Test 1, 2, 3.

Starting Monday!

Which may take some getting used to after having so much free time. It's actually a full on 8 hours a day/40 hours a week. Even my Princeton job was only 7.25 hours a day/36.25 hours a week, but it probably balances out with that commute being longer and more obnoxious.

Gonna hafta pester the Bootsie extra this weekend.

The upside of course is not having to worry so much about money.

Ironically, I get tuition reimbursement now that I no longer have time to take a class.

I don't know. It went. I said things. Words came out of my mouth. Hopefully they weren't gibberish.
Now comes the wait and see of will they or won't they want an in-person interview.

And I need to stop agonizing over it because it's over and there's nothing I can do and argh and bah and sigh.

Finally got my say
On my way
Out the door.
It seems like this should have happened before
Things go so bad
That I had to leave lest I go mad.

...

It was good, though. I feel... cleansed.
I got to talk to New Employee Relations Person (who at the very least pretended to care and was surprisingly enthusiastic about my library book etiquette idea for student orientation) rather than Impassive Wall of Library HR Guy.

Granted, my feelings are more along the lines of "good riddance" than "congratulations", but I can fake some politeness.
Anyway, BMR is retiring, as in he's packing up his things and will be gone sometime next week.
I suspect things will get worse before they get better, but my general mood can be summed up as Holy Crap (as previously stated, the man has no shame, so I really didn't think he'd give in: L thinks it might have reached the point of Retire Or You're Fired, though obviously they can't say it like that).

HR is more concerned with the bit where we know that we're being treated unfairly rather than the bit where we're actually being treated unfairly.

But they took great pains to assure us we had done the right thing in approaching them, so there's that, I guess.

Basically, what we have here is a huge-ass book with a built-in death wish. Like, no matter what you do to it, it will eventually die due to a silly little thing called gravity (elephant folio ≈ 2 feet tall). Hence the incredibly damaged state it was in when it got to me. So I had to do a split-board binding on that ginormous fucker and it was not fun. And did I mention there are two of them? I was forced to make a rule: Only one book trying to kill me per week. So last week was Volume 2 and this week was Volume 1 (which was in worse shape, but thankfully I learned a bit from Volume 2, so I think it went faster? Last week's was 400+ minutes... I haven't added up this week's cuz it's not quite done).
Anyway, there's another one that's slightly shorter (thank the Preservation Gods)-- of course it's also thicker ("thanks", Preservation Gods), and of course, I have to do all three of them myself because I have the dubious honor of being the Tech who gets given all the problem child books.

No, no, fuck you.

HATE!,
nicole

P.S. I didn't think of it until I was driving on an ice skating rink and wondering if I could sue you from beyond the grave, but next time I am totally wearing my Harvard shirt in protest. So there.

Today, I replaced the empty roll of red cloth with a full roll of red cloth while listening to "How Deep Is The Red" by Elvis Costello on my mp3 player.

Johann Fück. Actual dude. Author of Die Arabischen Studien in Europa (made a label for its box today).

And yes, the 'u' has an umlaut, so it's pronounced differently, but allow me my moment of juvenile amusement, won't you?

But I can't, so Fizzgig will have to do it for me.

Except intentionally defacing the book in order to prevent it from being defaced sorta misses the point.

Now, I got this book through InterLibrary Loan to replace missing pages from one of Princeton's books, and I briefly considered going through the rigmarole of sending it back and trying to get another one with unmarred pictures, but that's a pain for me and the ILL people (who I'm pretty sure already dislike me for my pickiness), so Princeton's just gonna have to deal with University of Pennsylvania stamps on the pages that are gonna be photocopied and therefore sorta crappy anyway.

Boring Manager Rob is...

A) High on drugs
B) Psycho crazypants
C) Demented
D) A Moron
E) All Of The Above

What has he done now? You ask. Well, I'll tell you. Today was our weekly staff meeting which usually consists of BMR having nothing to talk about and the rest of us having to sit through it without committing violence.
This week, one of his non-topics was the H1N1 vaccines that the University is offering.
Me: Except in order to get one you need to have a baby or a pre-existing medical condition.
BMR: No, no, that was last time. This time it's for everybody.
My thought at this point: Whatever, maybe I read it wrong.
Ted: Nicole's right, the email did have the same restrictions as last time.
BMR: No, no. You should read your email more carefully. Blah blah blah if you read your email more carefully you wouldn't miss important information like this.

So, at this point, he's basically chastising us and making a big deal out of us misunderstanding the email due to not taking the time to read it. Ted, smarty that he is, asks BMR to forward the email (he deleted it after learning it did not apply to him, as did I).
After the meeting, we get the forwarded email. It says exactly what we thought it said. At this point, he has gone out of his way to be smug and send us the proof that he is wrong:

( The actual email. I dare you to find the bit where it says the H1N1 flu vaccine is no longer restricted. )

I read the email. I re-read the email. Ted has read the email and asks me if it says what we thought it said. It does. We boggle. Ted actually goes into BMR's office and points out to him that the vaccination is not for everybody. BMR insists that they changed some wording from this email to the last one for the previous H1N1 clinic such that now it is no longer restricted. We boggle some more. I say "Fine, let him go down there and wait in line like a chump. Maybe he'll believe it when they tell him."
We mock him mercilessly while he is out at lunch and presumably going to get his H1N1 flu shot that he is not actually eligible for.
Then, this afternoon we get this pitiful little gem:

"Folks,

I went to Frist to see about getting a flu shot. I am too healthy and
do not fit the profile of those who are eligible. Now we know from sure.

Robert"

And so I must laugh because the alternative is sobbing hysterically about this man actually being in charge of me.

But even I am better off than the folks not retiring at the university because they don't have anything else to do.
Dude.
Volunteer.
Get a hobby.
Take a nap.

If Princeton is your life, you have a very, very sad life.

In regard to people not taking the Voluntary Incentivized Retirement Program because they can't afford to-- that I get, and I do not judge. But when whether or not they start layoffs is dependent upon how many people retire with VIRP, and people aren't taking the year's salary in a lump sum because they're worried about being bored?
Then, yes. I do judge.

I wrote most of this out on post-it notes during work, but never got around to typing it up.
Let me tell you the tale of how I ended up with an ugly-ass purse.
There is overly complex backstory.
Once upon a time, there was a librarian who was diagnosed with cancer (this story doesn't have a happy ending, folks). By all accounts, she was a very nice person, so this is sad, but I never met the woman, so I can't say I was particularly broken up about it.
However, when this happened, Man, the most annoying co-worker in all the land, became obsessed with her and the details of her ongoing condition, estate, and who knows what else. Now, in most instances, I'd assume someone reacting this way was really close friend with the ailing librarian, but because this is Man, it's entirely possible that he was just being his usual weird/creepy/nosy self. My personal theory is that he knew her, but not well enough to be all up in her business like that.
Anyway, time passes, the librarian dies, people are sad. Her family admirably decides to donate her belongings to charity, but first they offer her books (and apparently other things) to her friends? People who knew her? The library community? I don't know who they intended to give it to, but Man invites me to come with him on Tuesday, when he goes to her apartment to look for books. I decline because it seems sorta weird to raid a dead woman's apartment, and I didn't even know her, so it's not like she would have wanted me to have her stuff or something. Also, he informs me of the charity bit, so it's not like I need to save things from a landfill.
Soooo, all this roundabout finally gets to the point where Man goes to her apartment supposedly looking for books and comes back with a purse. That he proceeds to give to me. I pretty much flat out tell him I don't want it, but he's all "You can give it to someone else." You know what I did with the damn thing yesterday? I gave it to mom so she can donate it to Purple Heart. In other words, it's going to charity, which is what would have happened to it if he had just left it in the dead lady's apartment. Instead, he had to make it my problem and give me a creepy death purse.
You might argue that I'm being a bitch here and Man was just being kind and thoughtful, but you know what? Anyone actually thinking of me while looking at that purse would be thinking, "Nicole would never ever use that ever." I mean, anyone who's known me for more than five minutes would be able to figure out that I would not be interested in a white faux-leather old lady handbag. And the kind thing to do would be to keep it far away from me.