Day Job Interview: Robert

I apparently missed this great Day Job Interview among the deluge of spam. This is the seventh installment in the Day Job Interview Series.

Robert, Cataloging Librarian

1. Where do you work, and what do you do?

I work in front of a computer at a desk (lacking cubicle walls) in an office in a library in a large, land-grant, public university. I am a cataloger, which means I create records that go into the catalog which facilitate subject, name, keyword searching and ultimately access of library resources in both physical and digital formats.

2. How long have you worked there?

Counting my tour of duty as a graduate student, eight years.

3. Does your job require regular hours? If so, what are they?

The usual 9-5ish business hours.

4. Do you like what you do? Do you respect it?

I love the theoretical core of my job – helping those that seek information find it as easily as possible. It gives me a great feeling that people are finding and experiencing new ideas because of my work. I am playing but a small role in the learning/researching process, but yes, I do respect that.

5. What’s the best part of your job?

The odd hours when I can actually perform my job duties. It is relatively low stress/low pressure compared to most private industry jobs. I enjoy helping select new purchases of library materials, which the official selector kindly permits. It has great health insurance and a great retirement plan.

6. What’s the worst part of your job?

I didn’t see a minimum word restriction, so here goes.

To any bookworm who thinks that working in a library and/or on a university campus would be their dream job – it is not. It is just like any other office job – rife with political shenanigans, organizational doublespeak and double standards, the latest management fads, sycophants, snobs, incompetents, sadists, masochists, freaks, and all the usual suspects that make all offices tick. On academic campuses, most librarians are (or are becoming) full-fledged faculty, with all the baggage that goes along with it. We are pressured to produce something that resembles scholarship – which is exactly why many academic librarians did NOT go on to be professors. Oh, yes of course – the solution to all problems vexing humanity can be solved by committees – lots and lots of committees. If you are still having problems then you simply need to form more committees. And who populates these committees? Why – you of course! The result – spending more of your time doing extraneous bullshit than you spend actually doing your job, which ultimately is a great disservice to library users. And what do these committees focus on? Navel gazing nonsense that has nothing to do with providing better service to our customers.

[takes a deep breath, then a deep drink]

Librarians have a collective inferiority complex based upon the stereotypical librarian as a scowling, ill-tempered old maid who lives to admonish people to “SHHHH!” When the internet and databases became mainstream, “Information” suddenly got capitalized and became sexy. Information professionals cropped up everywhere! Their work was very similar to traditional library work, but they were paid much better than those stuffy librarians – which caused the library world to throw a collective hissy fit. Library schools across this country rushed to excise the vile L-word from their name and become school of Information Science. The traditional emphasis on serving the information needs of people was jettisoned outright; technology become the only means instead of one of many means to an end. Deans and professors (most of whom have never worked a single day in a real world library) proudly proclaimed that many of their graduates did not go on to be librarians, implying that those who did were lackluster wieners. People already working as librarians scrambled to showcase their work with digital objects, usually neglecting traditional library materials and services. Librarians have assumed the role of Travis Bickle pleading pathetically with the pimp in Taxi Driver, “We’re hip!” Brother, we don’t look hip, but looking hip is not the point. If we Librarians spent more time honing the services we provide than obsessing over how others perceive us, we’d all be much better off.

7. Do you consider your job a career, or is it something you do to make money to subsidize other pursuits (or to bide your time until you can get your career job)? If not, what do you want to be when you grow up?

It is a career, for better or worse, but I work to live, not vice versa.

8. Caffeine: preferred source/amount per day?

Coffee (occasionally tea) – two cups in the morning. One more in the afternoon as needed.

9. Describe the type of people you work with. Are they similar to you (age, interests, etc.) or very different from you?

Most of my “professional” (Librarians with a capital L who hold Master’s degrees in Library and/or Information Science) colleagues are highly intelligent, overly educated, and multi-lingual. We are mostly politically liberal, but there are some closeted conservatives as well. Most librarians arrived at getting their Masters of Library Science after majoring in something unemployable (English, History, etc.); thus we are a profession of compromise. We tend to be a socially awkward, poorly dressed, and severely underpaid lot. There is a divide between the “professional, and the “non-professional” “technicians” or “support staff” – the non-Master’s-degree folk. These poor guys are paid so badly that it is challenging to recruit and retain talented people. They are also the people who perform most of the real work that goes on in libraries, since Librarians spend most of their time in committee meetings, or doing the pre-work for committee meetings, or recovering from committee meetings.

10. Do you have people at work with whom you hang out socially, or do you keep work/personal life separate?

I try to pick my coworkers that I socialize with very carefully, and I try to keep the two worlds separate for the most part. But I do have a few coworkers that have become genuine friends. You have to have your happy hour regulars, don’t you?

11. What do you do to goof off?

Play email chess and Scrabble with my friends.

12. Open-ended question. Describe a funny moment at your job, something that illustrates what it’s like to work there (or is simply amusing).

I have a low tolerance for bullshit, and I am known as the one who tells it like it is and asks the hard questions. However, I feel that I manage to do this in a civil, non-abrasive way. I was talking to my boss’s, boss’s boss a few weeks ago, and she said to me, “You can be diplomatic.” I thanked her, but then she said, “No [dramatic pause], I said you can be diplomatic.” Perhaps I’m not as smooth as I think.

Rob is a meat-eating heterosexual male humanoid who is happily married to a wonderful woman. He comes from a Southern working class background, and is profoundly grateful for that.