Tag: work

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Morning Ralph

You know that old Warner Brothers cartoon with the coyote and the sheepdog? The sheep dog and the coyote both come into work and punch the time clock, and one goes “Morning Ralph” and the other goes “Morning Sam.”

Remember? That one?

Ok, so I’m leaving work last night, and I see somebody from the reference department coming in for her shift just as I’m leaving. And of course I say “Morning Ralph,” because of course everyone in the universe has the same cultural touchstones as me right?

And of course she has no idea what I am talking about, and of course I’m a big freak.

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Libraries and the people who work in them

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.

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I graduated… where’s my houseboat?

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.