Librarian Avengers » work

On Graduating from School and Getting a Job

Erica Firment — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:20:54 +0000

I was crawling through my archives this morning and came across this little rant that I wrote years ago, during my first, horrible, post-grad school job at the Cornell University Library. I know several of you Gentle Readers are in school right now, and I thought you might enjoy the sentiment:

First of all, and lets just get this out of the way: a full-time job is actually a pretty shoddy reward for 2.5 years of graduate school stress.

Yes, I’m grateful and all, glad to be here, nice to meet ya, etc. but frankly, I think I was looking for something along the lines of “congratulations on your degree, here’s your houseboat, now get out of here you scamp.”

I suppose having a stable schedule and slightly-more-realistic paychecks is reward enough, but lately I’ve had to face what seems to happen any time you put enormous effort into something. Which is, a rather slow transition into something different that requires enormous effort.

Like learning not to scream when someone suggests you attend the Metadata Working Group Meeting.

Arr! Yahoo, prepare to be boarded!

Erica Firment — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:47:25 +0000

With the recent news of Yahoo’s potential acquisition by vile Microsoft and its prior layoff of 1000 hardworking geeks, there was a bit of an air of piracy in the office last week.

Linden Lab is going into another round of recruitment, focusing on web developers, QA folk, and other nerdy types. If any web developers out there (you, yes, YOU Joy!) want to work in a more stable, hilarious, and weird environment, you might want to fill out an application to work at Second Life. Free beer, the Love Machine, and a frightening amount of RockBand can all be yours!

Linden seems to be where the socially-developed nerds go to work. There’s a much larger % of women, extroverts, parents, and charmers working at Linden than is considered industry standard. Which means you tend to not find yourself in conversations with dudes who can’t make eye contact with a girl, or folks who get REALLY EMOTIONAL about their code.

It’s good to be a god, too, even if it’s only in-world. You can read more about our wickedcool office culture in the Tao of Linden.

Help! I’m having a Collections Emergency!

Erica Firment — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 20:56:00 +0000

Help! I’m having a Collections Emergency!

Today I called someone at work and her voicemail said:

“If you are having a collections emergency, please call my pager.”

Help! The collections have turned on us! They just devoured a bibliographer!

They’re moving toward the staff break room! Sweet God, it’s a collections emergency!

Ivy

Erica Firment — Tue, 14 Oct 2003 14:50:00 +0000

First, I would like to officially apologize to Peter for talking his friendly Minnesotan ear off at the I.T. thing yesterday. Low blood sugar almost inevitably leads to leftist political rants. I’m sure I read this somewhere in the New England Medical Journal.

The window ledge skateboarders have not returned today.

Someone once pulled a gun on my friend Erin and demanded her skateboard. This was back in Flint, MI. She ran away, and now runs marathons in San Francisco.

At this point I would like to emphasize the Not-Flintness of Ithaca, NY. I feel confident that my library window skateboard boys are back in middle school today, snapping bra straps and setting off stink bombs.

I’ve been reading this book:

This fine place so far from home: Voices of Academics from the Working Class

Speaking of which, there sure is a lot of ivy in the Ivy League. It all turned red over the weekend, and it looks just glorious. Ivy can cover a great number of architectural flaws. Someone might consider planting some around Olin Library…

Libraries and the people who work in them

Erica Firment — Fri, 27 Jun 2003 19:08:00 +0000

Hey, big news! Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian is now online in a nice temporary format. In other news, this blog has been discovered by people at work, so now I have to be extra careful not to mention how frightening I find the break room.

Here’s an interesting factoid about libraries and the people who work in them: Many of us have absolutely no contact with patrons or customers or whatever you call them. Mmm hmm. It’s true. Most of the straight-up academic librarians around here can be found hidden in back rooms, far from the maddeningly crowded cybercafe, trying to wrap their poor heads around grant applications and articles on digital preservation. Which, among other things, means I get to wear Birkenstocks to work.

I graduated… where’s my houseboat?

Erica Firment — Sat, 19 Apr 2003 07:06:00 +0000

First of all, and lets just get this out of the way: a full-time job is actually a pretty shoddy reward for 2.5 years of graduate school stress. Yes, I’m grateful and all, glad to be here, nice to meet ya, etc. but frankly, I think I was looking for something along the lines of “congratulations on your degree, here’s your houseboat, now get out of here you scamp.”

I suppose having a stable schedule and slightly-more-realistic paychecks is reward enough, but lately I’ve had to face what seems to happen any time you put enormous effort into something. Which is, a rather slow transition into something different that requires enormous effort. Like learning not to scream when someone suggests you attend the Metadata Working Group Meeting.