An incentive
It seems if I do not post to LiveJournal often enough, or in a sufficiently human style, I receive more spam. Very well then, I post.
I've certainly been in a position to post of late but I find myself having little to say that isn't in direct conversation. I'm not sure why.
I have been finding myself in an odd-feeling place. Still prone to bouts of excitement over the mere fact I have a job and am actually being paid for doing stuff. But also, while I still have a long way to go and much, much practice before I could even pretend I've mastered the requirements of this position, have been feeling a bit disaffected.
The trouble is I don't know how to solve that. Does it bother me that I don't have a particular area of responsibility to manage? Might be, have been feeling unpleasantly passive as has happened in volunteer work previously. But if I did achieve a position like that, I suspect I wouldn't like the degree of mindshare required to be, in essence, making decisions about a segment of a library's business and policies. And even so, I'd have to start where I am anyway (so, you know, if I do want such a thing, I'm not not on track to it).
"I've got this thing."
"Do you like it?"
"It's okay."
"What about that other thing?"
"Well, maybe. Maybe not."
In fact, it's a weird thing to be introspecting on because the work itself is fine. Engaging and often satisfying. So, it's the lull periods then? But then there are still things to do, such as shelf-checking, and for me at least there can be a definite satisfaction to that too.
This did seem to come on most strongly after my first day at the library's branch, yesterday. And that was quiet and small enough that I literally spent most of the last four hours there reading software help documentation and trying not to fall asleep. I could recite how many visitors the library received, how many of the borrowed and how many items they borrowed, and so on and so forth, and according to the logs that was the busiest day of the week. So I am a bit dreading my next shift there and certainly don't intend to become a night watch security guard, ever.
I don't think I am complaining. After years of working at it I have finally achieved a major goal, and I am trying to work out what I want and need next. I think I might like something in future that isn't exclusively customer-facing.