News, News, News . . .

The past couple of days at work have been out of the ordinary (which is always a good thing, in my line of work). Diane, my boss, asked me to be a part of a four-person panel to interview people for jobs at the library. I agreed to, of course. The panel included Diane, Joanne (my immediate supervisor in the afternoon) and Chris, the assistant director of the library. We proceeded upstairs to the director's office (I had actually never even been upstairs before, so I was particularly excited), and we all sat around a large glass table. We interviewed four people for a 20 hour morning shelving page job. The basic interview routine involved each member of the panel asking the interviewee a set of predetermined questions (“give us an example of a time you provided excellent customer service,” or “tell us about your work history and how it might aid you in the position you seek at the library,” for example. Actually, those aren’t really questions, they’re more like commands, but you get the point). As the interviewee responded, we all took notes on what they said. At the end of each interview, the four of us gave the candidate a score out of 100 based on the sum of various other numbers that rated the candidate’s confidence level, relevance of past work experience, etc. I was surprised (pleasantly) when all four of us rated each candidate similarly. I was initially afraid that my scores would be embarrassing outliers. Once all of the interviews were over, we ranked each of the candidates in terms of who we thought would be the best, then second choice, etc. The decision was unanimous. In the time between interviews, I talked with my bosses about various aspects of the library and listened to an intriguing speech about discrimination from the assistant director. The discrimination discussion began after we had been talking about how introverts make the best shelvers because they don’t stand around and chat with people when they are supposed to be working. The assistant director reminded us that we can’t just choose all introverts and discriminate against extroverts. The line between hiring people for their qualifications and discrimination is very blurry, it seems to me. The last candidate was a woman from India. She had been in the U.S. for six years and only recently obtained a work permit. She was amiable and well-spoken, but she received mid 70% rating from all of us because of her lack of work experience. She won’t be selected because two of the other candidates rated over 90%. I really wanted to see her get the job . . . I’m sympathetic to foreigners because I’ve been a foreigner and I know how difficult it is to live in another country. The assistant director reminded us that we cannot discriminate in favor of her simply because she is a foreigner. I am so glad that I don’t have to hire people all the time . . . it’s such messy work. Even so, it was a great experience that gave me a new perspective of the library. I was greatly honored that Diane selected me to be on the panel, because usually only senior shelving pages are entitled to the position. Now, if only she would raise my pay . . .

Yesterday was one of the worst days I've had in recent memory. At 7:30 AM, I drove our family van to the Dodge dealership to have the brakes checked out. Lately they've been making frightening grinding noises, which is doubly irritating because we just had the brakes fixed late last month. When I returned home, I had to drive my mom to work, and when I returned from that, my brother called from work to say that he was feeling sick and needed to be picked up immediately (I was borrowing his car since the van was in the shop). On the way to pick him up, I stopped at the four-way stop close to our house. Two cars were already stopped to my left by the time I stopped, so I waited a couple of seconds thinking that they would go. A guy in one of the cars motioned me to go ahead, so I did. When I was 85% of the way through the intersection, the lady in the other car decided that it was her turn and began speeding toward me. She had to slam on her brakes to keep from crashing into me. I was really, really irritated. Women drivers . . . what can I say. A few minutes later, I was driving down a street when a guy on a side street wasn't paying attention and nearly smacked into me. I felt like I was the only person on the road who knew how to drive! How hard is it to look both ways before you pull onto a street? By the time I picked Joe up and came back to the house, it was 9:30 AM. I was annoyed that I had just spent the last two solid hours driving people around, and I hadn’t even had breakfast of taken a shower. A couple hours later I left for work. As I entered the library parking lot, a man in an ancient Ford Taurus (station-wagon model) was pulling out of a parking space in front of me. I was irritated by his exceedingly slow speed, so I moved to the left side and went around him. I found a parking spot on the other side of the building, but before I got out of the car, I saw the Taurus parked right behind me. I fiddled with the CD player for a few seconds and pretended to be very busy, hoping that the man wouldn’t notice me. I was wrong. He stood right by my door, hands behind his back, patiently waiting for me to step outside. He was in his mid-fifties, gray hair, and I had seen him inside the library a few times. I let him wait another minute before I opened my door. He said, in a calm voice, that I had just been very rude. Why couldn’t I have waited a few seconds until he backed out? He wondered. I apologized, then I mentioned that all I had done was drive around him because I was in a hurry to get to work on time, I hadn’t endangered anyone, and in my experience the people who are driving down the street have the right-of-way, and cars in parking spaces must yield to them. I really don’t know if that’s correct or not, but it sounded fairly convincing (Colorado State Driver’s Manual, anyone?). He didn’t buy it. He just wanted my assurance that I would never do it again, and when I agreed, he got back into his car and drove off. I was annoyed. Who was he to confront me like that for such a miniscule offense? For the next hour at work I thought of all kinds of things I wished that I had said/done ranging from walking by him without saying a word to threatening to call the security guards over. I usually enjoy confrontations, so I don’t know why I became a servile child when he approached me. Now that I've had some time to cool off, I can see that it wasn't a big deal. One good thing did happen at work, though: I whined to Jennifer about how by my day was, and she comforted me. Ahhhhh . . . um, anyway, so I went home later and my parents yelled at me for half an hour about how at school I’m so disciplined and responsible, but at home I’m lazy and I never do anything, and I don’t seem to care about my future, etc., etc. ad infinitum. I was already on edge, and I may have let a few inappropriate words slip. My Dad didn’t like that. So, yesterday was abysmal for many reasons, but today has been quite good (I’ve mostly just worked around the house non-stop since I have the day off from work to show my parents that I’m not really a bum . . . well, not all the time, at least).

Now for the sentence that I seem to type more than any other: today I was supposed to go hiking, but . . . yes, indeed, it has happened again. My plans were shattered by circumstances beyond my control. I had planned to climb three fourteeners with Josh and his friend Mike: Mt. Democrat, Lincoln, and Bross. Stupid van, stupid, stupid brakes. Now for the phrase that shows up with equal frequency: Oh well, maybe next time.