The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

I’ve been pretty lame about keeping up in here. Between work, school, and hanging with MB, I keep losing track of time, though in a good way.

I’m enjoying school so far. One class is pretty boring, but the other is quite engaging. Still, both are a nice escape from work. It’s a relief to hear stuff that actually makes sense (ie, not my boss) and not have artificial urgency associated with what I need to do.

But of course there are dumbasses who annoy me. One, the old bat who last time said she “doesn’t read much” and seemed to be hearing about the internet for the first time ever, and two, this girl – she can’t be more than 22 – who works in a library now and can’t shut the fuck up about it.

And the stuff she says is totally mundane – “Yeah, we have people fill out a form for that,” “Yeah, we automatically tell people that’s on hold,” “Yeah, we interrupt the teacher every two seconds to talk about stupid junk.”

The professor is very patient, more patient than I could ever hope to be, but after a while even she was like, “Just a second,” so that she could finish a fricking point.

Meanwhile, the old bat derailed a discussion about technology and how it – or the lack of it – affects equal accessibility (eg, the lack of broadband in rural areas) by suddenly talking about cell phones.

Y’all, I’m paying good money for this class, so put a sock in it!

As for work, it’s as bad as ever. I recently learned that the whole team is actively disengaging from our boss. Everyone mostly sits down this one hallway (except for me and another woman, who sit perpendicular to that hallway), and lately I’ve noticed that everyone’s doors are always shut. I kept thinking, Is everyone on a conference call? Is everyone out?

Then one of my coworkers told me how everyone avoids our boss like crazy. I thought it was just me and that I was being immature. For instance, I dread our one-on-one meetings, and do everything in my power to avoid them. But people have been blatantly canceling their one-on-ones left and right.

Besides the fact that talking to our boss is just plain painful, he talks to everybody several times a week. Last night he “dropped by” at 5 and we argued for about 45 minutes. I basically don’t agree with a lot of what he calls strategy, which makes no sense. Bunch of bullshit is more like it.

Aside from work, things are good. Over the weekend MB and I rented Time, this Korean flick. The premise was promising, but it sort of fell apart at the end. Also the woman comes off as so psycho, it was hard to take it seriously.

We’ve been thinking about signing up for Netflix. Usually we go to this Blockbuster, but it totally sucks. Here’s why:

1) While there are a million copies of The Game Plan, there are just a few independent movies.

2) The DVDs are sort of in alphabetical order, but not really. H, I, J – um, H again, now G, now J!

3) Scattered throughout are these horrible-looking, straight to DVD horror/scifi/soft core porn movies with titles like Ice Spiders, She Likes Girls, and my fave, Killer Drag Queens on Dope, starring Alexis Arquette, of the Rosanna/Patricia/David Arquette family fame.

God, I might just have to rent that one out of curiosity.

The rest of the weekend before MB came home was quiet yet productive. Saturday I putzed around the house before heading out to run some errands in the afternoon, and then coming back and basically attacking my apartment, trying to get rid of clothes and books I don’t need.

I ended up emptying almost half my closet. Who knew there were so many shirts I haven’t worn in more than a year? I really have had no excuse not to donate stuff. There’s a Housing Works right near my place. I dropped off an estimated $900 worth of clothes on Sunday. More to come! As for the books, there’s a Housing Works Used Books Cafe downtown. Will want to schlep my stuff down there soon.

Sunday was another productive day. Aside from giving stuff to Housing Works, I ran some more errands and worked on my writing before heading downtown to YP’s birthday party, which was fun. Lots of laughing and talking. I made the mistake of having two cosmos so that by the time I left, close to midnight, I had the hugest headache ever.

MB’s flight landed around 10:30, and he got to his place around 12 AM. It was so nice to see him again after all those days apart – gee, just four, but it felt like a long time. We both had yesterday off too, which was fun.

Must workout today! My legs are getting that crampy feeling from not running enough.

But I ended up spending the whole afternoon doing this compliance training for work. So boring! At least I got it done on time.

On Thursday I had my second MLS class, Knowledge Organization, which is about cataloging and categorizing materials via different systems and standards. And let me tell ya: it was about as boring as it sounds. I guess it could be interesting, but the teacher so far is not that dynamic. First class she just started rattling off acronyms and systems and standards with no context or examples. I actually thought maybe I missed the first 10 minutes of overview, but I hadn’t.

Still, I don’t think it should be hard. Just boring.

The announcement about my promotion went out late yesterday afternoon, which is always embarrassing. I hate all of that attention. It was nice though to get lots of emailed congratulations. Makes me realize how many people I know at the company.

But I’m still on the lookout for other jobs. I applied to one last week that sounds pretty good. It focuses on writing communications and creating communications plans for what I believe is the business side of an IT team, and what with my writing background, the experience I’ve had in marekting – including managing our website – and now getting my degree in library and information sciences (which I’m finding has a rather heavy emphasis on technology), it seems like a good fit.

Of course almost anything on paper seems like a good fit. The job description also emphasized that there would be no managing of budgets or people, which made me laugh. “Are you a people person? Well, this job isn’t for you.” Sweet!

MB has been away since Wednesday. He’s at this conference and will be back tomorrow night. I find that I’m more motivated to work when he’s around. Cuz he’ll be doing his nerdy-computer stuff and so that’ll inspire to work on my writing. For instance, right now I could just tool around on my blog, surf the net, and watch TV all morning before heading out to shop till I drop. No! Must write! Even if for a little. Oh yeah, and homework! Just have some reading to do.

Still, some alone time is nice, to balance out all the together time.

Had a dream this morning about my boss. He was in rare form yesterday (in real life), micromanaging the hell out of me. In the dream he became obsessed with whether or not someone was going to wear the right shoes to a meeting. In fact I had set up a meeting about it, though instinctively I knew it was ridiculous, and then he kept asking who was going to be in the meeting about the shoes. I’d rattle off the names, he’d furiously scribble them down, then would ask me all over again. Finally Isaid, “Is this meeting really necessary? I think he can pick out his own shoes.”

*Sigh.* Polishing that resume.

Last night was my first day of library school.

The classes I’m taking this semester are Introduction to Information Professions and Knowledge Organization. Last night was the Information Professions class, which will be an overview of the different professions available in library and information sciences, ethics and core values, as well as background on the way different libraries and info centers work. All of that is excellent for me as I have zero knowledge about this.

There’s lots of reading, a few papers, some field observation (which is esentially going to a library or info center and noting what works and what doesn’t work), and two presentations. Not bad, I guess.

One of our assignments is to find a library blog or wiki or listserv, monitor its activity for six weeks, and for each of those six weeks, post an article or whatever on the class blog. Luckily through my blog buds is just how I got the idea of pursuing library science so finding a library blog should be no problem. The only challenge is finding one that’s right for me.

As with every class, there are a few dumbasses. For instance there’s this old bat whom I first saw when waiting in line to get my student ID over the weekend. Someone was saying that a Barnes & Noble is closing in Chelsea. The old bat said, “Is it reopening?”

“No, it’s closing down completely.”
The old bat: “Well, what will we do? Where will we go?”
“Well, there’s another Barnes & Noble in Union Square.”

Yeah, and on every other frigging block.

As an ice breaker for class, we went around the room, said our names, and the last good book we read. The old bat’s response?

“I’m not such a big reader. Not of books anyway.”

Um, you understand this is library school? You know, the library? The place where they keep all the BOOKS?

The only book yours truly could think of was Baise-Moi. If you know French and/or the book/movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about, and why it probably wasn’t a good idea to cite that book the very first time I opened my mouth to the class. Of course afterwards I realized I’ve read like three books since that one.

So far I like the professor. She’s very knowledgeable in both the traditional library sense, as well as technology-wise. She didn’t hand out any syllabi or copies of her presentation. Instead she pointed as to a website she made, where we can download everything.

The old bat had a very hard time grasping this concept. “You mean I can get all of this out of a computer?” Then she thought it was just the computer in the classroom, till the professor very patiently explained that you see, there’s this thing called the Internet?

Yikes.

Knowledge Organization is on Thursday.

As for the weekend, it was good. Saturday was my orientation/registration, which was fine. I was a bit nervous because I had turned in my immunization papers so late, but my account was clear.

Afterwards I met up with MB. He needed something for his guitar while I wanted to check out a different size for a fancy schmancy dress I bought for the fancy schmancy dinner we were having that night, which was sort of part of his annual bonus.

The dinner was very nice. It was fun to get all dressed up, though MB did get mistaken for a waiter, and the food was very good, especially the dessert, a chocolate souffle with three kinds of gelato. But P*ong was actually better overall. More unusual bang for the buck.

Sunday we had lunch with SB and Ellie. Ellie was very well-behaved. No tantrums in the diner. I think this was partly cuz MB was giving her lots of attention, helping her play with this puzzle she had brought along.

Over the weekend, we also rented a couple of movies, Casshern and The Host. Casshern was gorgeous to look at though extremely trippy, even more so since I was half asleep. The Host was very good, both funnier and more serious than I expected.

Our team meeting was canceled today! Woohoo! Now I have just two meetings, which should be relatively painless.

So I do feel better about work since learning about my promotion. Maybe I didn’t realize how not getting credit for the work I’ve already been doing has been getting me down. I was the most junior person on the team, and sort of felt like I was in a support role, which I don’t mind and kind of like actually, but there’s something to be said about feeling equal to everyone else.

I think I wrote about how I applied for a position below me. The salary would have been just a littler less, and almost the same with overtime. I didn’t think they’d contact me but they did. Oops. I’ll have to tell them there’s been a change. Now that the salary difference is more – and like I said, I’m finally getting the acknowledgement for my work – I don’t want to step down to a lower position.

Have had some late nights. MB is a total nightowl and I have picked up on his habits. Last night we rented Ratatouille. It was really good! And actually made me hungry, though we were both sorta grossed out by the idea of rats making dinner.

I have school orientation tomorrow. Only then will I know when my classes are. I can’t believe they don’t have the schedules online. And this is the school of library and information sciences? Hmmm.

. . .they suck me back in!

Only I could interpret good news as bad: I just found out I got a promotion. It’s long-awaited. I’ve been doing the job of that position for at least a year now. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m not super excited. Plus with a promotion comes more pressure and even higher expectations.

But do they really? I know where I want to go, and that’s out of here when I’m finished with school. I don’t think the money will even be incentive enough to stay longer than I need to.

As for the weekend, MB and I saw There Will Be Blood. It was excellent – the story, the music, the actors, though at times Daniel Day-Lewis threatens to become a charicature of himself. Unfortunately we got there late and so had to sit in the front row. Neck strain!

What the heck else did we do? Oh yeah, we rented a bunch of Dextor DVDs and have been watching those like crazy. It’s a great show though we’re a little burned out by this point.

Now do I feel anymore motivated at work because of the promotion? Just barely.