me.

In other news, my poor car got its hood crumpled, again. This one was not my fault. In fact, I wasn't even there - it was parked, and the person left the scene without leaving info. Lucky for me, there were several witnesses, and one took down the plate number. Can I say how much I love this neighborhood? The most annoying part was it evidently happened not five minutes after I parked it. Guess I should have been late to work that day, huh? All fixed now, and I didn't even have to pay the deductible. I love my insurance company. Just hoping to get reimbursed for the rental now.

I think that hits the high points of September. I'll post again if I can think of anything else noteworthy.

When I got to work today (at a branch not my own), the internet was down. On the public computers, even on the staff computers. And of course that meant no patrons were actually in the branch - as soon as they found out there was no internet, they turned around and left. It was looking to be an extremely boring day. I actually weeded their reference section - removing all the stuff they obtained when they opened in 1973! Seriously, anything older than me has to go, I don't care if the content isn't out of date (yes it can happen - religious reference, literary analysis, etc.).

But thankfully, just as I left for lunch, the problem was fixed. Yay for ITG!

The AC at work is STILL broken. It is miserable here - 89 degrees, 52 percent humidity last time I checked. Plus, no patrons are coming in anyway, so tell me again why we're open? I hate feeling sweaty and sticky. The branch should close and all the staff should be sent to other branches.

W00t! Just learned that the library will be closing at 2:00 pm today, due to snow. Considering I get to go home early and STILL GET PAID, this is awesome news. Since I was planning to go home early, loss of pay or not.

And there must be a new person making this decision, because last year the earliest they ever sent us home was 4:00 pm, after much staff bitching. Someone has learned the value of keeping up staff morale vs. saving money on paid leave.

It is now officially so cold in my branch, that I am making extra money for the inconvenience/hardship.

I just found out that not only do I have a meeting to go to next week (which I usually don't mind, since it means going into the city and getting lots of errands done, but this one is in STATEN ISLAND! I have to make all the way from Westchester to Saten Island by 9:30 a.m. I am not happy, not happy at all.

I cannot wait until my home branch opens, so I can be reasonably sure where I am going every day. I've gone to the wrong branch at least twice this month. And because I have no home branch, I don't have one place to check my own schedule. Why they can't email such information to me is beyond my comprehension. Or post it on the password-protected intranet, so I can look it up at home! Wouldn't that be a smart idea!

But, I am not looking forward to the complaints I am sure I am going to hear - namely, that we no longer have a printer at each public computer, they have to copy whatever they want printed onto a disk and have us print it. This is primarily to stop wastage of paper, to stop them from loading their own paper in and wasting our ink, and to cut down on how much time we spend fixing paper jams. I really like it, but still not going to enjoy the whining.

So, I finished my second semester last week. Yay! I am definitely not taking a summer semester again if I can help it. It sucks. The few weekends I didn't have to work on Saturday, I still couldn't go anywhere because I had a paper due or an upcoming test. I did nothing fun this summer. Well, OK, no extended fun - I did one-night fun things.

So, I don't have my grade yet, but I should be OK. I got an A on my midterm and an A on my annotated bibliography. Turns out my paper was too short (I could have sworn there was no length requirement), but it should still be fine. I'm told I have a very concise writing style (academically, at least). And the final seemed easy enough.

So, I wanted to take cataloging this fall, but the universe is conspiring against allowing me to drop-add, and the schedule sucks anyway, so I'll take it in Spring. I think I'll like it. Several people have said they can see me being one of the people who really likes cataloging (see my online bookmarks for a reason why). Anyway, once I've taken that, assuming I like it, I'll apply to transfer to NYPL Technical Services, Cataloging dept. They do have trainees there. And I won't have to work Saturdays, or deal with the public, and I'll have the same schedule every work day instead of different shifts. Frankly, after 3 years of customer service at dot-coms and a year at a branch library, I'm ready to stop dealing with the public.

So that's my life plan for the moment.