library

library / work — 2 Comments
16
May 08

First day, last day

Wednesday was the first day of my web design class. It was supposed to be Monday, but the teacher had a prior commitment he couldn’t get out of.

I went to the assigned room and no one was there, which was weird because MLS students seem to like to get to places early. I was starting to think I was the only one who signed up and that the class was canceled. But then I checked the teacher’s email again, and saw that it was in a different room that night. Dehr.

There were actually a lot of people signed up, more than 20, and as always there was a know-it-all dumbass. Like when the teacher was showing us how to do a hyperlink, she kept chiming in, “Now you underline it.” No, idiot, as a link it’s automatically underlined. She said it twice! But the teacher was very patient about it.

At first I thought he was a freak. He’s huge with a beard down to here, and lectured in this big booming voice and kept punctuating everything he said with, “Mm-okay?” exactly like that South Park character. But when he wasn’t in lecture mode and was just talking, he was normal, smart, and funny. And patient, which is good.

I thought I knew some basic HTML, but I really don’t. He had us do a survey to assess how much we knew, and I don’t know jack. All I know are how to do links.

I already feel like I’ve learned. For instance I didn’t know there was something called XHTML, a sort of evolvement of HTML 4.1 (though MB says that people don’t really use XHTML but HTML 5.0). And before I didn’t understand the color codes. And I didn’t know that a tool like Dreamweaver makes it pretty easy to design a web page (if that page is any good or not is another story). I’m used to inputting my paltry code by hand.

Yesterday was my last day at my old job. Yippee! Of course I had left a bunch of stuff to the last minute, but I was able to finish most of it pretty quickly (amazing how much time is freed up when you’re not surfing the web). An operational “cheat sheet” for my coworkers, status on a project for another coworker, an overall status report for my old boss, uploading some documents onto our team’s Sharepoint.

Then there was cleaning out my office. There was tons of stuff I didn’t need. Some could be thrown out, and some I lugged over to a common file cabinet down the hall.

Still, I was at the office till almost 8 o’clock. I probably could have finished everything sooner, but my new boss wanted to meet up in the afternoon, which was cool. He seems pretty easy-going so far, saying that if I wasn’t free, we could just meet on Tuesday as we had planned. But since I was going to be in on Monday and he wasn’t, it would be good just to touch base before Tuesday.

That took a good 90 minutes, from 3:30 to 5. He gave me a detailed overview of the organization, which is HUGE, a run down of his projects and where I’d be involved, and preview of some of the things he’s thinking about having me do. (He had an actual list, as opposed to fluffy, flighty, unattainable ideas which was all my old boss had.)

That part of the business is so different from my part, which is all unicorns and leprechauns, ie, not real. That part is how much equipment should we order this quarter, and what contracts are in place for what vendors, and how much money can we save. In marketing sometimes I felt like it was how much money can we spend on the most bullshitty project.

I guess there’s a little contention between that department and marketing. When my new boss was introducing me around, someone asked where I had come from. I told him marketing, and my boss said, “But we accepted her anyway.” I thought it was pretty funny.

And it turns out there are two people in the department whom I worked closely with in the past. In fact I sit right next door to one of them now. Crazy!

Today I have off since my office is being moved. It’s so rainy out, it’ll be hard to get motivated to do anything rather than lounge around.

My final is over, yay!

It took me the entire class time, which I wasn’t expecting since I had finished the midterm early, but suddenly it was the last 10 minutes, and I looked up surprised to see that 2/3’s of the room was empty.

I was able to answer some questions very fully, like the significance of FRBR, and the advantages and disadvantages of Dewey Decimal vs Library of Congress classification. These were two areas I felt shaky in, and so studied like crazy.

I feel like the teacher didn’t do a good job teaching these concepts. When comparing the two classification systems, for instance, she was very vague. I didn’t even know for instance that mostly academic and government libraries use LC while public and school libraries use Dewey, till I did my own research online. I didn’t know that LC subclasses are completely inconsistent since they’re developed by experts in each class, rather than across classes.

Of course there were a few questions I felt like I was bullshitting, or didn’t have much to say about it. Oh well. At least it’s over. My summer session starts right away on Monday. Web design.

My cold seems to have completely evaporated. Very strange. A few days of a sore throat, one day of a runny nose, and gone. Not bad. MB had it much worse.

Yesterday I was finally able to get my passport photos. First I went to CVS but they were a hot mess. The girl couldn’t even tell me how long it would take.

Me: “Will it be a few minutes? Shoud I wait?”
Her: “Ummm, uhhh. No, I wouldn’t wait.”
Me: “Okay, I can come back. When? In an hour?”
Her: “Ummm, uhhh.”
Me: “At the end of the day? Five? Six?”
Her: “Ummm, uhhh. Can you come later?”
Me: “I’ll just come back tomorrow.”

I felt like I was at an auction. Do I hear five minutes? How about 10? An hour? Sheesh.

So I returned the next day, which was yesterday. Chaos! At least three other customers appeared to be unhappy/irate. My turn came and asked for my photos. The same girl looked through a couple of different envelopes. Nothing.

“Who took your picture?” she asked.

“Uh, I think you did,” I said.

Then she disappeared in the back, and was fiddling with a camera. Fiddle, filddle. I saw her take the battery out and put it back in.

“So are they ready?” I asked.

“Umm, uhhh.”

I had a feeling she hadn’t even downloaded them from the camera. Luckily I hadn’t paid a penny. “Forget it,” I said. “I’ll get them somewhere else.”

And get them somewhere else I did, from this little hole in the wall down the street. Took five minutes. Now all I have to do is send my stuff in and I’ll have a valid passport. Yay!

This afternoon my coworkers are taking me and my other colleague who’s leaving out for drinks. That’s very nice of them, but I wish I could use the time to work out instead. Then again, I could have gotten myself up early and gone to the gym then. Oh well. At least I got three workouts in this week.

Our dresser arrives today! Now I can organize my clothes better and free up some closet space.

Glad it’s the weekend and with no homework to do. :)

library / moving / tcob / work — Comments Off
29
Apr 08

Yay, one class down!

So last night I handed in my term paper and gave my presentation. We had the option of yesterday or next Monday to present (all papers were still due yesterday), so of course I went with yesterday to get it overwith.

I guess my presentation was fine, though my argument was probably a little flimsy at the end. And I was totally under the 10 minute mark. I was coming to a close when I suddenly realized the professor hadn’t given me even the 2 minute warning, and so I slowed waaay down. Came in at about 8 minutes.

Now I have some free time till my final for Knowledge Organization on 5/8.

As for right now, I am totally skipping a meeting. My boss has the tendency to set up meetings with vague titles and no agenda. It’s like if this has no immediate bearing on my job, I’m not going. We also have a team meeting soon. Blah. What I hate most is my boss’s “around the horn,” during which he makes everyone talk about their projects. For me it’s always like, “Well I redesigned this page on our website, and I got some stuff through review committee.”

In team meetings with my old boss, if you had something you thought everyone should know, you put it on the agenda. You didn’t waste everyone’s time talking just because you’re expected to talk.

Speaking of my old boss, I ran into him at the cafeteria. He’s really happy for me in my new job, and went on about how my current boss is “delusional.” He heard that my old boss is posting for positions one to two levels higher than mine, which I’d seen on the job boards. Again, someone at that level is not going to want to do the nitty gritty stuff associated with my job, and again, my boss has refused to listen. Even my old boss agreed the team needs not just one but two operational people. Glad someone agrees with me.

In other news, I got my renewed driver’s license in the mail today. Yay! When I sent in the request, I sort of felt like I was sending it into a black hole. But just two weeks later, I have a brand new license. Now I just need to renew my passport.

Also canceled my Con Ed account, and put in a forwarding address request on Friday. TCOB!

Today will be my last day in old apartment. I’m going there after work to throw out the last batch of stuff, and take with me a few random things, including my cable box. Hopefully it won’t take too long.

library / sleep / weekends — Comments Off
28
Apr 08

Very sleepy

For some reason I couldn’t sleep last night. MB and I were out late – we saw Harold and Kuamr Escape from Guantamono Bay, very entertaining – and didn’t get back till almost 2. Then I just lay there till almost 5. I think it was all the Hi-C I drank at the movie theatre. All that sugar.

Aside from the movie, I spent most of the weekend working on my term paper and accompanying presentation. Friday I typed up my research notes and ideas. Saturday I was at my parents’ house. We spent the afternoon shopping – got some new shoes – but that night I wrote the majority of my paper, finishing it up Sunday morning before heading back to New York.

Sunday afternoon I created the presentation, and today I polished off the paper and rehearsed my presentation once. Should be okay. Presenting to my classmates is very different than presenting to 500 sales people.

library / moving / work — Comments Off
24
Apr 08

Trucking along

My move, my current job, the spring semester – funny how all of these things are wrapping up at the same time.

First, the move
The woman moving into my apartment took a look at my furniture on Tuesday, and she’s taking most of it. The couch, the TV and stand, a chair, a dresser, and a large desk I keep in the kitchen. Yay! Getting rid of the couch and TV would have been such a pain.

I need to get rid of: the coffee table, two boxes of books, one box of kitchen stuff, two vases, and a broken down shoe cabinet, which I’ll have to take apart. Since I have half-day tomorrow, I’m going to spend all afternoon taking care of this stuff.

It just hit me yesterday that I only have till next Wednesday to finish everything up. I still have to:

Change my address, though the woman said she’d let me know if anything important slipped through, and I’ll go pick it up.

Cancel my cable, which means undoing all the equipment and dropping it off at my cable company, which, luckily, is close to work.

Cancel my Con Ed.

Crap!

Funny how those last few things can sneak up on you like that.

The job
You think I didn’t care before? I so don’t care now.

I had a transition meeting with my boss on Monday, and now I know: he will be super annoying till the bitter end. A lot of what I do, like I’ve said before, is very operational. For example, uploading documents to a website, making sure we have enough materials for our educational programs, and dealing with issues that are small but can still keep a program from running properly.

My boss has it in his mind that the director of operations in sales will be willing to handle these small, tactical things.

A director. This means she’s three levels above me.

She did volunteer to own the website, which she’s been wanting to get her hands on for some time. But I know her: she wants it so that she can make all the business decisions on how it’s designed, what information is on it, etc. She won’t want to sit there uploading frigging PDFs and implementing HTML. I don’t think she even knows how.

My boss is retarded.

Also another one of my “projects,” which isn’t really a project, hence the quotes, is purchasing these e-guidelines and licenses for this online tool. All it is is coordinating the purchase. We do the same thing every year. But does he have an easy answer for how to proceed?

“Well, I think we should have a meeting with this person, and this person, and this person, and this person, and discuss how it’s being used, and determine how we should use it, and what’s the best way, and – “

“Do I need to be involved in this?”

I don’t, thank God. My boss said he’ll be, quote, a nice guy, and take it over himself.

If I ever I’m in a leadership position, what I’ll do is surround myself with highly competent people I trust, and you know, TRUST THEM, and let them do the work. I do this now. I have a budget coordinator I’d trust with my life, as well as someone in operations. They are awesome and I let them run the show. My boss’ philosophy is to get into nitty gritty details, and to know as much as those people. Well, then what about my own job?

Retard.

Oh, did I say that already? My bad.

School
So my first semester is coming to a close. This Monday I have a term paper and presentation due, and I’ve only started the research. I think after midterm I felt sort of pooped out, and have been slacking. But at least I know what I want to write about, and have just a few more articles to read.

Tonight I have to schlep out to Brooklyn for class. It’ll take me an hour to get there, dammit.

The final for that class is on May 8. It was supposed to be on May 2, but the teacher will be at some conference. That’s okay. That means that after I turn in my term paper and give my presentation on 4/28, I’ll have some free time before May 8. Then first summer session starts the next week.

Okay, back to work.

library / moving / rant and/or rave / tcob / work — Comments Off
04
Apr 08

TCOB

Place Craig’s List ad to sell furniture – check!

Send thank you card and small gift (a box of Neuhaus chocolates) to the very nice librarians at my site visit – check!

Go crazy with interviews – check and check and check!

Library School
My school has the worst student registration site. What we had to do was fill in this “worksheet,” email our advisor – which turned out to be just the office assistant so who knows if she actually checked anything – wait for his/her approval, THEN register for classes.

Also there are separate searches for classes and sections. Like you could pick a class for summer session 1, only to find out it’s not available during that term. Good usability. PLUS on top of everything the whole system was down at peak registration time.

Luckily one of my classmates told me about her whole experience so I knew what to do. I will be taking:

Summer 1: Web design. Wanted to take Digital Libraries but no one else signed up for it so it was canceled.

Summer 2: Electronic Collections and Services.

Fall: Information Technologies & Information Sources and Services.

The summer classes are compressed so instead of just one day a week for two and a half hours, they are two days a week, three hours at a time. Pretty intense. But I have all of August off, yay!

Work
This week I had a total of five interviews, two for that communications manager position, two for digital marketing, and one for a new position, project manager in compliance.

Both for communications manager went well; I am crossing all of my fingers and toes.

The first one for digital marketing was stupid. The guy just went on and on and on about the position and the website that I’d be managing, and then proceeded to tell me all about his own background. I talked for maybe two seconds.

But the second one, which I had this morning, went well I think. The woman and I got along and had an interesting conversation, and she said a few “very goods.” She also made the position sound more appealing than I thought it was from my first interview.

The one for the compliance project manager position was yesterday, and went well too I think, similar to the first one had for communications manager. When they scheduled it with me, the assistant called and said, “This is Whomever from Corporate Compliance,” and I thought, What did I do?

I’m glad to have all the interviews, but I want to KNOW NOW if I got any of those jobs. I had an extremely annoying meeting with my boss (and others) yesterday, and I just sat there silently. I really don’t care to fight the fight anymore; all of this bores the shit out of me. And my boss continues to micromanage and be paranoid.

I don’t know if the possibility of getting another job makes me feel better or worse about my situation. I think better in general: when I imagine a new position with the people I’ve met with, I get very happy. But in contrast my current stuff seems even worse.

Furniture Craziness
People are so annoying. Most are reasonable – can I see a picture of that chair? – but some are just unbelievable. For instance, regarding a time for a pick up:

Her: How about after work on Friday?
Me: Okay, how’s between 5:30 and 6?
Her: Okay so I’ll be there at 5:15 tonight.

Also,

Her: Actually do you think you could bring the tables to my workplace?
Me (What are you smoking?): No.

Supposedly this person is coming tonight at 5:30. We’ll see.

What a packed day yesterday

Between finishing up my paper and preparing for my presentation, having that second round interview, giving my presentation, and rushing out to go to YP’s comedy show, I was definitely pooped by the end of the evening.

I think my presentation was fine. It’s amazing how quickly five minutes pass. The professor gave us 2 and 1 minutes warnings, and I was very surprised when she held up the “2” when I was only 1/3 of the way through. After that I was talking a mile a minute.

Since I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the library I visited, I included some random illustrations I had found, which people seemed to find amusing.

By the time I got to YP’s show I was hungry so MB and I ordered some fried mozzarella concoction and buffalo wings. Edible but so bad for us. I don’t know if it was something in the chicken wing sauce or the stress from the day, but I had such a gigantic headache by the end of the evening. Only after downing two Advils, taking a little walk, and drinking a ton of water and tea, it went away.

A funny thing: who do I see at the show but one of my classmates? He was there to see one of his friends perform. Weird!

Now today I need to take care a couple of other things, namely registering for summer and fall classes, and putting my furniture for sale on Craig’s list.

Got some interviews for another position, this one with digital marketing. While I had just 3 for the communications manager one, including both first and second rounds, for first round for digital marketing, I have four! Crazy. Might be a good idea to get out of marketing once and for all.

library / work — 1 Comment
31
Mar 08

Closer to outtie?

I just had my second round interview for that communications manager position, and I think it went well and that I’m closer to actually getting it. The woman said that the guy I first interviewed with had lots of good things to say about me, and that my meeting with her, his boss, was just to ensure that our personalities gibed, which I think they did. Tomorrow I have an interview with HR, which is cursory.

MB and I didn’t see Horton Hears a Who! this weekend, but we did see a midnight showing of A Boy and His Dog. Have any of you heard of this movie? It’s a cult science fiction movie from the ’70s but I had never heard of it. Basically a very young Don Johnson (yes, that Don Johnson) and his telepathic dog (yes, telepahtic. dog.) scavenge a post-apocalytic world for food and sex. It was weird, disturbing, and entertaining all at once.

One of the previews for Alien, which I’m totally seeing if they show it at that theatre. Next weekend is the Muppet Movie.

Yesterday I did my paper and presentation for my library site visit. It took a long time! Tonight is the presentation. You know how I feel about that, though of course I’m not nearly as nervous as for work. It’s mostly talking off the top of my head in an organized way. The only thing I’m worried about is that we have just 5 minutes, and earlier when I rehearsed I was at 8 minutes, and not even for all my slides. Guess I’ll see what happens.

The person who had signed for my apartment for May 1 backed out so now the search begins again. Dammit! I don’t care that much, but the brokers are pretty annoying.

library / running / travel — 4 Comments
06
Mar 08

Feeling better

Helped that I ran five miles yesterday, and have been trying to lay off the junk. For instance I could have had gelato for dessert last night, but I went with the sorbet instead.

I think I’m ready for my midterm tonight. I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday studying. Then on Monday I have a short paper due, which I should be able to crank out pretty quickly.

Another one of our assignments – which is due at the end of the month – is to do a site visit at a library and write a paper on our observations regarding how well – or not – it’s run. My choice is the Memorial Sloan Kettering medical library. I called them yesterday and have something set up during the week I’m on spring break. On that day they’ll be giving training to some nurses on an online tutorial system. Should be interesting.

MB and I have planned our first vacation together. It’s a short one, essentially a long weekend at the tail end of my spring break, but a going-away-together all the same. We’ll be heading down to Charleston, South Carolina. It’s just a two hour flight, and MB has been there before and said it’s a nice, pretty town to spend a weekend in. Hopefully it will be somewhat warmer than here!

I want to check out the places that Rachel Ray visited on one of her $40 a Day episodes. Not that I’m such a huge fan of hers, but wherever she goes on that show seems good.

library / rant and/or rave / running / work — 1 Comment
04
Mar 08

No motivation around here

So half the team seems energized about their new positions; the other half, including me, seems to spend a lot of time milling about.

No big announcement at last night’s 5 o’clock meeting. My boss ended up calling in, and he indeed sounded very sick. I guess that was why he barely said two words when usually you can’t shut him up. Also the senior VP, my boss’ boss’ boss, kept saying, “I’ll just chime in for you, Lame Boss,” and would speak for him. Hmmm.

We didn’t get any clarity about what’s happening, but it was clear where priorities are, ie, not with my half of the team. Oh well.

I don’t really care. I’ve never been emotionally invested. But I feel even less motivation than usual to do a damned thing except look for a new job. Oh yeah, and blog.

In better news, I got an A on my Andrew Carnegie paper. Yay! I enjoyed writing it but there’s always that panic of opening to the back page and seeing a big fat D. On Thursday I have my Knowledge Organization midterm. Boo hiss!

I’m somewhat worried about it. The test will be 10 questions, 1 that’s doing a MARC record with access to the MARC codes and other online stuff. No biggie. But the other 9 questions have to do with the concepts of all the different standards and encoding and other junk that’s out there. AACR, Dublin Core, EAD, blah blah blah. The teacher was nice enough to type up her notes and put them up on the online learning system. Hopefully reviewing those will be enough.

Running42K commented that he doesn’t read about my running anymore. That’s cuz I’m lucky if I get two runs in during the week. Partly it’s because it’s winter, partly it’s school, and partly it’s hanging out with MB on the weekends. But there’s still the work gym, which I must must must get down to today.

I’ll leave you with an Overhead on the Lower East Side:

Clueless white guy: I didn’t know there was a a deragatory term for Koreans. What is it?
Stupid Korean girl with too much eye makeup: It’s gook.
Clueless white guy: Oh, I thought that was just for Guatamalens.

What? That’s so wrong on so many different levels.

I acutally didn’t hear it myself. MB did and looked at with an expression that made me spit out half my ramen.

Ah idiots.

Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.