![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138Dangit. I was asleep for most of the past 36 hours, and am already starting to get drowsy again despite my antinarcoleptic meds. I really don't want to increase my dosage again, esp. since the FDA is reputedly planning to clamp down on off-label prescriptions and I don't have a formal diagnosis of narcolepsy per se.
On a possibly related note, I think that last week, I completely tanked the first job interview I've had for the past year-- it was for a "library assistant" position, but almost all of the questions were about generic customer-service issues rather than anything that seemed really specific to, well, libraries. By the time they asked me for a closing statement about why I wanted to work in a library, I was very tempted to say, "So I wouldn't have to deal with people", but managed to suppress that. However, I have no memory of what I actually did come up with-- certainly not the reasonably truthful answer that came to me on the way home, which was that after assessing my non-labwork skills, I figured that I wasn't sure that I had that much useful knowledge of any one particular field, but I was pretty good at knowing how to look stuff up. Unfortunately, it seems that to be a Real Reference Librarian, I'd have to get an actual degree in Library Science-- which might not take much longer than a two years' program for a master's degree, but I still don't know whether I really want to work in a library to start with.
However, I've finally achieved a vague resemblance to professional authorship, at least in the sense of actually getting paid in something besides contributors' copies or an entry in my yearly employee evaluation. Didn't pay all that much, but then the market value of sharp sticks in the eye continues to decline by comparison.
On a possibly related note, I think that last week, I completely tanked the first job interview I've had for the past year-- it was for a "library assistant" position, but almost all of the questions were about generic customer-service issues rather than anything that seemed really specific to, well, libraries. By the time they asked me for a closing statement about why I wanted to work in a library, I was very tempted to say, "So I wouldn't have to deal with people", but managed to suppress that. However, I have no memory of what I actually did come up with-- certainly not the reasonably truthful answer that came to me on the way home, which was that after assessing my non-labwork skills, I figured that I wasn't sure that I had that much useful knowledge of any one particular field, but I was pretty good at knowing how to look stuff up. Unfortunately, it seems that to be a Real Reference Librarian, I'd have to get an actual degree in Library Science-- which might not take much longer than a two years' program for a master's degree, but I still don't know whether I really want to work in a library to start with.
However, I've finally achieved a vague resemblance to professional authorship, at least in the sense of actually getting paid in something besides contributors' copies or an entry in my yearly employee evaluation. Didn't pay all that much, but then the market value of sharp sticks in the eye continues to decline by comparison.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2005-03-31 09:29 am (UTC)I *do* want to be a real reference librarian, but I also want to be sleeping at least semi-regularly before trying to add in schoolwork again.
no subject
on 2005-03-31 10:21 am (UTC)Get along little doggies! *whip-cracks the reference section*
no subject
on 2005-04-04 09:26 am (UTC)Working in libraries is actually wonderful (especially academic libraries) but the pay is truly abysmal. Want to rent my degree? I don't seem to be using it at the moment.
Congrats on the Article! Beading abounds, so the first of many, I hope?
no subject
on 2005-04-05 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-04-05 09:12 am (UTC)Meanwhile, I'll be darned(ish)-- just got email from the library saying that I'd passed the interview, combining with the initial Scantron test results to place me at #64 on the eligible list. Woohoo? I'm not exactly holding my breath, since they said they'd only be doing callbacks for the top nine candidates at each of the three locations, but I guess my tankage wasn't quite as ignominious as I thought. Still not exactly rarin' with that customer-service vibe, though. And y'know, I have absolutely no memory of what the payscale is-- pretty sure it's somewhere in the low $20k zone, which wouldn't be so bad if the friend I'd lunched with yesterday hadn't casually mentioned that she's playing two recruiters off each other in hopes of an offer around $120k. (Not that I can provide any coherent explanation of what she does exactly-- something to do with managing program managers-- but on the other hand, I'm not sure that she can either. The wombat-consort and I have sometimes speculated that this friend's career path is some strange form of performance art.)