Snob appeal
I called my parents as soon as I accepted the job offer. I want brownie points for this, because I frequently forget. Be that as it may, my parents weren’t actually home at the time, so they didn’t return my call until yesterday.
(They were across the country watching a protege of my mother’s graduate from pastry school. Before you even ask, no, they didn’t come to my graduation, but they had an ironclad excuse—my sister was graduating from library school the same day. We’ll tally this one up to Dr. Pangloss, because as it was, I got a lovely day pretty much all to myself.)
So the first thing my dad asks about the new job is what its title is. Not “what will you be doing?” Not “do you think you’ll like it?” What its title is. Now, it just so happens that this job’s title is quite the impressive-sounding mouthful, one of those titles whose individual elements are understandable but that don’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense in toto unless you’re pretty in-tune to the field.
(I’ll explain later. Truly I will. Still don’t have that paperwork in hand.)
Still, it’d be awfully nice to get the same impressed reaction to “reference librarian” (which, no, this job isn’t) as to Long String of Words. But, you know, that’s my dad. If he can’t brag about it, I didn’t do it.
The second question he asked was what I’d be paid. I didn’t tell him in so many words. Again, it’s quite a decent amount for a new librarian. Impressive, even. Most of that, though, has to do with a high-cost area of the country; it’s not that I’m a brilliant catch. (Though I think I’ll do well by them; I genuinely do. This is the Goldilocks just-right job. Very good fit on both sides.)
I know I’m a terrible disappointment to the man. I gladly gave up on being anything else a long time ago. But it just irks me, still, that he is hung up on me getting into a system that he spent thirty years hating—and lacking that, he can’t come up with an evaluation system for me that’s not crass.