Two Wonderful Weeks in a Library

Some lessons are learned quickly.  Some lessons seem to crystallize in the time frame of a Uranium half-life.  Some lessons come only after deep reflection on previous patterns in life.  Some lessons come in such brilliant flashes that they are learned instantly and are never forgotten.

Then there is the library.  The library has taught me in every way listed above.

When I was in my very early teens I volunteered at our local library in Florida.  I became proficient in the Dewey decimal system and I loved my job.  I loved reading so much I would get latched onto a series and read as if the words would disappear for lack of consumption.  The library satisfied my desire to escape the current world into one of Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne and Charles Dickens or anyone that ever wrote about the Star Wars universe.  What beauty of words and plots are twisted up in those pages!

Even greater is the wealth of real information contained in the stacks of reference and non-fiction sections.  Being home-schooled, I learned to be in many ways educationally independent.  I would learn about what I wanted to learn about when I wanted to learn it.  It was awesome!  When there is something I want to know I can passionately pursue it.  My parents instilled those ideas into me.  They wanted me to be curious and then to find answers.  It is a characteristic which describes me today.  The library has helped to satisfy my curiosity.

Shortly afterward, my family moved to Missouri where the local library system was privatized.  They didn't even allow volunteers.  In fact, for the first two years we were there, I couldn't even work in the library until after I was 16.

Shortly after turning 16, I applied at two different jobs.  One was at Sears which I will talk about later.  The other place was our local library.  I thought I would like working there because of my love for reading, knowledge acquisition and escaping through fiction.  I don't think there was anyone more excited for his first day of work.  I had proved earlier that I was capable to alphabetize fiction stickers and separate and order those with numbers in their own area with speed and accuracy (yes I just took twenty-seven words to say that I could sort correctly and quickly).

My boss, a slightly uptight middle-aged lady who had probably wanted to be a librarian all her life, led me to my work area.  With this being my first job, I was eager to learn.  However, there was no teaching going on here.  The instructions went like this: sort the books here, put the books on a cart, shelve them in the stacks, repeat.

While the stacks upon stacks of books represented freedom and expanse, the 14- by 14-foot room she led me to would be my prison.  The sorting room lay before me.  I would arrive at this room every morning with 3 married women who had never been told there was such a thing as too much perfume, complaining or gossip.  After three days of being sick to my stomach, I got the bright idea to come in early so I could run the books out from the back room to do some shelving.

This new plan seemed to work for the first day or two, but soon the other employee--who also didn't like the back room gossip--returned to work.  I then found out that there is a difference between front room gossip and back room gossip: the location.

Finally, in an attempt to escape the negativity surrounding me while enjoying what I wanted to listen to, I brought my portable CD player to work and thought I would shelve books that way.  Remember my boss?  She came over to where I was shelving and told me to put my CD player away as that "was not the way I taught you" and "it was terribly unprofessional."  After my public tongue-lashing, I found my first taxpaying job unsavory.

I quit this job shortly thereafter as something better had come along.  That position I will save for another day, but the lessons from this job are as follows:

1. Poor training leads to unexpected results.  Perhaps with the proper training I would have found a rewarding career in the library system...then again, maybe not.
2. Gossip, while it has short term enjoyment, leads to dissatisfaction with a position.  I learned to hate environments of negativity nurtured by gossip.
3. Leadership positions do not equal leaders.  Leadership has to be something more than simply the number of people below to you or your level of academic or positional accomplishment.
4. A little perfume goes a long way.  Self-explanatory...

Thank you to whoever should read this.  Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!  Please comment below!