Reason I've been absent: My fucked up job... at a library...
And here I thought I’d have energy enough to actually update my LJ. Apparently not. *sigh*
And I’ll tell you exactly why I haven’t had any energy and why I’ve been so absent. :-P
So I got a new job, right? Started in April. And to start with it all felt good. Yeah, so I worked ten hours on Mondays, 8am to 6:15pm. And three hours one Saturday a month. But that was fine, because the rest was OK.
But that was because my predecessor had finished off as much as possible.
Then summer came and went, and you all know how busy I was then. All good stuff, but rest? I had none.
And to make matters worse the night between Sunday and Monday, the day before work, Alexandra decided to have a grand performance. And stayed up from 00:30am to 5am. Which left me with only two hours of sleep, and peting73 only three. Night before going back to work. And my first day? Ten hours.
I was not all there, let me tell you…
And the first thing we did, boss and I, after the Monday meeting was to plan all months from August until December with all the dates and hours I was to be at all them schools.
Oh, and to make it even more brilliant. Instead of being responsible for 6 schools, like my predecessor, I am responsible for 8 schools.
Great.
And once we were done planning and I saw my schedule, I panicked. No joke. Yeah, sure. I only do activities ONCE in each class on all them schools. But that’s 8 schools, people!!! Whatever I do, I have to do it AT LEAST 8 times, most likely more. Ugh.
One thing stressed me out the more, and that’s the activity called “booktalks”. What you do then is you bring a pile of books to the class you visit and you talk about the books, what they’re about and why they are so great and why you should read them and why it’s important to read. Basically. Which also means… You have to read a couple of them books….
Yeah…
I have booktalks for grade 3, 4, 5 and 6. In each school. That’s a lot of books. And a lot of books that I’m supposed to read. Cue stressed out. Thank heavens awesome boss helped me find suitable books for each class and dividing them up between schools and classes.
I refuse to do work when I’m not at work, which means I somehow have to find time to read books when I’m at work. Not easy, near impossible. And when I don’t feel like reading, it’s really hard. Even if it is my job.
And to make matters even more fun, during all of August and much of September, much of my time was consumed by the feast given to those kids who managed the challenge The Summer Book Club where they had to read at least 6 books during the summer. As a reward they got a feast. And since I’m a school librarian, I was involved in arranging this feast. And since I’m the newest hired, my other two colleagues took most of the responsibility. My job was to keep in touch with the magician that we’d hired (no problem! cool guy!) and to keep in touch with the janitor off the premise we’d hired (hard to catch on phone, but then no problem).
So no problem, right? Wrong.
See, one of my colleagues are badly burnt out. No kidding. And during this time it got painfully obvious. She barely managed to do what she had on her plate. And me and my other colleague had to remind her constantly.
My other colleague? She quite. She got another job, and then was just gone. Within a week. Boss knew about it, but shit. Not a good timing. Now it was just me and burnt out colleague. And she is incapable of taking any responsibility.
So I ended up responsible for the whole thing.
I did not have fun. Thank heavens I’ve been responsible for crazy shit when I was active in the Sexmasters* at the Student Union Pub, just saying! Because I channeled my wicked Sexmaster personality and turned boss of hell on her ass… *grump* If I hadn’t, things would not have ended up well. Colleague that had quite was there anyway, because the kids knew her and missed her. But she had no clue what to do either. Only me.
I don’t know how, but the party ended up a success. Much thanks to the magician Reggie Simon, I believe. BRILLIANT man! And an american that has moved to Sweden, so I got a bit nostalgic there. :-)
But to say I was a wreck when I came home that night would be an understatement.
So did it calm down after that? No. Hell no. Well, workload yes. A bit. I’ve gotten more comfortable with my job and I am starting to feel that I actually know my shit, unlike panicking all the time which I did during the entire time of August.
BUT! Burnt out colleague… Ho boy… While I got all the schools on the countryside here, she got all the daycare centers. And the responsibility for the art showroom the library have.
And she can’t do it. I’ve seen some of the stuff she’s sent out to parents and employees and newspapers and I’m just… It’s beyond unprofessional, and that’s coming from ME that really is not very professional to start with.
She forgets information to the artists that shows their art in the art showroom (which forced me to stay one HOUR longer than I should have the other night so I could fix that). She sends the wrong information to the newspapers. She forgets when she’s supposed to be at work. She sends what time of day she’s to visit daycare centers, but not what date… She puts books in the wrong place. She loses books. She promises patrons, daycare centers and schools things she shouldn’t, since she can’t do whatever it is and the rest of us don’t have time to.
It’s just one thing after another. Unending. And who gets to clean up her mess? Me and my other awesome colleague and my awesome boss. I’ve worked here since April, and the longer I’m here the more shit I see that she’s made a total mess off. My awesome colleague has been here for 10 years (older rocker guy with nearly no filter, I love working with him) and is so feed up with everything it’s not even funny. And my boss, who hasn’t been here quite as long (and really got no filter either while being an awesome leader, I love working with her to), is so stressed out I fear she’ll burn out badly to…
It’s just an extremely bad situation all around.
We’ve tried to contain it so the patrons won’t notice too much. But now it has becoming harder and harder to do so. Burnt out colleague has some hours in the information desk, but she can’t even do that these days, since the patrons flat out says she’s to confused and they don’t feel they get the help they want.
It’s annoying, stressful, frustrating and beyond all, sad. So fucking sad.
Because burnt out colleague? She was my boss on my very first library job I got at a school library. And back then she was in total control even though she worked way to hard and way to long hours. And we had SUCH a good time working together then, and she taught me so much.
Just to end up like this. It’s so heartbreakingly sad to see in the midst of the stress and frustration.
Anyway, so yeah… That would be the reason why I’ve been absent. I’m just stressed out as fuck, and try to hang on and concentrate on my job with 8 schools and the bookvan once a week.
I have this job until December 31st, so I’m hanging on until then. Not sure I want to keep this job if I’m offered, to be quite honest…
*Still got NOTHING to do with sex. To sexa is an old swedish word that means to party. So it basically stands for partymasters with a bit of an innadu.
This entry is crossposted between LJ and DW. Comment where you are comfortable.
And I’ll tell you exactly why I haven’t had any energy and why I’ve been so absent. :-P
So I got a new job, right? Started in April. And to start with it all felt good. Yeah, so I worked ten hours on Mondays, 8am to 6:15pm. And three hours one Saturday a month. But that was fine, because the rest was OK.
But that was because my predecessor had finished off as much as possible.
Then summer came and went, and you all know how busy I was then. All good stuff, but rest? I had none.
And to make matters worse the night between Sunday and Monday, the day before work, Alexandra decided to have a grand performance. And stayed up from 00:30am to 5am. Which left me with only two hours of sleep, and peting73 only three. Night before going back to work. And my first day? Ten hours.
I was not all there, let me tell you…
And the first thing we did, boss and I, after the Monday meeting was to plan all months from August until December with all the dates and hours I was to be at all them schools.
Oh, and to make it even more brilliant. Instead of being responsible for 6 schools, like my predecessor, I am responsible for 8 schools.
Great.
And once we were done planning and I saw my schedule, I panicked. No joke. Yeah, sure. I only do activities ONCE in each class on all them schools. But that’s 8 schools, people!!! Whatever I do, I have to do it AT LEAST 8 times, most likely more. Ugh.
One thing stressed me out the more, and that’s the activity called “booktalks”. What you do then is you bring a pile of books to the class you visit and you talk about the books, what they’re about and why they are so great and why you should read them and why it’s important to read. Basically. Which also means… You have to read a couple of them books….
Yeah…
I have booktalks for grade 3, 4, 5 and 6. In each school. That’s a lot of books. And a lot of books that I’m supposed to read. Cue stressed out. Thank heavens awesome boss helped me find suitable books for each class and dividing them up between schools and classes.
I refuse to do work when I’m not at work, which means I somehow have to find time to read books when I’m at work. Not easy, near impossible. And when I don’t feel like reading, it’s really hard. Even if it is my job.
And to make matters even more fun, during all of August and much of September, much of my time was consumed by the feast given to those kids who managed the challenge The Summer Book Club where they had to read at least 6 books during the summer. As a reward they got a feast. And since I’m a school librarian, I was involved in arranging this feast. And since I’m the newest hired, my other two colleagues took most of the responsibility. My job was to keep in touch with the magician that we’d hired (no problem! cool guy!) and to keep in touch with the janitor off the premise we’d hired (hard to catch on phone, but then no problem).
So no problem, right? Wrong.
See, one of my colleagues are badly burnt out. No kidding. And during this time it got painfully obvious. She barely managed to do what she had on her plate. And me and my other colleague had to remind her constantly.
My other colleague? She quite. She got another job, and then was just gone. Within a week. Boss knew about it, but shit. Not a good timing. Now it was just me and burnt out colleague. And she is incapable of taking any responsibility.
So I ended up responsible for the whole thing.
I did not have fun. Thank heavens I’ve been responsible for crazy shit when I was active in the Sexmasters* at the Student Union Pub, just saying! Because I channeled my wicked Sexmaster personality and turned boss of hell on her ass… *grump* If I hadn’t, things would not have ended up well. Colleague that had quite was there anyway, because the kids knew her and missed her. But she had no clue what to do either. Only me.
I don’t know how, but the party ended up a success. Much thanks to the magician Reggie Simon, I believe. BRILLIANT man! And an american that has moved to Sweden, so I got a bit nostalgic there. :-)
But to say I was a wreck when I came home that night would be an understatement.
So did it calm down after that? No. Hell no. Well, workload yes. A bit. I’ve gotten more comfortable with my job and I am starting to feel that I actually know my shit, unlike panicking all the time which I did during the entire time of August.
BUT! Burnt out colleague… Ho boy… While I got all the schools on the countryside here, she got all the daycare centers. And the responsibility for the art showroom the library have.
And she can’t do it. I’ve seen some of the stuff she’s sent out to parents and employees and newspapers and I’m just… It’s beyond unprofessional, and that’s coming from ME that really is not very professional to start with.
She forgets information to the artists that shows their art in the art showroom (which forced me to stay one HOUR longer than I should have the other night so I could fix that). She sends the wrong information to the newspapers. She forgets when she’s supposed to be at work. She sends what time of day she’s to visit daycare centers, but not what date… She puts books in the wrong place. She loses books. She promises patrons, daycare centers and schools things she shouldn’t, since she can’t do whatever it is and the rest of us don’t have time to.
It’s just one thing after another. Unending. And who gets to clean up her mess? Me and my other awesome colleague and my awesome boss. I’ve worked here since April, and the longer I’m here the more shit I see that she’s made a total mess off. My awesome colleague has been here for 10 years (older rocker guy with nearly no filter, I love working with him) and is so feed up with everything it’s not even funny. And my boss, who hasn’t been here quite as long (and really got no filter either while being an awesome leader, I love working with her to), is so stressed out I fear she’ll burn out badly to…
It’s just an extremely bad situation all around.
We’ve tried to contain it so the patrons won’t notice too much. But now it has becoming harder and harder to do so. Burnt out colleague has some hours in the information desk, but she can’t even do that these days, since the patrons flat out says she’s to confused and they don’t feel they get the help they want.
It’s annoying, stressful, frustrating and beyond all, sad. So fucking sad.
Because burnt out colleague? She was my boss on my very first library job I got at a school library. And back then she was in total control even though she worked way to hard and way to long hours. And we had SUCH a good time working together then, and she taught me so much.
Just to end up like this. It’s so heartbreakingly sad to see in the midst of the stress and frustration.
Anyway, so yeah… That would be the reason why I’ve been absent. I’m just stressed out as fuck, and try to hang on and concentrate on my job with 8 schools and the bookvan once a week.
I have this job until December 31st, so I’m hanging on until then. Not sure I want to keep this job if I’m offered, to be quite honest…
*Still got NOTHING to do with sex. To sexa is an old swedish word that means to party. So it basically stands for partymasters with a bit of an innadu.
This entry is crossposted between LJ and DW. Comment where you are comfortable.