this is my fourth career

Librarianship in the U.S. is often a second career - somehow heading straight for the Masters Degree in Library or Information Science directly after paying for four years at University doesn't hold broad appeal.   Library science lacks the $$$ promise of law or business school or the cool factor of doing a PhD in Linguistic Forensics.

Long story short, I graduated university with a degree in psychology and got a job where I could wear suits, stockings and heels to work in a skyscraper in New York City. There were cockroaches, but not at work. I was a recruiter, then an IT trainer and finally systems manager at an entrepreneurial company - a very 90's progression of working hard and harder until I burnt out.

Looking for something less grinding, I found an HR job at The New York Public Library. Actually, there were two jobs on offer, one in recruiting (hiring) and one in employee relations (firing). Went for the job that allowed smiling.  Carefully built relations with intelligent and fierce librarians - I was lucky to be at NYPL when the highest level managers had worked there forever. NYPL was not a place where you would ever doubt the value of public libraries or librarians!

Some life happened, with babies, and I moved to a beach town where everyone knew my grandparents. Learned to live with sand in the books. I got bored after a bit and worked for a community organization that provided food and basic support to people in need (migrant workers and long term locals). Wrote cool job training/computer training curriculum and got some big grants. Installed a community IT centre,  taught classes and recruited staff and volunteers. Learned a valuable lesson about when to say no to grant money.

Life happened again - this time we ran out of dosh as a family and moved back into the NYC orbit. Deep in the paradisaical suburbs, I needed a calling, a career, a meaningfulness that would offer money and make the world a better place. Of course - Librarianship, in public libraries!

This was a perverse career choice; even in 2005 I thought that 10-15 years might see the decline of public libraries. But perversity is my middle name, so off I went to Syracuse University's Information school as one of the earlier distance learning cohorts.

I enjoyed formal learning as a mature student in a way I never had as an undergraduate. Some trying moments with distance learning group projects and a team member who plagiarized from Wikipedia, but that was real learning. Got a paid weekend librarian job and a work experience gig in public libraries, graduated and was ready to start work.

omg, this is such a saga. Because wanderlust took hold of me and my partner. We wanted to be somewhere other than the Northeast Corridor - the metropolitan blur stretching from Boston to below Washington D.C. With diploma in hand I found promising work in Washington State, near Seattle, but my partner couldn't get a good job there. He did have opportunities in London, so we decided to move to the UK; trading in the certainty of work for the fun of exploring.

If you are curious to know what I thought of UK libraries when I was freshly arrived, please read the 2007 section of this blog. I had a lot to say about volunteers and duplication of efforts.

Earning a librarian position in the UK took patience: school library volunteer work, CILIP membership, completing the ECDL, begging my way into a work experience placement in public libraries, temp work and working as a library assistant.
All the prologue to my fourth career, which I love.

When am I?

Google Calendar has been my constant companion for years. More specifically, since the day I decided it didn't matter if Google was watching me from a distance and selling that information at a profit. Really, the earlier you accept Google into your life as your saviour the easier it is.

There were a few tough days when my Calendar disappeared, taking away my grasp of who was where when* But those memories are washed away by the dependable orchestration of my five-calendar family life. Only a few obstacles remain:

1. Choosing colours. It was easy when my boy child's calendar was light blue and my girl child's was pink. Memorable but stupid, like the librarian with the bun and finger over her mouth. Now we're all interesting edgy colours like burnt umber, pea green and goldenrod, and I can't tell at a glance who is who. Ah, for the ease of stereotypes.

2. My work calendar on Outlook is imprisoned behind a firewall. When I am working at a different location  I need to manually add that to Google Calendar. Maybe there is an export feature in Outlook I could use, but I don't trust myself to do it often enough to keep the calendars in sync. Ideas?

3.Time zones. I know this sounds esoteric, but just wait until you're trying to figure out how to put those flights to (fill in your international conference destination) into Google Calendar so they show up correctly. You want to board the flight at the correct local time in both countries and know what time you'll be arriving at your destination. And you want it all to work correctly on your (fill in your mobile device) app. If you've figured out how to do this smoothly, please share your knowledge. Meanwhile I'll keep freaking out that I've booked the wrong flight!

*Heed the advice of Miss Scarlet who cuts to the chase by showing us the ultimate in technology