I need a vocation!

As I've been pondering the big "what am I doing with my life" question, I keep coming back to this post on the Annoyed Librarian blog about the difference between a job and a vocation. Basically:

A job is just a piece of labor. It's something you do, either for pay or for free, but just because it needs to get done. A vocation is something else. Vocation derives from the Latin for a "summons" or a "call." A vocation is something you've been called to do, and it's of larger significance than just a job. This is why priests are called to a vocation, not a job. The vulgarians who changed "job training" into "vocational training" were just part of the silly trend to make things sound grander by adding syllables.

You don't do a job for the sake of doing the job. You do it either because it really needs to get done (e.g., unclogging a toilet), or because you're getting paid for it (e.g. discharging returned library books). But a vocation is different. A vocation is done for its own sake and for the enjoyment of it. If you derive a lot of pleasure from your job, or if you do things in your job you'd be doing anyway, or if you would miss it if you suddenly became financially independent and didn't have to work anymore, then your job shows signs of being a vocation for you.

My current jobs are just jobs. Not that I really expected them to be much more, considering that they're part-time and not particularly challenging. But the idea was that they'd be my entree into the library world, and hopefully to a career that I loved enough to consider it a vocation. So far, though, I'm still waiting to have one of those "this is exactly where I belong" moments. But does that mean that I'm in the wrong field, or just that being a part-time public library assistant isn't exactly what I'm looking for? That's the part I wish I could figure out.

As far as academic librarianship, my internship is my only real experience thus far, and I don't think it was enough to really draw any major conclusions. There were some days when I thought, "hey, this is really cool," but I didn't do a whole lot that could be compared to a regular librarian's job. That's why I approach the job postings with so much apprehension: If I were hired for any of them, would I like what I was doing? Would I be any good at it?

Obviously I'm not that old, but the fact that at 28 I'm already on my second career and have had 6 jobs in the 7 years since I graduated from college the first time is making me feel like I need to find something that I'll stick to. I'd really like a stable job for the foreseeable future. But precisely because I'm not that old, I feel like it needs to be something I'm really passionate about and committed to, because I really don't want to be tied to a career that I hate.

Am I radically overthinking this? The first time around, I don't think I went into the job search with so much trepidation--it was all desperation, baby. Now I'm desperate AND anxious.

That far-away, bad-hours, part-time job I interviewed for? They e-mailed me the following Monday and said they'd hired someone else. Then on Thursday they called and asked if I was "still interested in being considered for the position." I'm honestly not sure if that was a job offer or not. I was so annoyed that I just said no, I wasn't. I've applied for four full-time jobs with deadlines in the next week or two, so we'll see what happens next.

Another thing to keep me from working

FiveChapters.com is the home of the most exciting original fiction on the web. A five-part story will be published every week, serial-style, beginning on Monday and with a new installment every weekday.

I should have been more sarcastic in my cover letter

After reading this, I feel even more strongly that the University of Chicago Press is my rightful home. Their manuscript editors (a position I was not-interviewed-for for several times) staff a Q & A for Chicago Manual of Style Online questions, and sarcasm apparently is not only allowed but applauded:

Q: When I began learning English grammar from the nuns in 1951, I was taught never to use a comma either before or after independent clauses or compound sentences. Did the rules of English grammar and punctuation change while I was in that three week coma in 1965, or in the years it took to regain my basic and intellectual functioning before I returned to teaching?

A: I'm sorry I can't account for your state of mind, but standard punctuation calls for a comma before a conjunction that joins two independent clauses unless the clauses are very short. I would go further and suggest that it's a good idea to examine any rule you were taught that includes the word "never" or "always."

If I could have talked like this at Evil Job (to my coworkers; that was the real problem), I might still be working in publishing.

(Link via GapersBlock.)

First Lines

I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time on this site:

We have collected here the first lines of books we hope you will recognize as old acquaintances. Your challenge is to name the book given the first line. The books are divided into categories which may help you identify them.

Belated Valentine for NPR

I'm a relatively recent convert to NPR, but in the last year or so I've embraced it wholeheartedly. (Except for A Prairie Home Companion [what the hell is up with that show?], but that's another story.) Some days, listening to the radio on the way to or from work is the only bright spot.

This morning, I was driving back to my reference job and the site of last night's vomit-fest and feeling pretty sorry for myself. Right before I got to work, Morning Edition had a segment on layoffs at Hershey, which apparently is aggressively downsizing. It was all pretty straightforward until Steve Inskeep got to the part about the company wanting to be "a leaner candy company."

At which point, with barely a pause, he said, "A leaner candy company ... apparently they also laid off their sense of irony." And then went on with the business news.

And suddenly my mood improved tenfold.

College students don't puke in the library, right?

In the midst of all this questioning about what I should be doing with my life and where in the library world I belong, I worked an evening shift at my public library reference job. A roving group of high school students annoyed the hell out of us for the first half of the evening before one came over to report that her friend had vomited all over the young adult department. And down the stairs. And all over the bathroom (inside and outside). And then would not leave, but periodically hung out in the lobby area when he wasn't in the bathroom loudly vomiting.

Ah, public service.

I knew people in college who threw up in bars, and in the dorms, and on the sidewalks downtown. But no one I can think of ever threw up in the library. So that's a point in favor of academia.

Wait--what was I thinking?

Today is the one-year anniversary of my abrupt departure from the publishing world. In a lot of ways, it feels like much longer than a year. Having two part-time jobs (and finishing school and doing the internship) seemed like a good idea and probably salvaged my mental health, but now I would really like one full-time job and a vacation, thank you very much.

On Monday, probably in part because I had worked the entire weekend and in part because of an elderly man who was both hard of hearing and trying to find a specific episode of Walker Texas Ranger, without any information other than a very basic plot summary, I had a momentary epiphany along the lines of "I cannot work with the public. I do not belong in this profession. I have just wasted two years and a lot of money." After a few days of reflection and couple of hours off here and there, I've backed off slightly, but I'm still concerned. What if the last two years were just another in a long line of spectacularly bad career moves?

Yesterday I had an interview at a university 36 miles west of my house, for a part-time job whose hours are 5:30-10:30 p.m. I think even the interviewers wondered what the hell I was thinking. It was kind of a strange conversation anyway; I think if they do offer me the job, it'll be because one of the interviewers semi-remembered me from my book-shelving days at the hometown library. That was kind of fun, but I don't think it'd make the hours or commute worthwhile, especially on days like this past Tuesday, when we got a foot of snow and all travel was essentially halted.

There have been a couple of recent job postings for full-time librarians at Chicago universities, so it's possible that one of those will work out, but I'm starting to wonder if I should reassess my career goals. I haven't applied for anything in the public library sector because I just don't think it's for me, but now I'm looking at museums, nonprofits, stuff like that. The problem there being that usually there's only one or two people in those libraries, and not a ton of turnover. But who ever said I was practical?

There's always publishing again, but now I'd have to explain what I was doing for the past year, and God knows I can't turn to my most recent employer for a reference, since I'm guessing my picture is pinned to a dartboard in my former supervisor's office.

Maybe I should have a baby. That'd kill some time.

"They don't make 'em extra"

Kinky Friedman memorializes Molly Ivins. (Link via Bookslut.)