Chicky Chicky Boom Boom!

Wow. It’s been nearly a year since I last posted. Sorry about that.

So, um, what’s new with you?

Admittedly, part of my reluctance in posting has come from the little career dilemma I’m going through. Namely, I am not doing the job that I thought I would be doing, and I’m not exactly working as a librarian or information professional right now. I think I’d be ok with that had I not shelled out $35,000 for graduate school (or rather, taken out loans).

Now my degree isn’t for a total loss. I am probably the only project manager on the team who gets databases at all and understands what the heck the databases administrators are talking about. I’m also the only one who gets the concept of “metadata.” Yet I find the work I’m doing not to be nearly as involved with metadata, documentation, organization as I thought – or as Ticketmaster thought either.

On the plus side, I make good money – nearly 30% more than I would make as an entry-level librarian in L.A. I can afford my loan payment. I can afford my car payment. I live somewhat comfortably. I get treated fairly well – much better than the University ever treated me – and as you can imagine, working for Ticketmaster comes with its share of perks.

On the downside, there’s a lot of knowledge that I accrued with the intention of using that I’m not using. I’ve also managed to do yet again what I’ve done in my last few jobs – do a good job at something no one else was good at and/or wanted to do. Thus, I keep getting more of that crap work – because I’m so good at it. This usually results not only in job boredom and frustration, but it has stalled any chances of promotion in past jobs. After all, if they move me into a new role, who can they find to be successful in the old one?

Then there’s another thing: a few months back, I went to an alumni dinner here in Los Angeles. I was the only alum in the room who wasn’t a librarian. Let’s just say that the reaction I got was chilly. I was hassled about working for Ticketmaster and I was sneered at for not staying within the profession. The only folks that were genuinely supportive of me were the librarians who worked at the University I formerly worked for. The experience was saddening – especially as I was hit up for money as I walked out the door by one school official who didn’t even bother to talk to me the entire meal. The fact that these people – my fellow alumni – could be so judgmental was so disappointing.

So here I am. I love information science and would like to do more work in that arena. I still plan on going to ALA – if only to pretend to be a librarian and soak up some information goodness. Yet I’m still not convinced that being a librarian is the right move for me.

What to do…what to do….

Greetings from post-graduate life. So I thought I’d have all this copious spare time to just hang out, read and blog after I graduated, but no. There has been a lot of running about – weddings, baby showers, birthday parties, errands, etc – and not a lot of sitting.

I have started reading for fun again though. I’ve started on Andrew Eames’ The 8:55 to Baghdad, and it’s truly excellent so far. I’ve never been much of a travel book reader, but Eames masterfully intertwines his own trip via train and bus to Baghdad just before the US invasion with Agatha Christie’s post-divorce/midlife crisis trip 70 years earlier. After this book, it’s on to Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation, which I’ve been wanting to read for years, but haven’t had the time. I’ve also got a Henry Rollins book and a history of witchcraft in Louis XIV’s court in the stack too.

So, on to the point of this blog – how am I putting my degree to use now that I have it? Well, up until this week, I would have dishearteningly told you, "I’m not." I’ve been give a lot of projects – including one big one involving corporate audits – and most of them are interesting, but don’t really put my degree to use. Don’t get me wrong; I still like my new job. The environment, for one thing, is way, way healthier and positive than where I was. The work is varied and interesting, and I’m learning a lot. I still love LIS though and really wanted to use that stuff in my daily work.

This week, I finally got to kick off my documentation project and now I feel a little bit better. The project entails documenting how we deploy, maintain and fix our products and other internal systems. Sounds dry, but I’m a geek and I think it’s interesting. Anyway, this project involves identifying formats for documentation that everyone can read in a mixed-platform environment and yet can be viable years out, determining where and how to store the docs, how to make them searchable, etc. If you went to library school, your library Spidey senses would be tingling right now. Anyway, it’s cool to work on this and have one of the directors say, “Lynn, I think we all know you’ve got the real knowledge in this area.” Yay.

Since this is a project that doesn’t have customers or clients or products relying on it, I imagine it will drag out for a while. Management will always say, "I want it done as soon as possible," but the projects that have money riding on them will always take precedence over this one. That’s ok though; I’ll enjoy taking my time.

I graduated yesterday. I'm officially done, folks. Can you believe it? I can't. It really hasn't sunk in yet.

I did suffer a small snafoo though; permit me please to whine about it just a bit. Perhaps bitching about it here will let me get over it for good.

They didn't call my name during the ceremony.

I had about 20 people crammed into my living room, watching the ceremony. As we got closer and closer to the J's as the graduates were being called, the cheers would get louder and louder. And then they didn't call my name. The room went silent. Needless to say, that was a bit embarrassing, and the mood of the party changed a bit.

I did get an apology from the school. They mistakenly put me down as attending the ceremony in person, and when no one picked up my name card...well, no name was called. An apology is all I can ask for, so I guess I'm satisfied on that front. I'm still a bit peeved though. I feel a little robbed.

Other than that, as I said, it hasn't sunk in yet that I'm done. I can say that this blog is not done. I intend to keep it going as long as I can to document my life as an "information professional"/project manager-type person.

Hi everyone. I’m in the last throws of completing yet another assignment, but I figured I’d give everyone an update. Without incriminating myself too much prior to graduation, shall we say that one class I’m taking is pretty good and I’m learning a lot and the other is a huge disappointment? Let’s, shall we?

Good class is, well, good. Not my favorite class, but not my least. Disappointment class probably beats the other not-so-awesome class taught by the Dungeons and Dragons-obsessed cat lady for Lynn’s Least Favorite Class. The instructor is extremely disorganized and that means everything is like shooting at a moving target. Assignments change, get renamed, disappear – all at the last minute and with little notice. All very frustrating – especially more so when I’ve already got a major case of senioritis. Cat Lady was just a visiting instructor. Sadly, this dude is tenured faculty. Oh well – I guess 2 lackluster classes out of 11 ain’t so bad.

On the job front, I’m starting to settle in. It’s a little overwhelming. I have a commute now. I have a Blackberry (which appears to be only good for shopping lists and looking up directions while you’re in the car). I have to walk down the Sunset Strip to get to work. It’s all a little surreal, but I like it. So far the people and projects are cool. Here’s hoping it stays that way after the honeymoon is over.

As a final note, I placed my ballot for the ALA Elections today. It was a slow time at work (you have a lot of those when you’re new), and so I read each and every one of those bios and placed my votes. First of all, I’d like to say – write something unique, folks. I swear, almost every candidate statement contained at least one of the following five statements:

• librarians need better pay
• we need to protect intellectual freedom (and all things I consider related – ie., copyright, PATRIOT act stuff)
• we need to recruit, mentor and help find jobs for new librarians
• we need greater diversity within the profession
• we need more visibility for the profession and the ALA

Those are all nice things, but it’s hard to select 33 people out of 80 some-odd candidates all saying the same thing. A few did stand out though. Most notably there were two candidates who made it quite clear that they were conservatives (one stressed “Christian conservative) who felt that the ALA was too left-leaning. I didn’t vote for either of them, although part of me applauded the fact that they admitted their political leanings considering that their views probably won’t strike much of a chord with ALA members. One of them stated (this is my attempt at paraphrasing, mind you) that he felt that intellectual freedom was all well and good, but “pornography” wasn’t needed in libraries. That statement made me recoil a little since that statement goes right to the heart of the idea of intellectual freedom in the first place. I have suspicion that some of what this man calls “pornography,” I, an arguably educated, practical person, would call “art,” or at worst, “erotica.” I would also guess that even the stuff I would call “pornography,” may have some real, intrinsic value beyond it’s obvious sexual one to someone as well. As such, I don’t think it’s a librarian’s place to say “That stuff is porno; I’m not having it here.” It’s one thing to say, “I don’t think my user community would want or need something like this,” but not “I don’t think they should see it.” You know – the whole “selection vs. censorship” argument. It’s a fine line that sometimes gets inadvertently crossed (humans are humans and are prone to error), but I think this dude doesn’t get it. That’s my $0.02 for what it counts.

If you’re interested, I leaned towards voting for people who wanted to make ALA more efficient and accessible to its general membership as well as represent those five ideals above. It took me about an hour.

Greetings from Urbana, Illinois, y’all.

I’m sitting here, in the really fabulous lobby of the Historic Lincoln Hotel, enjoying the fire in the fireplace, the big desk with Viral and Rickettsial Infections of Man on it, and the free wireless. What I’m not enjoying is working on assignments for two classes, but that’s the way it goes, I suppose.

I have to say that this semester has been harder than I had thought it would be. First of all, there are the extenuating circumstances that are making life a little difficult. My knee is still healing, but Blue Cross is really complicating things. True to health insurance practices, they approved all the costs of my surgery initially, but now that the bills have started coming in, they have to contest and review every…single…one. Seriously. Every day I get a new statement telling me that they’re reviewing this or that, and a few days later I get a call or letter from one of the medical providers, complaining that Blue Cross hasn’t paid them. I haven’t been able to go to physical therapy for three weeks because Blue Cross has my prescription for PT under “medical review.” I can’t go down stairs, but I supposedly don’t really need PT? This has become incredibly draining and demoralizing. I’m not trying to whine here though. I’m very grateful that Phil and Sarah have been trying to cheer me up and keep me going, and Phil, God bless him, has been chasing after Blue Cross for me.

“Senioritis” has also started to hurt me a bit. I’m tired. This is semester number six and I’m starting to run out of steam. It’s hard for me to focus on my schoolwork – especially the readings. Of course, I’m not helped by the fact that one of my classes isn’t very enjoyable and, in my humble opinion, isn’t run very well.

Anyway, I was supposed to spend the last week and a half enjoying time away from work and doing homework, but instead I ended up dealing with major car issues and other stupid, niggly stuff that ate up my time. So here I sit, working on a paper that I had planned to have done by Tuesday and it’s now Friday. I have another assignment due Thursday and I haven’t even started on it. Gah. Normally I’m much better than this. Stupid me.

I’m thankful for the trip here though. It’s nice to see my LEEP pals – or some of them anyway – and do some commiserating. I don’t feel quite as alone or like I’m totally slacking. I also like being away from the Blue Crosses and car and other crap at home. I can just focus on schoolwork for a few days. I could do without the ice (seriously – does no one shovel their sidewalks here?), but it’s a nice change. I’ll miss coming out here every few months. I’m sad to know that this is the last time.

So last week, I spoke to a librarian at USC who asked me what advice I would give to someone preparing to enter library school. Granted, my advice was probably colored by the fact that I had just had a miserable week and I was totally exhausted when I was speaking to him, but here’s what I said:

1. Get a Tivo or just accept the fact that you’ll have to catch up with your favorite shows when seasons come out on DVD. Or just give up TV entirely. You will not be able to keep up with Lost or Gray's Anatomy.
2. Make sure you have a support system in place. You are going to have moments where you’re overwhelmed, tired, confused, or just plain stressed, and you’ll need some shoulders to cry on and tell you everything is going to be okay.
3. Everything really will be okay (it will, right?).
4. You don’t have to read every single thing that the instructor assigns in great detail, but it really does pay to at least do a healthy skimming. You will want to know this stuff.
5. Making smart ass remarks in class doesn’t earn you participation points, so please be quiet if you have nothing to add or ask.
6. Fill out the instructor evaluations at the end of each semester and do so honestly and completely. Trust me, they do get read and taken reasonably seriously.
7. Go ahead and subscribe to library mailing lists, but don’t attach too much value to what you read there. Some of the posters are very unhappy in their jobs or disillusioned and their posts reflect that. Just because they’re unhappy doesn’t mean you will be.
8. You don’t have to end up working in a library in order to take advantage of what you learned in library school.
9. Be committed. Trust me, you have no idea what you’re really in for. You can tell yourself, “This is going to be a lot of work or take a lot of time,” but you don’t really understand how much so until you begin. KNOW that you want this degree and you’ll find navigating the choppy waters you encounter a little bit easier.

I think that’s it. I’m sure I’ll think of more tips when I actually graduate. For now I’m living tip numbers 2, 3 and 9.

I just have to make it through to May…