Contemplations from a tepid shower

I could write an entire post about tepid showers, but that would be for a different blog. Actually, I thought it was more a poem. Now I'm trying to swing the lens a different way.

About seven weeks ago, I requested a transfer from my happy, beautiful branch to the modified warehouse next to the morgue in a government light-manufacturing park, aka "headquarters". I requested the transfer because even working at twenty hours with a devoted staff, branch librarianship is too much for me. Sob.

Books are heavy. They need to be touched. Heaved, pushed, placed in ordered, ferried about. I love them, but my neck, shoulder, and arm do not. Giving a program requires standing, talking, interacting, walking, ferrying more stuff about. My legs are often tired before I finish the breakfast dishes. I like doing programs.

I like library customers and their questions. Even the one that brought in a list of 24 titles this week, that required researching in the OPAC. the catalog client, the local consortium, a nearby large public library, and last but not least, ILL. Of course, I quite enjoyed the research, but not putting his info in all the different forms.

So this morning, for the first time since 1989, I considered not being a librarian. No, I can't come up with some other skill that will pay me over $20 an hour. Let alone been offered a job doing one. Some dream job where I sit at a desk and lift a phone occasionally. Which is not available in my corner of library land.

I was offered Hobson's choice on Thursday, if that's the right terminology. A) Demote to a position that doesn't exist, doing the same thing I do now at a larger, busier branch, located in a shopping center. This is an unfunded position. B) Demote to a position for which I'm not qualified, essentially web development. My web skills are very rusty. However, I spoke to the supervisor yesterday, having told myself I could learn what she needs. It's a 30-hour position she hopes to fill at the state library conference in a few weeks. She's looking for someone with a portfolio of web work, including podcasts and video casts, XTML, RSS, CSS, Unix, screencasting, Dreamweaver, CMS, webinars, Skype.

I know what all of those are, but I have no portfolio. I'd hire a recent library school graduate in a heart beat over me, if I were her.

Grumble. I have more and better 2.0 experiences than this supervisor, who I think is afraid of interactivity. I have dusty blogs, flickr, twitter, a close relationship with my daughter based on chat and Skype, still some Internet friends who drop a non-email line occasionally. I'm still a member of LITA Blogs, Wikis, and Social Software IG, aka BigWigs. Plus I know some bigwigs! Have met them face-to-face--movers and shakers. But facts are facts, I've done bupkis since I became a branch librarian.

So big f-ing what? On to the third non-option. C) Stay where I am, trying to keep the 40 lbs. of mud in a 20-lb. sack without a mudslide. Then, somehow, my boss will get another 20-hour librarian to serve as co-branch librarian. That doesn't even seem to in the realm of the possible.

Basically, the local government body for which I work has been saving money, i.e., half my salary, for the last five months. They saved almost the whole caboodle the previous four months. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how that all worked. I get the message the actual library part doesn't have the money for these theoretical 20-hour positions. I get the weird message that "reasonable accomodations" are something that I need to work out. I get that I'm supposed to be involved in discussions, but don't they get to come up with some possible solutions?