Straining for the Finish Line!

Of course it had to happen! My computer had to conk out just as my Last WorkWeek is starting.  Bleech. What's worse is that, basically, I am scared of computers and all its attendant responsibilities, including the computer guy I just called to fix my laptop.  How do I describe my problem?  That I hear weird little whirring noises while I stare at kittens on Cute Overload?  That it takes 6 hours for my computer to shut down?  That I'm even suspicious of all those creepy Adobe updates?  (Who is Adobe and what does it want?) 

So what's left?  Well, there's that dreaded Exit Interview.  The Human Resources lady said she would give me the questions ahead of time, but I haven't heard from her in 2 weeks.  I guess she's too busy with our Soon-To-be Ex Director's More Important Paperwork and Ridiculously Large Alimony.  In my next life, I will try to come back as a Library Director who still manages to negotiate for ungodly sums of *separation* money despite doing a lousy job.  It's a Good Thing.

"Will you be home with me all the time now, Mommy?"

 

                                                

The Christmas Push & Other Things

Now that I am on the Fiscal Cliff of Retirement, I should really watch the money, right?  Errrr ... no.  Christmas is only 40 days away, so I am shopping my brains off now, ONLINE, while I still have that "regular" salary.  So what's a *frugal* present?  Well, I find that new DVDs (purchased inexpensively on Ebay) fill the niche quite nicely.  They're not too cheesy and they're better than those suspicious Christmas tins filled with ancient popcorn & salt encrusted macadamias.  So, for lively family fun, I chose APOLLO 18 (monstrous alien gravel, OMG!), REAL STEEL (robots & scrumptious Hugh Jackman, nuff said) and RISE OF PLANET OF THE APES.  The oldtimers with more delicate sensibilities will get EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL or the Winona Ryder weepie LITTLE WOMEN (yes, I actually have relatives who haven't been to the cinema since 1982).  I had thought of gifting some lucky friend with the Renaissance papal potboiler THE BORGIAS, but all those heaving 15th century buttocks punctuated with cries of "But your mitre is so huge, my lord!" might give someone a heart attack.

Meanwhile, on AMAZON, I notice that my shopping cart grows ever longer, rather like those vajazzled codpieces on THE BORGIAS.  I wish someone would give me the EPSON WorkForce 845 Wireless All-In-One Color Inkjet Printer Scanner Copier Crushed Ice Dispenser/Bundt Case Mixer, but it's a bit dear ($144.75 Amazon Prime) even for a retirement prezzie.  Instead, the library will award me with one of those book-shaped acrylic plaques which honor my *service* and bedamned to you!  Heh.  I won't tell you exactly where I'm going to put the thing, but I will be able to look upon it & reflect on my glorious career while I rinse my frilly delicates.  To be fair, the nice HR lady did offer me a party, but I refused, because most *in-house* retirement parties are embarrassing to the retiree, and much of the staff just stand around, whispering like awkward teenagers.  "Who is she?" they mumble.  "I don't know, but I think I saw her last week, kicking the vending machine." 

Not long now.  Even my bus driver is getting excited.  Tick tock tick tock ...

                                               
                                               "I miss your whippings, milord ..."

Cleaning Up My Desk

I've been at my job for 28 years.  I started as a two year temp, hired to label thousands of crumbling state law books which filled an entire floor of our library building.  When the project was done, the kindly Head of Cataloging asked me to stay on as a clerk (and eventually cataloging assistant), which I did gladly because I didn't know what else to do.  (Think hard about that Humanities degree, kidlets!)  Now, decades later, I am waxing (slightly) nostalgic over stuff from those days of yore, like a silly handmade manual of cataloging instructions which are now mostly defunct.  And I wrote everything down in my prettiest Catholic high school penmanship too.

“If the printout is a maintenance record, set *fun cat mai.* If new record, *set fun cat.* Go to the first LOC field and type <F2> b. This will recall the string bh 1, com 1, lb 1, nwk 1, pas 1, pom 1, sm 1, tor 1, vn 1.”

 

I also found photocopies of retirement cards I had made over the years for now departed friends & colleagues.  Interesting how I apparently even made cards for people I disliked profoundly, just because I was deemed the *resident artist* and everyone thought it was my duty.  And then, there are all the leftover thingies from the *blockbuster* library exhibits I had done in the 90s:  that dried up mangy tulip bulb (the Monetary Law Exhibit of '98), the resin apple pie which a hungry co-worker tried to eat (the Food Law Exhibit of '97), and the rather wonky Han granary (Ancient Chinese Law Exhibit of '99) which I should really re-sell on Ebay.  (Originally $15!  Authenticated by Sotheby. Seriously.)

A lot of this stuff will go, of course.  Still, I will particularly miss the 40 ketchup packets which I had been planning to sell to the highest bidder if the staff had all been trapped in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake.  And that tempting bag of chili lemon pork rinds from 2004?   Ehhh .. maybe not so much.

                                                                Going, going ...                                                     

Assorted Thoughts

Received a retirement mug today from a kindly neighbor. It says "The past is history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Today is a gift."  Hoookay.  I will have to think about the gifty part again on Wednesday, when my workplace closes down for an all-day staff meeting, and we have to listen to 6 hours of stuff that has nothing to do with our work.  I wonder if I should bring a large bag of Honey Dijon potato chips to the proceedings, but decide the loud crunching noises would attract Security.

Meanwhile, the library finds that Big Bossy has decided to retire at the end of December 2012!  WOW, that was shocking.  We thought she would never leave ... I mean, we thought she would be our executive director for another 5 years at least.  Naturally, most of us have mixed emotions ... but, really, I was STUNNED.   I was so stunned that my jaw fell to the floor and crushed a malingering cockroach.  But I will write more about this affair after I have officially retired and chugged a  large sparkly martini.

I'm cooking Hormel smoked *pork chops* for my dad's lunch.  That is -- ordinary ham cut in the shape of pork chops with the little rims of *pretend* fat.  My dad bought it because it looked healthier.  Did I forget to add that those 4 skinny fake pork chops cost almost $5?  Tsk tsk tsk.

                                       Come on, no one hates a staff meeting that much!

48 Days to Go!

It's mid-October; the box turtle is digging up the backyard, looking for a comfy place to hibernate; and I have only 48 days to go before the End of My Glorious Library Career. Huzzahhh!  In fact, I am sure I have changed the World since my highly important initials MLC must show up just about 80,000 times in the OCLC database!  (OCLC is an online global library catalogue.)

So what's left?  Well, I have to bring my crap home.  That is: all my books, gardening & decoration magazines, coffee mugs, miniature Buddha collection, assorted knicknacks and doodads, photographs, and office supplies that I PURCHASED FOR MY PERSONAL USE because the library is too cheap to provide them.  For example, instead of Post-Its, our resourceful supply person has to give us old cut-up, somewhat sticky telephone memo pads. So I buy my own Post-Its as well as my own Extra Fine Razor Point PILOT pens which I prefer for my exquisite penmanship. Yairs.  Funny how Management can renovate our entire building at huge cost, but go el-cheapo in the post-it department.

I also found a large packet of caricatures which I used to draw when I got annoyed with someone.  There is AT LEAST a hundred of these caricatures, but most of the people featured have long gone or retired.  I don't make them anymore, especially after A Caricatured One snooped in my desk drawer (probably to look for a Post-It) and found my stash.  So now I just fume and blog, chortle!

                                                   48 days?  You've got to be kidding!

Bookish Confessions, Pt. I

My sister, Tipsy VA Loan Analyst, interviews Tipsy Mermaid on her Wildly Exciting Career Path:

Tipsy VA:  How did you find your job?

My mum found my job.  I had just spent 7 months watching Frankie Goes to Hollywood videos when my mum pushed me off our flowered gabardine couch, shoved the LA Times Classifieds in front of my nose, and told me to apply for a temp job at a downtown law library. Since I was already sick of watching the only TWO Frankie videos available on MTV, I affably agreed to apply for a two year job relabeling 10,000 law books.  

Eventually (because I was so good at applying glue), I was offered a library clerk position, and after two years of rather intermittent training, I was promoted to Library Cataloging Assistant. Huzzahh!  From there, it was only a matter of time (like 20 years!) before I reached my current title of Library Assistant Who's been Around since the founding of Angkor Wat.

What is your favourite library?

THE LONDON LIBRARY in 14 Saint James Square, London. What a beautiful building!  Their collection is particularly strong in the humanities: history, art, world literature, religion, and gorgeous Jude Law type circulation clerks.  

Your favourite books?

Difficult question. You can't have just one! I would say my favourite historical fiction is Colleen McCullough's epic ROME series, which covers the Age of Sulla to the death of Cleopatra in six gigantic doorstop volumes.  I also love the endlessly inventive Gary Jennings who wrote AZTEC and THE JOURNEYER, books I re-read almost every year for their hot Kamasutric possibilities.  Sex featuring an onion?  CHECK!  Sex with a teapot?  CHECK!  By the way, if you want to experience *erotica* by purchasing FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, don't waste your money.  If I read about one more *shattering orgasm that happened because he touched me down there, there, in my secret private place, using his very long index finger*  I think I'll puke into 15 handbags.  Good grief, woman!  Be glad the author hasn't thought of chopsticks!

Tipsy VA:  Uhhhh ... where were we?  Can we continue next week?  I .. uhh .. have something to buy on AMAZON. 

       Interview to be continued next week!     

96 Days & Counting!

WOW, could it be so?  I have 96 days left on my Novelty Retirement Clock!  (A blue cartoonish object purchased on Amazon for a ridiculous $14, eeek!)  Counting assorted holidays & days off for doctors appointments, that is actually only 64 working days!  (My last day is November 30, 2012.)   A lot of people tell me that the days will go by like a speeding bullet, but I don't think that's true at all.  I find every day unbearably slow, and I am actually considering using some of my vacation so I can leave even earlier. (I have 200 hours vacation which cannot be converted into service credit.)  I know my boss won't be happy about it, but frankly, who cares?  28 years of near non-appreciation from most of my superiors and I'm supposed to give a Flying F**k?  (Pardon the salty language, but I'm a bit pissed at the moment.)

It's funny, but after working here for so long, I no longer have a sense of the weight & depth of real life.  I come to work. I get my coffee. My boss emails me my assignments for the week.  She checks with me to see if I'm ok with it. I work for eight hours. If there happens to be a stray electron of amusement in my working day, it comes from some cynical friend or from the internet. I work some more.  At 4:45 PM, I leave.  And every two weeks, I get paid.  Thats It.

96 days left on my retirement clock.   Tick tock, tick tock ...

                                                   

Staff Meetings: The Infernal Device!

So ... we just had our Quarterly Staff Meeting.  I'm sure everyone has them, but ours are extra special, like that pimple on your nose that never goes away.  Rule No. 1: Everyone must be Present and there shall be NO EXCUSES!  You could have a great white shark attached to your bottom and you'd still have to show up.  Even a diagnosis of flesh eating disease won't save you.

First, the Announcements!  Big Bossy announces that "We just hired another Director!" Huzzahh!  Never mind that this director will only be supervising one employee and our organization already has more *directors* than there are Swiss girls named Gretel.  You can never have too many directors.  In fact, I heard a rumor today that I am being considered for Director of Parking Lot Attendants.

Staff birthdays are next!  I can't tell you how eagerly I look forward to my birthday every year when I see all those names for July, August & September scrolling over the video screen at 80 mph.  It just makes a girl wanna cry. Afterwards, we have fresh frosted cupcake followed by such a frantic rush to the loo that the water pressure of downtown LA drops by 19%.

After the break (during which I also check my email and read a touching request for funds to save a cat meowing pitifully in a drainpipe) -- the Pièce de résistance!  STRATEGY GROUPS! -- in which the befuddled staff  must come up with ways to make the organization achieve world domination through Facebook & possibly Pinterest!  Unfortunately, I am mostly ignored when I suggest that the Library of the Future (or LAWCULUS ©) will almost certainly be telepathic. 

 Using a brain control interface in the shape of ergonomic ice tongs, the Patron will access the Wisdom of  LAWCULUS by reading the librarian's mind which stores the equivalent of 500,000 titles.  Afterwards, the Patron will download the book telepathically to his Iphone 9.5.  Hence, print and electronic material (as well as directors) will no longer be necessary and the annual budget is reduced to a reasonable $86.95.  Yes, yes, I realize that our librarians will eventually all wind up with dented foreheads, but is that so bad? It isn't any worse than my bald spot. 


                               

                                   Our IT guy is arrested for missing staff meeting.