I am enjoying hearing about everyone's jobs, and totally good with anyone who uses this idea for a post. It was kind of fun revisiting all of the occupations which were often very not fun at the time. Also, J, Lucy was NOT humping the blanket, I was totally confused until I realized I had said she was fucking with it. She was just digging in it as if she might actually get somewhere, and her outraged expression when I told her to quit it was funny. And Engie, I apologize, because truthfully when I said I would see if your comments got stuck in spam I didn't even think that was something that could happen in Blogger, but then I checked and somehow they DID get marked as spam - why? Why would that happen? Anyway, you are free to focus solely on Lucy and zero other components of this blog, and I will ensure that your comments pass unmolested. Unlike Lucy's blanket would have been, if J was correct.
My remaining jobs:
In university, I worked first at TCBY, a frozen yogurt place. I was a little surprised at how many people were pissy while going out for frozen yogurt. My co-workers were - there's no polite way to put this -- dumb. We had this promotion on for a one-dollar cone. When my boss was there, she got mad at how much I was putting in them. When she wasn't there, the customers would complain about how little yogurt had been in the cone the last time (it's a dollar, lady, what do you want).
Then I worked in another group home organization, this one for children. This was mostly really fun, except again for the overnights - I wasn't sleeping this time, just on duty while all the kids were (theoretically) sleeping, which was better in some ways and worse in others. Some of the kids just would not sleep, some of them peed the bed multiple times a night. One boy slept in a room off the kitchen, and when I was doing rounds checking on everyone would run out of his room and eat sugar straight from the bowl. In one place the kitchen was far enough away from the bedrooms that I could bake, and I made mini-muffins from a mix, but screwed up the ratio and had to keep adding more mix, until the entire kitchen counter was covered with muffins. The older worker came in in the morning and was like Allison wtf. It was respite care that we were doing - the kids could come for up to two weeks at a time for the parents to get a break. Thinking of the parents living with this day to day was fairly sobering, and two weeks once or twice a year didn't really seem like enough.
Somewhere in there I did special needs work with a girl with autism at home - I can't remember where in my education I was, exactly, some summer in university. We'd go for walks or to the movies if it was raining - or whatever her mom said would be a good idea. A big thing was getting her to use language, and I remember once we spent the afternoon walking in a field and she brought her mom a flower and said "buttercup" and it was as really big deal. I felt kind of the same as when I had the autism classes come in every Wednesday in my first official permanent library job - there was something satisfying about having small, simple goals and sometimes meeting them.
When I was done my master's I moved in with Matt while he was finishing his, and got my first real job with a real salary at a little audio publisher. The owner was an Irishman with ten kids, some of whom worked for him, and he was insane. Once we went across the border to the U.S office that his son worked in. We were in a meeting, the son said something the dad didn't like, and he threw a book at him and then told me to leave and they beat the crap out of each other. No one else seemed to find this all that weird. I went into Toronto a couple of times to see recordings being done, which was fun and interesting - I met Jackie Burroughs and Saul Rubinek, decent-grade celebrities on a Canadian scale. I also worked with a few narrators over the phone - I had to tell one guy his Sherlock Holmes was too whiny. We were working on a 'rockumentary' about the Grateful Dead when Jerry Garcia died and I heard the chief editor yell "Jerry Garcia died - that's great! Oh wait, no, that's terrible". It was interesting, and I probably could have moved up if I'd stayed, but my depression and anxiety was untreated at that point, and I was always in low-key fight or flight there.
I was relieved to leave that place when we moved to Toronto after Matt graduated and got a job in tech. One day while exploring I came upon this adorable little bookstore and in a fit of uncharacteristic optimism and motivation I sent in a letter saying how much I loved the place and would love to work there if they were ever hiring. I got a call a few days later and went for an interview and got hired. It was mostly amazing, except for the part where a larger proportion of people than you think are jerks when dealing with retail staff. I loved the people I worked with, it was just a really nice place to hang out it, and I could borrow books or buy them at a discount.
One night a bald guy came in and I was helping him - he had a few questions about books that we had or didn't have, which fortunately I knew the answers to. My boss came up from the basement and said 'are you This Guy?' who turned out to be a reporter for a local paper who was visiting all the nearby bookstores and reporting on the service. He wrote an article that said really nice things about me and not-so-nice things about some other workers which wasn't really that fair, considering we were all minimum-wage workers, but was still kind of nice to read. The bookstore gave me a big gift certificate for a fancy restaurant for Matt and I to go out for dinner. The only problem was my terrible foot issues, so at about a year in I was in pain all the time. I got orthotics for the first time, which helped a little but didn't solve the problem. I was still really sad when Matt got a better job in Ottawa and I had to leave. They closed the store to have a goodbye barbecue for me at another staff member's house.
While we lived in Toronto I also volunteered with a place that recorded books on tape for visually impaired people. I've always loved reading out loud, and this seemed like a really cool and easy thing I could do to benefit people. Once they gave me a book of erotic poetry for Black lesbians to record, and I wondered if I was being punked, but I guess visually impaired Black lesbians have as much a right to access erotic poetry as anyone else.
When we moved to Ottawa I took some time to get the townhouse set up (yellow shag carpet - so fancy). Then I applied to Chapters. Really, I had learned nothing about how bad I was at not taking abuse from the public well and not being able to be on my feet for long hours, but I didn't feel ready for anything bigger - I had started taking anti-depressants but basically always got every possible side effect for every one I tried, so it was taking a while to find a good fit. I figured this was something I could do.
The store was a lot bigger than the former one, of course, and a lot busier. I was in the kids' section, which was fun a lot of the time, but again - mean people suck and I sucked at shaking it off. There was never enough staff to cover the whole place, people always called in sick on Sundays and no one would answer the phone in case they were being asked to come in to work to cover. I still loved being surrounded by books at work, and the good interactions mostly made up for the bad, but when people who have never worked in a bookstore say their dream job is to work in a bookstore I usually don't say anything, but internally I wince a little. It's one of those public service jobs that would be idyllic if not for the public.
I left Chapters when we moved into our house and I got pregnant like five minutes later. Matt traveled a lot for work, so I stayed home until Eve started school, which is when I started volunteering in the library and working away (at a very relaxed, one might say glacial, pace). At one point the program coordinator told me that if I was able to take more than one or two classes at a time I would finish the diploma faster - with this kind of sharp-witted and edifying instruction, surely I was set up for success.
When I finished, I applied to be interviewed for the casual list for the school board, meaning I would fill in when library techs were off - sometimes sick, but more likely for planned absences. Predictably, the interview process was stressful - I went to the first address and for some reason got confused and thought I was at the wrong place, so I pivoted and went back to the middle school I thought it was at, only to realize I was right the first time and the interview was at the board office. The confusion largely stemmed from the fact that it was a fall evening and dark, and the entrance was in the back of a very large building. Fortunately I had left very early, so I made it in plenty of time, but was even more flustered than I would have been otherwise. I was interviewed by two women. I talked so fast that I answered all of their questions and finished the interview much more quickly than we were scheduled for, but they seemed okay with it.
I got onto the casual list and took the first shift offered, which was stupidly far away and only for a half day, but I wanted to dive in and get some experience. Matt very kindly drove me and picked me up, and it went well. It's in the French end of town, and before I went I suddenly panicked that it was a French school and I would have to speak French. Then I calmed down and realized that I was not on the list for the French board. And also, I speak enough French to run a library. Sigh.
After that I stuck to schools I could drive myself to and had a blast. I had to read some ambitious French stuff for storytimes and I just asked the kids to be nice. I met twins named Lottie and Louie Honeywell-Dobbin and almost quit my sort-of job to write a series of books about their madcap adventures. I started reading a book to a class that was set to the tune of Jingle Bells and the teacher jokingly asked if I could sing it, so I did, and everyone was really impressed.
The first interview I did for a permanent job was a very easy room - the Vice Principal was from northern Ontario like I was, and had been the v.p. at my kids' old school, and the principal was a really funny and easygoing guy. I had a really good time there, even when stuff like
this happened. A few months after, I got another day at the school I'm still at now. I got surplussed out of the first school after a couple of years, which was sad, but nice that everyone seemed really upset about it - the principal said if the other librarian ever retired he would hire me without an interview.
So I did one school for a bit, then two, then three, then four, then dropped one, which brings me to now, when I am happy and lucky and massively privileged to be able to do a job I really like and only do it part time.
Even if a lot of the books I work with deal with farts.
