My first blog post

The Issues Desk

How do I begin to explain to people what my job is like?

I’m whimsical at times and tend to have my head in the clouds (but not the same goddamn cloud that our goddamn email server is now in).

I’d like to work in an old, dusty library with high shelves and weathered books; a place full of shadows.

Ummmm.  Well, yes.  Like in Doctor Who.  But without the deadly shadows.

Not all libraries are how one imagines them to be.  They are much more diverse, much more ridiculous, and much less efficient or quiet than I’d supposed.

I often wish some TV crew would come here and make a fly-on-the-wall doco.  It would be ratings gold, I promise.

Just the other day I had a “do you remember when I first started work here and it was stupid?” moment with a colleague.  Haha, oh yes, he remembered.  And…

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Let’s get philisophical

The Issues Desk

Let’s get philosophical.

Who are we? Who am I?

This existential crisis (which, if I’m being honest, tends to be a daily occurrence) came about this afternoon as I was filling out a survey for my bank.

The culprit? Exhibit A:

Which of these groups best describes my current occupation, you ask?

I read through all of the options, with only the tinniest hint of fear in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t fit anywhere. Many were easy to discount. I am very much not retired, I’m terrible at “home duties”, and I don’t deal with things that are alive (excluding colleagues and students, obvs).

I ended up feeling like I should sit somewhere in between “other trained service worker” and “Professional”. (At times I have felt like I would fit in the “Clerical” category, and the services my institution offers are catered to our customers.)

What it…

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Moving on up

The Issues Desk

Recently, I’ve heard lots of stories from people who have applied for jobs internally in order to further develop their careers but been passed over for external candidates. As these people are friends I’m both completely biased and pretty outraged but I just had the revelation that this has actually happened to me a lot too.

The example that sticks out for me the best was when I applied for a front facing library position at the organisation I had been at for a number of years. I thought I could be quite good at this as prior to my library career I had almost 10 years of hospitality experience and I knew the organisation very well. When I interviewed however, I quickly realised I had very little experience with Maori and when I was called back learned this was why I had not got the job. I respected this…

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