On Lame Ducks...
Aug. 31st, 2007 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabidsamfanToday was the last day of work for my boss. After forty years he's retiring from the library -- well, actually he's going on a very extended final vacation. His last official day of being paid will be some time next April, that much sickleave and unused vacation time having accrued over the years. But it was his last day working with us, and the end of one of the nicer eras in my life.
He's been saying he'd be leaving ever since I switched branches a couple of years ago, and I sometimes suspect that he hung around a little longer than he had to because I stood in need of having an understanding supervisor during the whole miserable mess with the cancer. It's the kind of thing he'd do, without making any noise about it. Yesterday he deliberately was "surprised" by our small party for him twice, because the first time he walked into the room when the person who'd done the most work wasn't there. (She was off helping a patron.) So he went out again, waited till she came, and then walked in one more time and made delighted noises for her while the rest of us kept our peace and let the gesture stand. The day before yesterday he took us to dinner, and was worried because we didn't eat all that much -- he wanted to show us a good time.
I think he's glad to go. The library administration is turning the place into a farce, and the job of the professional librarian isn't valued very much any more. He said, more than once, that he stopped figuring that he worked for the city or the mayor or library management years ago -- he worked for the people who came in the door, and when it got to the place where he didn't like them either it was time to pull the plug. I still enjoy the public, so I'll muddle along, but I doubt I'll make it forty years.
I've applied for the job -- so did the other professional in the branch -- and I'm hoping one of us gets it, but we've got a tough act to follow. He's been very gentle with us (except for the one time he reminded me, when all the new books were arriving, that I was an intelligent woman and I understood the concept of "finite" to get me to start weeding -- and even then he made me laugh.) And he's been consistently kind, taking on the branch by himself for the last half hour of our late night, for example, and invariably saying "take your time" when one of us needed a break or to step out for lunch. But it's his sense of humor I'll miss, and the way he's enjoyed and tolerated my foibles.
He said that he was looking forward to his last day -- that he could be mean and yell at anyone without consequences -- but what I saw all day was him helping people, even the ones who he sometimes described as having elevators that don't go all the way to the top. We were there till the last minute waiting for a woman doing xeroxes, and when the copier ran out of paper, he's the one who refilled it for her.
He'll be back to visit -- he's promised he would, and he's a man who keeps his promises. But we'll miss him, all the same.
He's been saying he'd be leaving ever since I switched branches a couple of years ago, and I sometimes suspect that he hung around a little longer than he had to because I stood in need of having an understanding supervisor during the whole miserable mess with the cancer. It's the kind of thing he'd do, without making any noise about it. Yesterday he deliberately was "surprised" by our small party for him twice, because the first time he walked into the room when the person who'd done the most work wasn't there. (She was off helping a patron.) So he went out again, waited till she came, and then walked in one more time and made delighted noises for her while the rest of us kept our peace and let the gesture stand. The day before yesterday he took us to dinner, and was worried because we didn't eat all that much -- he wanted to show us a good time.
I think he's glad to go. The library administration is turning the place into a farce, and the job of the professional librarian isn't valued very much any more. He said, more than once, that he stopped figuring that he worked for the city or the mayor or library management years ago -- he worked for the people who came in the door, and when it got to the place where he didn't like them either it was time to pull the plug. I still enjoy the public, so I'll muddle along, but I doubt I'll make it forty years.
I've applied for the job -- so did the other professional in the branch -- and I'm hoping one of us gets it, but we've got a tough act to follow. He's been very gentle with us (except for the one time he reminded me, when all the new books were arriving, that I was an intelligent woman and I understood the concept of "finite" to get me to start weeding -- and even then he made me laugh.) And he's been consistently kind, taking on the branch by himself for the last half hour of our late night, for example, and invariably saying "take your time" when one of us needed a break or to step out for lunch. But it's his sense of humor I'll miss, and the way he's enjoyed and tolerated my foibles.
He said that he was looking forward to his last day -- that he could be mean and yell at anyone without consequences -- but what I saw all day was him helping people, even the ones who he sometimes described as having elevators that don't go all the way to the top. We were there till the last minute waiting for a woman doing xeroxes, and when the copier ran out of paper, he's the one who refilled it for her.
He'll be back to visit -- he's promised he would, and he's a man who keeps his promises. But we'll miss him, all the same.
