Today I spoke with the man who used to hold my position at the library. I asked him about not having enough work to do. I frequently don't have enough to do and my boss is on sabbatical and I don't necessarily want to bother him with that. I take care of the things that pop up that he normally does and I have created my own projects but there is a limit to my position. He told me in the several years he had the position he often worked on his own things or read the news, or did other things. I am relieved. AK (my boss) is not a hands on guy and also is happy with very little. But it is hard for me to come to terms with just needing to be a body in the office. The main thing I am doing now is maintaining the website and creating resource lists-which is discouraging to do when you know they aren't going to be utilized.

I am getting to the point where I need to put notice in at the public library. I am 90% sure I won't be grading the state's standardized tests. The days just don't make sense for my schedule (I can't do it on weekends and have to get 30 hours in each week, but I work M-F). So I will stay at the public library until the end of April and hope for the best paycheck wise. I am concerned about the loss of income.

I have spent $1.25 since Sunday, so that is pretty awesome. I didn't bring enough food yesterday and since it's spring break none of the eateries are open in the university library. So I did something I've never done in my life. I used my credit card to buy something from a vending machine (I never carry cash because it all ends up in vending machines). I don't know if the pop-tarts were worth it, but I desperately needed something as a bad headache was approaching.

There's a position in a town about 1.5 hours away that looks interesting to me. I am thinking about applying. Someone I went to school with works at that library so I am going to contact her before I make a decision. The town is super near to my partner's mom and grandmom, but I think I would get my own apartment. I couldn't live with granny, but I would be open to seeing them way more often than I currently do. Not that they really want to see me-it's the kid they want. If I got this position I would use it as a stepping stone to a better position NOT in that town because I absolutely don't want to live there and partner told me even though he loves me he would break up with me if I wanted to live there permanently.

Lastly, I posted a pretty saucy (though well thought out) comment on a blog post on the public library's intranet. Background: we're going through a restructuring and coming up on the year anniversary of implementation. Everyone (staff, patrons) is upset about something that has changed. I stated that our new philosophy devalues having a personal relationship with the library and why that's bad for our patrons and why that's bad for our staff. But then I offered a possible solution that combines both the need of the library to be flexible (one aspect of the restructuring that has staff upset) with the ability to provide personal relationships. I feel like my comment was calm, thought out, identified a problem but also offered a solution. What's the worst they can do? Fire me? I already have a full time job. Also they never fire anyone. The worst they can say is that I am passionate about our patron's experience, but that maybe I am no longer a good fit with our culture. And that is absolutely accurate. So far I have gotten very good feedback from the staff. We'll see if I hear anything from management...