I talk about the SCM all the time, the Self-Centered Man who is the other librarian with me. Pre-SCM, there was the HMM, the Horrible Mean Man, who was the Head Librarian before me, and the Head Librarian when I was in high school, and actually even the librarian in the Junior High School I went to, so I knew him in some capacity since I was 12. He retired 16 years ago.
He called me in the library today to ask a cataloging question.
Freaked me right the hell out. Didn't say "Hi, it's --- calling" and didn't have to. I knew immediately who it was. This was a recurring bad dream I had, btw, for years after he retired, that he would randomly call or just show up for work. The dreams finally stopped a few years back; I hope they don't start up again now.
He did not call to plumb the depths of my expertise, but rather to confirm that an unusual practice he started years ago is still in place. It is. He's volunteering at his grandson's high school's library and is trying to get that school district to change some of its cataloging conventions.It is a measure of the kind of person he is that whenever we have spoken or seen each other over these years, he simply carries on as if he never was, in fact, mean to me, which he was in a most public and unprofessional manner, criticizing my poor work habits, as he saw them, in front of other staff members. His problem with me -- and remember, he had known me since I was a kid; I went to high school with his kids -- was that I was not devoting every moment of every day to cataloging, but would sometimes take a few minutes to speak to kids. Yes, you read that right. He was appalled that I had become the Junior Class advisor, and would talk to my officers and other kids in the library during the day instead of cataloging, or answering reference questions that no one was even asking at the moment. I wrote more about this, and him, in my library website, the one that I stopped keeping when this whole library-closing-and-moving thing stopped being funny. The first part of the story is here. The rest of it is here. Anyway, suffice it to say that talking to him on the phone was my surreal experience of the week. Apparently, this morning the principal told the person who inhabits the room that we are moving to that this is taking place. (Not a classroom teacher, but a department administrator, who has been a friend of mine for ... I don't know, going on 30 years or so.) He called me immediately, but I was at lunch, and only talked to him briefly when I got back. We're getting together on Monday morning to hash it out. Definitely a situation in which it sucks to be either one of us. But he's not angry with me, as I knew he wouldn't be. Another interesting day coming up. R should be home soon, her last night at home, and I'm guessing there will be tons of stuff to do, so I'm posting a little early. By this time tomorrow, I could be collapsed in an exhausted heap somewhere. Or not. We shall see.
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I'm watching Dr. Phil
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