Friday, January 18, 2008

We’re All Black Listed, I Know It.

Soooooooooooo,
Another Library job goes to other people. I’m seriously reconsidering this career choice. But then I realize it isn’t just me and my chosen field it’s a lot of talented people loosing out to the “American Idols” of the world. What do I mean by that? I mean truly talented people are being passed up for the flashy looks and dance moves of the titillating.

Take my sister Kirsten, 20 + years experience teaching and working with young adults – by that I mean kids in the 10-13 age range (around 6th grade). She’s been a requested teacher, developed summer programming for years, and taught education in a college setting and now what? She’s waiting to see if she even has the “training” job now that Pfizer’s been bought out. That’s right she’s a glorified secretary like me for an organization not in her field. Apparently her experiences make her over qualified to be hired and then there is the fact that she doesn’t have calculus. Apparently if you can’t do calculus you can’t teach kids over 3rd grade (8years old). Cuz we all remember how difficult calculus was in 4th grade!
There are so many out there. I’ve come to understand that there is a section of the parable of the talents that must for hit the cutting room floor back in 300 AD. The part about the servant that takes his talents and cleans them up and heads out to share them with others; the servant that wants to increase them, and help others increase their talents too. But every time he tries he is turned away. “Your talents are not the kind I want” “You have to many talents”, or even “you aren't worth those talents” as they try to steel them and tell the world that the talents belong to the crook and not the honest man.

I often wonder why gives us talents and inspiration only to find ourselves unwanted and unneeded. What good is a maligned talent in the hands of someone who is loosing hope? Creativity turns out ugliness when abused by others/ the world.

What this means for me is that I’m not sure I want to work in a library anymore. I’m not sure I want to be a patron of libraries. Having spent 3 years being turned away I’m saying enough – UNCLE! I’m not sure what to do, but I’m sure a hell not going to do it in a library.