This week's lesson: mediocrity gets you hired.

[intheflow]

Okay, so I'm trying to switch careers. Have been since 2008. Switching from ministry (complete with my Masters of Divinity) to working in a library with the goal of becoming a librarian some sweet day.

I had to leave the ministry after having a nervous breakdown from doing two years of hurricane recovery/community organizing in the Deep South after Katrina. That job stole my soul, wrecked my psyche and ended my long-term relationship. As a result, I'm 80k in student loan debt for a masters degree that is totally useless.

So I volunteered at the local library, got hired as a p/t shelver, and moved into a p/t clerk job. The pay is roughly $17k/year. Hardly enough to live on, certainly not enough to work on that massive load of student debt. And until I can work on that, I can't even think about taking on more debt by going back to grad school for my Masters in Library Science.

Have I mentioned I'll be 50 in six months?

Meanwhile, I've been applying for everything that comes open at my library system and surrounding library systems, even a 30-hour job would provide more financial security. Finally a 40-hour job came open at my branch. Even though I have been praised for my customer service skills, am flexible in scheduling, and volunteer for extra work (like working on displays, taking over co-worker tasks when they're on vacation, even doing back-up on the reference desk when the librarians are overwhelmed and I'm asked to pitch in), the job was given to a coworker who spends her days on facebook, and in the back room when she's scheduled to be on the floor assisting customers. She never volunteers for extra work and even told me, when she came out of her interview, that she didn't even really want the job. I was passionate in my interview about my love for the job, but apparently her dental needs superceded my love of the actual job (that was a reason I was told why she was hired). She is 26.

Of course I also need massive dental work and new glasses, plus my car needs alllll kinds of help. But silly me, I thought actually wanting the job was more important than complaining about my poverty.

The same week I learned I didn't get this job, I also learned from a HR person at a neighboring library district that I'm not getting call-backs from them because I'm too educated. Yes. I'm too educated to work as a clerk in a library - a place supposedly all about education. Not educated enough to work as a librarian, mind you, but too educated to help people get library cards and pay fines. I can't go to library school without some financial stability, but I can't get financial stability because I'm too ambitious.

So, lesson of the week: mediocrity gets you hired, passion gets you nowhere.