I was filling out the profile form at WorldCat the other day when I had a moment:
Check out what it says next to “My Occupation”. After three and a half years (the amount of time passed since I got my degree) it feels so good to finally call myself a librarian and mean it.
As some of you might know, I left my last position back in September. The reasons are many, but it boils down to three very simple things:
- I was a poor fit for their organizational culture;
- I don’t feel they lived up to my core values and beliefs;
- Crying tears of frustration every night gets old fast.
Walking away from a position is almost never a good thing to do, but I did it and it’s over now. I wouldn’t recommend it except under the most extreme circumstances, and believe me when I say I felt like I was under some pretty extreme circumstances. If I had it to do over again, I might not have walked out so hastily, but I know I would have walked away eventually. I simply couldn’t continue.
Since leaving, I did a lot of thinking about the kind of life I wanted to lead, and how I should measure quality of life by more than my bank balance. I came up with that list of values and beliefs and since then, I’ve been looking for positions that I felt were more in line with my temperament, and for ones in supportive environments that valued creativity and personal interaction. I’d had enough of feeling like I had to piss on my own patch of ground to guard my territory, and I’d had enough of having slings and arrows thrown at me when I crossed over into other people’s territory.
The last few months were dispiriting, to say the least. The ratio of resumes submitted to interviews received was dismal, but things started to look up for me in the last few weeks. I made the cut for a final round of interviews for a very prestigious position with an influential organization, and I also made the shortlist for a part-time librarian position at Vancouver Public Library. While the first position was wonderful, and while I know I was capable of handling those duties, the prospect of making an international move and being separated from R. for up to six months wasn’t very attractive. To be frank, I wasn’t sure if our marriage would survive the separation. But that isn’t why I ultimately decided to stay in Vancouver.
The Vancouver Public Library was a lifeline for me when I first moved to town. I signed up for a library card as soon as I was eligible, and then there’s the not so small matter of the two years I spent in pursuit of a library science degree. Libraries have always loomed large in my personal legend, and I’m committed to their mission of service, open access, intellectual freedom and support for people from all walks of life. I was sidetracked, blinded by the shiny dollars that corporations dangled in my face (and I won’t lie, those dollars were pretty), but I never stopped calling myself a librarian, even when my professional titles didn’t reflect my librarian roots.
I firmly believe that when you want something to come true, you need to verbalize it. You not only need to say it to others, but you need to say it to yourself and mean it. I sat across the table from one of my former colleagues on my last day of work, and she asked me what I was planning to do next. I told her that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work in user-centered design anymore, and as soon as those words left my lips, I felt free. I panicked, but it was the kind of panic that gives people that burst of adrenalin that makes it possible to lift a car off a child trapped beneath it. I had cars, boulders, ten-ton trucks to lift and I needed to drag myself out from under them. I feel confident that I’ve made the right choice.
The position may or may not turn into a full-time position; I’m hopeful it will, but even if it doesn’t, I’m grateful that the hiring committee thought enough of me to give me a chance to start over (yet) again. Now, when people ask me what I do for a living, I don’t have to come up with an “elevator pitch”, I can simply say “I’m a librarian” — and this time, I’ll have the job title to prove it.
