Yes, I am actually alive, despite the appalling lack of posting over the last month. I’ve been very busy!
The Saturday before last I finished as a graduate trainee at the London Library and started my new job the next Monday, before heading back to the London Library to start as a Casual Library Assistant. I nearly worked a 47 hour week last week, but managed to drop it to a 41 hour week. I’ve been enjoying it, but I’ve also very much been enjoying getting into bed at the end of every night!
It’s sad to think I’m no longer a graduate trainee, but it means good things – people understand my new job title, for a start! Lots of members saw the GT part of my name badge and assumed I was on work experience or a short term placement, and it was a job to explain that, no, I actually work here properly.
The new job is quite different from my work at the LL! I’m not on the desk (yet, and I won’t be on it regularly), since it only needs one person, and once my training period is out of the way the way I structure my day will be entirely up to me. I have to get things done, obviously – I have sole responsibility for the shelving, the photocopying (on my days in), the bookshop, and I have other duties to do as and when, including map cleaning, digitizing forms and helping out with whatever the team needs. I think I prefer this way of working (which is hopefully more like what work will be like after the MA!), since it lets me control things and work out the best way to get things done.
So it’s all go for me, basically. Wish me luck!
date stamps and papercuts 