Looking ahead and looking back: a story.

This entry is partially inspired by the following by the lovely Natasha S. Chowdory, and her own recent blog entry.

Above link linked with her permission.

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Lately, I've been thinking quite a bit as to how I found myself in my current position. I keep describing it as happenstance. Looking for a job, I decide to place my resume onto Monster, thinking it might score something, albeit temporary until I find something more permanent, when I see a listing for a Corporate Librarian position. I email my resume, and not five minutes later, I get a phone call asking, "You know this job is in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania?" Yes, I answer, yes.

And that is the short version. Interview via Skype within a week. Six weeks later, I move to Pittsburgh. This was last fall - late September/early October that I interviewed, November that I moved. But it's not the whole story. And the whole story is not something I've exactly discussed in public, in part, because I felt it was this blight on my resume. That in telling people, I would make myself less marketable. Less than.

I left EBSCO in June 2016. Because I had interviewed and accepted a job at an Academic Library in Boston. It was not a good fit for many reasons. And I think on some level, I knew that. There were red flags in the interview process, ones I probably should have seen. But I was blinded: needing a shorter commute (this job gave that), the perks of suddenly working in a place which both encouraged and provided professional development, getting to learn a new library. I was blinded by the enthusiasm of the people I would be working with, the modernity of the library, the getting to work in an academic library.

I was not the right person for the job. But I, and it pains me some to say this, I was blinded by the salary offer - more than what I had asked - and the thoughts that maybe, just maybe, I could pay the student loans off faster, and maybe we could finally afford to move out of our one bedroom.

The job was not to be. In the time I worked there, my Anxiety was through the roof. I would finally get one thing down, and it changed on me. I would ask questions, only to not get the right information, and be told, I had not asked the right questions. After ninety days, I was sacked. And even while I had my suspicions, even while I felt this coming, I was devastated. It felt like I had failed. That I was a failure.

But that low point, that failure, spurned me to take different chances. Hence, taking my current position, moving to a city I had never been, into an industry I knew nothing about. (I would still argue I know nothing about the industry in which I am working, though I am learning. Every day, I am learning.)

And for however long this job is for, it has given me a renewed sense of working in libraries. I'm a Solo for the first time in my career. I'm getting to create an Archives. Teach Information Literacy, and work in Research. I'm learning new softwares, and new skills, and is this job perfect? No. But I think if I learned anything from three of the worst months in my library career, it is that no job should be perfect. Because perfect is too good to be true.

Sometimes I do wonder where I would be in my career had that other job worked out. And the thing is, after all is said and done, I think where I am now is much much better.