Tagged with work

in the line of duty

On Friday I demonstrated how I am my mother’s son and managed to trip over nothing as I was crossing a street. The traffic was stopped at the light so everyone had a good view of me standing and then hitting the ground.

Unlike when my mom does these sorts of things I came out of it with only one injury, a knee that does not enjoy bending or being knelt on. It’s winter here so I was wearing my protective leathers, otherwise my elbows, shoulder and a good chunk of my back would be scraped all to hell through my dramatic rolling technique I perfected in grade 6 telling violent stories to kindergarteners.

The long-weekend here’s been pretty rainy and bleah, so I didn’t feel the need to go out putting stress on my tender knee until this morning when I went to wrok and discovered it is a long-weekend. I hung out, had coffee and wrote a book review at the office while I waited for it to stop raining.

I appreciate the fact that we have an espresso machine at work with company coffee so I don’t have to spend my own money on caffeination. When Holly arrives (in less than 3 weeks!) she might be bringing her fancy tea ceremony paraphernalia she’s been learning about. Which will be pretty cool, but we’ll still probably have to start buying coffee.

Possibly next week or the week after I might be sent out to the wilds of Victoria to teach some librarians about using Koha. I’ve never been on a business trip before, and I get to take the train! We were pricing it out on Friday and it’s all “First-Class sleeper” this and “hotel and food money” that, which is much more fun than the ordeal we went through getting Holly flights to Sydney and Vancouver.

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when you find a stranger in the alps

My mother is complaining I haven’t been blogging enough. This is because she doesn’t read Librarianaut. Six posts in the last week. That she doesn’t care about my topics over there is a completely separate issue. (Hi Mom!)

Recently the exciting secrets I’ve been keeping from the blog include how I went to get backup keys to my apartment copied, and the place in the mall told me I had to go to a certified locksmith. I suspect that’s because these keys have “Do Not Copy” stamped on them.

The other day Javier was playing guitar in the common area. It turns out he knows something like three songs and can spend hours trying to play them correctly.

Friday was the last day at work for one of my coworkers. We went to the fish market for lunch. At the fish market there are very few vegetarian options, which wasn’t a problem for me, since I could have a greek salad. But my boss felt bad so he ordered me two salads and potato wedges. It was an amount of salad designed to be ridiculed.

My boss was so happy today when he learned I know a bit about Photoshop. At quarter to five he got me to install it on my computer so I can begin graphics tasks tomorrow.

The last couple of days have been very rainy. I told Holly she should bring a Chinese umbrella since throwing one away there and buying a replacement here that costs ten times as much would be annoying. I think I’m also going to forgo trimming my beard till she can bring along ultracheap clippers. So far that’s the main thing I forgot to bring from Canada that I kind of need. It’s one thing to have a massive hobo beard when I’m off travelling but another when I’m going to work every day.

I do love the small office vibe we’ve got where I don’t have to feel underdressed in jeans and a half-buttoned shirt (over a tshirt – I don’t expose my Hemsworthian pecs to the office just yet). It’s possible I’m being ruined for corporate work, but that’s all right with me.

Okay Mom, there you go, a pile of boring minutiae. This is what happens.

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the internet is installed on thursday

And I never did get the hang of Thursdays. But whatever. Here I am. I have an apartment that isn’t a normal tiny apartment the kind I’d pictured Holly and I living in. I mean, I looked at those kinds of places but didn’t end up getting one because my decision making process really needs someone else to keep an eye on it. I tend to think “This weird way of doing things is weird so it’s obviously better!” Which sadly may not always be the case.

Anyway. The apartment I got for Holly and me is in a former storefront and has a shared kitchen and a ridiculous number of TVs for us not to watch. There are rooms with couches and a deck and a barbecue and two microwaves and a gas range and I swore there was an oven, but when I moved in it had disappeared.

The shared kitchen thing. Kitchens are always so wasteful if you aren’t using them. It makes so much sense to share one. But it kind of depends on the rest of the people in the building to see how it’ll be. It’s entirely possible this could turn out to be terrible. In any case, it’s just till December (or less time if my visa gets denied, I guess).

The apartment is right near my future workplace so that’s good. It’s so weird to think about working five days a week for 8 hours a day though. Having weekends mean something. I don’t know how I’ll do it for so many months. I’d be kind of happy with this being my bout in the 9-5 world, combined with our bout in a weird apartment world. Something to do and then move on from. But we’ll see. Maybe I’ll love it.

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a saturday of acquainting

I’m slowly getting things together here. And by getting things together I mean, haven’t dissolved into a gibbering wreck just yet. In some ways it’s crappy that my work permit hasn’t come through, since it means I’m not, you know, earning money to pay for living here. But this enforced delay is giving me a bit more time to get acquainted with Sydney.

I went out walking again this morning. I read for a while and watched some birds in Hyde park. Then I took an excursion around the long way to get to the Rocks, the touristy harbour zone where the opera house is. While I was sitting on a bench watching a “sail” boat leave the wharf, I saw a crowd of nicely dressed (probably for a wedding) people running for cover. I got my rain jacket out of my bag just in time to get caught in the pissing rain. I went to share the wedding-folk shelter for ten minutes and then it eased off and then stopped and now it’s sunny and beautiful out.

I’m in the State Library reading room which is quite nice. It’s a huge old building with wooden shelves lining the walls three floors up, but the centre is completely open, with tables and computers and a couple of information desks. There’s a passage way down to the reference library which is housed in the neighbouring and more modern building, but I’m kind of a fan of this space.

Soon I’ll have to set out again. I need to get a SIM card to phone my boss to see when I should show up on Monday to meet people (and definitely not work because that would be illegal). There’s also a game store a not unreasonable distance away. I’ll keep busy.

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lagged

I arrived in Sydney at about 8am and then was freely in the country by about quarter past 9am. This was on a weird amount of sleep. I’m glad I didn’t get picked up at the airport by my new boss because I was in a not-quite tired state that could lead to a crash at any time.

That crash got put off till oh, about now because I went out to get the city under my boots. I walked more than 8km pretty much along this route. It was a good time. I like doing that kind of thing early to give myself a bit of a sense of scale for the city, to make the maps work better in my head. I took the subway back to the hostel’s neighbourhood, which my feet thanked me for.

The hostel itself is pretty okay. I’m staying here on the recommendation of John, one of my SLAIS classmates. So far it all seems to be fine. We’re just a little further from my workplace than I’d prefer. I’ll be apartment hunting for something in either Glebe or Ultimo.

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i salute you, guy i heard so much about

I went to get my film developed from when Holly was here and because I’m being all fancy-pants and shooting black & white I can’t get it developed at a normal place. Off to a fancy-pants lab for me tomorrow. Also tomorrow, off to school.

On the bus to the place I couldn’t get my film developed, two women were talking about how a guy they knew was fired. The management sounded pretty terrible, suspending him until he’d sign a self-incriminating letter full of lies, and then firing him for not signing it because he wasn’t “negotiating with the company in good faith.” I was only on the bus for two stops but I heard enough to get really mad on behalf of this guy. Signing self-incriminating letters is bullshit, random guy I’ve never met! Way to get fired (and talk to a lawyer) instead.

Brenda & Marlis are gone on a ski-trip so I have the house to myself. Woo. Not that it makes much of a difference one way or another. I just don’t have to feel terrible about leaving the dishes in the sink overnight. I have issues with dishwashers, not wanting to use them kinds of issues.

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local

The other day when I took the bus up to UBC I decided it was good I’m living where I am instead of closer to school. It felt a bit like it would be easy to forget about the rest of town if I were up there. I mean, sure, it’d be more convenient for classes, but this way I feel a bit more like I actually live here. I mean, I didn’t feel like I actually lived in fakeLondon and I want to here. I live within walking distance (my walking distance may be different from yours, sorry) of loads of good shit here, even if the closest full-on grocery store is in a weird little mall.

Today I went to Comix & Stories, which was the indie comic con put on by Vancouver Comic Con? I think? In any case there were people there who made cool stuff and I bought things. Because I’m still getting paid even though I don’t have a job anymore. Oh no? That’s not how it works? Hm. That would work much better for me.

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you have your sods and here are some additional odds

This week has not been as crazy as my lack of posting might make it seem. On Wednesday I was sitting and reading with the window open and people on the block were listening to loud music. At first I would have described it as “roofer music,” the kind of stuff you’d have on the radio while shingling (as opposed to what you’d sit on the stoop and have a beer listening to). But really, who around here is putting a new roof on their house? I don’t think that’s a high priority for either the North Side Killers or the West Side Mad Cows. Then I recognized two songs in a row and realized I wasn’t listening to roofer DJs but wedding reception DJs as we had Mony Mony and Roxanne in quick succession. As I was typing this someone drove by playing something from Live’s Throwing Copper album about lightning crashing and an old woman dying.

There’s a movie either coming out or that has just come out called Grown Ups. It’s got a whole pile of SNL alumni. The trailer looks like it’s about all these high school friends reuniting as grownups and probably learning something about themselves through hijinks. The other day Reyn had a great idea for that movie. It should be about those characters being grownups. Like just getting the kids ready for school and forgetting to buy eggs (evidently this is a thing about modern life that irks Reyn) and generally being boring. I think this would be the best idea ever. To have it billed as a huge wacky comedy with all those actors and then have it be a plotless day in the life cinema-verite kind of thing. To spend millions of dollars on an Andy Kauffman-esque joke. It would be perfect. And make no money.

Another thing I heard recently was a person talking about genocides. What struck me was how he introduced it by listing off the genocides of the 20th century: “Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Sudan…” As if the country Sudan itself was ordering people to be killed. The land all rising up and saying “This group of people is in the way politically. Get rid of them.” Technically it’s probably more accurate designating a state as the killer rather than ascribing all these deaths to one monstrous person, but it’s interesting to me how we don’t have a figurehead to blame for the situation.

I only have 9 more shifts at work before our road trip to Chicago. Ten shifts really, but one of them is a split. I don’t really mind the split shifts so much any more. Especially now that I get so few hours, it being summer and all. This week I had one and I discovered a Dairy Queen when I went walking for the couple of hours between shifts.

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libraries to avoid working for

Selected points from LIScareer’s Characteristics of Emotionally Unhealthy Libraries

- No meetings (“We don’t have time for meetings” or “Too many meetings waste everyone’s time”)
- Too many meetings, meetings are long, and are not well facilitated
- Imposition of one person’s views on the rest of the library
- Lack of communication between divisions, lack of mechanisms for communication
- Culture is dominated by a few negative personalities that “act out” their own personal agendas or
decrease staff morale.
- Complaints are ignored or are used against the staff member who complains.
- Library administration not held responsible by stakeholders
- Lack of respect for the staff by the library administration

Some day when I become a librarian I’ll sure want to avoid a workplace with any of these characteristics. Happily, at the bottom of the list are some questions to ask in interviews that might help determine what kind of work culture you’d be getting into.

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sixty-nine days past the arabian nights

The alarm woke me from dreams of cheese. Anthropomorphic cheese frolicking and licking my belly. It wasn’t the worst dream I could have, and it’s not unexpected as I reek of cheese all the time. I remember a time when cheese was a luxury, but today’s my 1070th day at the cheese factory and I’d really just rather never see anything fermented ever again. Not even if it frolicked and licked.

But my alarm got me up and I’m dragging myself around the apartment before my day begins in earnest. Today, as I’ve done for the last almost three years, I’ll be going to work at the unnamed cheese factory that employs me. My job hasn’t changed in 1069 days. There a technicians who run machines and scientists who devise formulae, but my job is very simple, re-affix the labels to the sealed and wrapped blocks of mild rubbery cheddar.

I have to re-affix the labels because the machine that is supposed to put them on cannot align them properly. One corner hangs off the edge or, well, that’s usually the problem. So I peel it off and put it on straight. One would think those technicians could fix the machine, but that’s not how our cheese factory is run. It’s my job to make up for the label-affixer’s malfunction and my job it will remain. And the machine will continue its jiddery shuddering work while we all wait for it to fall apart.

Viva life.

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