Last Look Around

I thought I'd take once last look around with my Kodak camera and photograph the last of the cubicles being assembled beside our department. This will be the new home of the Circulation staff, Reserves, and Interlibrary Loan (which now has another name I can never remember).



Du Bois is a very different place than it was when I arrived in 1972. It wasn't even called Du Bois yet. The building had just been constructed and we were preparing to move in. Susan Brynteson was the head of Acquisitions and was so proud of our new burnt orange carpets and bright orange kardex files for checking in journal issues. It was definitely the 70s!

My youngest daughter graduated from UMass a few years ago and as a student she worked in the Morrill Science Library. She has always been the most creative member of our family. So when she came across a pile of duplicate journals and magazines that were being tossed, she found a way to recycle them. It took months to glue the confetti sized pieces to create the scenes of The Biological Clock. It hung in Morrill until that library closed and the collection merged with the Physical Sciences Library. I hated to see it destroyed and it was way to big to hang anywhere at home. Fortunately Du Bois has adopted it and it hangs on the 2nd floor in a study area. I think it's one of her best creations.

Why Would I Quit This Gig?

I signed the retirement papers yesterday so I guess it's now official.
Am I sad? Am I happy? Well, a little of both, I guess.

Walking back from Whitmore I noticed how deserted the campus looked a few days after graduation. And the Learning Commons was also mostly empty.

It made me feel as though it was time to leave as everyone else was gone. And the work I've been given to keep me busy in the last several weeks, the mind-numbing barcode linking project, has been a real incentive. It's makes it hard to come in and makes me want to run away once I'm here.

And there's the noise.
It's construction now but once they take down the wall that's separated us from the public, it will be the mass of students who use the computers, patrons at the circulation desk, and the staff from not only our department but Circulation and Reserves. And the temperature at my desk has been a nice 72-75 degrees most days. Once the wall comes down and air circulation changes, how will that affect our temps?
Looking around the room during an All-Staff meeting I saw all the people I won't be seeing very often anymore. I'll miss the daily contact with co-workers, the jokes about the never-ending construction, the gossip, the weekly lottery pool. I'll try to catch up a little on Facebook but it won't quite be the same.

One of the construction workers asked me, "Why would you quit this gig?" The short answer is that it's not fun anymore. I learned a long time ago that often I can do what I want about a specific job if I don't ask permission or tell anyone. (I hope Jay doesn't read my blog.) That's when things are okay. But you can't do that all the time. So I'm looking forward to making decisions without benefit of committee, having to check with other departments, or waiting for a response from administrators. Whew! I just get to do what I want. If it works I keep doing it and if it doesn't I'll try something else.

For instance, I've been waiting since January to have the door to my locker reversed. It's a simple, 5 minute job that if I could do myself, would have been done months ago. Apparently it requires a special tool. The guys who can do the job are 20 feet from my desk but I had to, once again, ask the department head who contacted the business office who checked with the crew boss. They'll try to remember to bring the tool tomorrow. We'll see.