Searching for a job is tremendously frustrating. Everyone seems to point out that you have to look at your job search as your full-time job. That makes perfect sense, of course, but it ignores that fact that looking for a job is the worst job ever. First of all, you never get paid, and second of all you rarely get the satisfaction of knowing that your task has been completed in an excellent, let alone satisfactory manner. It’s not like, when you send a cover letter and resume out, along with a rejection letter you get a list of improvements that you should make. “This looks good, Nathan, but could you emphasize your work experience with archives a bit more?”
I suppose I need to view my “job” in a sort of “Myth of Sisyphus” way, it’s all about the journey rather than the inevitable failure at the top. I’m used to that, because I was a janitor for about a year in a half. If there’s one Sisyphean job (besides pushing a rock up a hill), it’s cleaning up after grade school children. Vacuuming up a stairwell, only to have a first grade class tromp through it while you’re wrapping the cord up, was initially the most frustrating thing I’ve ever done in a job. And that happened all the time. After awhile, though, that’s just the way things go. Haul your vacuum cleaner up the stairs, only to have a troop of six year olds drag the dirt back down to the bottom.
But as a janitor, I could at least blame the kids for the impossibility of my work. Applying for jobs, the only consistent factor of failure is me, which brings me to the obvious corollary of not getting any feedback while doing a job: I’m constantly questioning the decisions I make when applying, and inevitably change things: sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically. But who knows how much I’m fucking things up? I’ve had tons of people look at my cover letter, from friends to people at career centers and it usually comes back as fine. I’m sure it’s fine but… isn’t there some sort of word I could use in it that could magically get me the job?
No probably not. That would be wonderful though.
In other news, Scott Walker’s budget will probably reduce funding to public libraries. That’s not really much of a surprise, of course, and that article seems goes to great lengths to point out, kind of dubiously, I think, that “Hey, you never know, libraries could come out ahead!” Come on. That’s not going to happen.
I have to admit something: I’ve been spoiled by academic libraries so much so, that going to a public library just makes me sad. That’s not to say that I don’t like public libraries. I like the concept, I just don’t like the actualization of it. There’s just not enough space, nor interest in public libraries. I can usually find what I’m looking for, at least at some branch (except at the Hales Corners Library. Seriously guys. What the hell?), but it’s very rare at this point that I find something I didn’t know I was looking for. That’s too bad, because finding what I didn’t know I was looking for is really the fundamental idea behind open shelves.
Of course, things could be worse, like at this Newport Beach library, where it’s proposed that they just get rid of the books. In a way, I don’t really have a problem with this, there are three other branches at Newport Beach, so it’s not like there’s no books anywhere. What I do have a problem with, though, is that they’re calling this a library. It’s not a library, it’s a coffee shop without coffee where library books have the possibility of being dropped off. Essentially, what that article is about, is Newport Beach wanting to potentially close down a library. That’s not really news, but saying that they’re getting rid of all the books, Woah! Hey! That’s some news! That’s crazy!
I wouldn’t be surprised if, in several years, libraries actually did start to get rid of their stacks, moving their collections to a centralized location. But if they wanted to remain a library, it would probably be beneficial to have a reference person on staff, or a computer lab, or something, I don’t know, that could be viewed as setting up a space for the dissemination and collection of information. Otherwise, again, it’s a room with free wi-fi where homeless people hang out.
But if they needed someone, I’d still apply there.
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