Jennysha's job log: 12
Jennysha Patel
- July 2009.
The story so far… Jennysha graduated two years ago, and is looking for ways into publishing. Meanwhile she combines work in a bookshop and a library.
We’ve got to talk!
I met up with one of my closest friends yesterday. We hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks – she was away writing her thesis while I was living the crazy life I have doing a million and one things and more. As we were leaving the coffee house, it was funny, my friend said ‘I think we needed that: to talk.’ We had so much on our minds and we’ve been doing so much lately it’s been confusing and it felt as if we may not have even been listening to each other at times and just blurted out everything in a crazy frenzy of verbal diarrhoea just to get everything out of our systems.
The full schedule
Since last Saturday, this is what my life has been… Sarcastic run-ins with the bookshop manager, watching Wimbledon, eating, losing sleep, THE HEN NIGHT, family commitments, including commemorating the one-year anniversary of my grandad’s death and spending time with my baby cousin, trying to organise a spontaneous night out in Birmingham whilst taking into account I have four weddings (and hopefully not a funeral) to attend in the next five weeks! I’ve been stressed out about requesting some very last minute annual leave for a family holiday (I have been trying to avoid) and to celebrate my mother’s 50th birthday, confronting the management at the bookshop for said holiday with a ‘If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ wheel and deal scenario and succeeding. Cheekily getting holiday from the library during an innocent conversation with one of the managers who also happens to be my childhood librarian and has known of my family for eons – a case of ‘not what you know, but who’ and later realising we may not be going on holiday after all, releasing tension at the gym, attending my monthly book club having failed to read the book again and wondering how on earth I am going to incorporate it all in this blog…
You get the picture: it’s been hectic.
Work and play
So, yes, the hen night finally happened. And it was a success I might add, with the bride-to-be enjoying herself tremendously, which is the most important thing and it was a great chance for me to get dressed up in a whole new outfit and experience my first ever ‘typical’ hen night.
As for work, yes I have had a few ‘bad attitude-fuelled’ encounters with the bookshop manager. It’s not uncommon for fellow staff to be frustrated and wound up by him. It’s the effect he seems to have on people, but I always feel I am able to control my behaviour towards him and instead of jumping on the bandwagon of badmouthing, I choose to keep my head down, do my job, go home and not think about it. However, on a couple of occasions now, he has gotten the better of me and I’ve answered him back rather immaturely so it was a much appreciated surprise and at the same time a slap in the face to myself when he gave me the holiday I had rather hastily demanded. I think I’d better watch myself and try to get back into them good books.
With the library, I think I may have been wearing a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. Don’t get me wrong, I do love it, but cracks are starting to show and they are grating on me a little. My response, I guess, is to try to think of solutions to the dilemmas I am faced with and to ask other staff and deal with things as a collective as opposed to stewing alone where I face the danger of becoming a bitter old librarian, shouting at people for making too much noise simply turning the pages of a book.
Make the change
During a catch-up with another friend, I was enlightened by some rather wise words he spoke, of which I am strongly in agreement. He currently works in banking and so is experiencing bad times from the industry’s point of view. A while back he seemed a little unhappy and undecided, however from our conversation it seems he is actually pretty focused now. He made the valid point that if you want to make a difference and really change things, you need to be a part of the change. You need to take action. Yes, the world has never-ending problems and they are considerably overwhelming, to be frank. However, we, each and every one of us can do things better and affect the people and practices around us. This is what he aims to do, by working up the ladder, influencing the way things operate by becoming a manager eventually. This ties in with something a twenty-something-very-mature-for-his-age ex-colleague said to me. He referred to us all as grains of sand on a beach, (in terms of magnitude), and by changing ourselves and making conscious decisions to do things in better, fairer ways, we can impact those around us and they can impact those around them and so forth.
Well, I’m not sure that I am back on form with my writing, following my previous blog. However, I am sure I will have much to tell in the next one again. Until then…
Read my previous job logs
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