You're Perfect For Your Job

Yaaaay! Puppets!

Those days come when you don't think you can stand one more kid with an excuse why he should have more than a half an hour on the computer ("I'm just waitin' for the program at 6." "It's ten of, kid - go find a good seat.").  You look down the road and see two one-man puppet shows coming at you like a semi full of rubber chickens and you're the 'possum with her paw caught on some gum in the middle of the road.  Your idea of a whole month of storytimes centered around music and dance suddenly looms larger and more teeter-y than a pile of all the discarded encyclopedia sets in the country.  And your simile circuits have jumped the shark.

The idea of a Dr. Seuss storytime using the huge compilation book (instead of the individual stories, which are checked out, of course) that cost so much that it was made a non-circulating tome doesn't seem as clever as it did before you picked it up and held it all the way through The Cat In the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham (2 times) and you're doing it again tomorrow.  The flannelboard of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish got out of control and storytime seemed to have fallen short of the 30 minute mark. 

Later, just when you wonder how much longer you can do this job, a mom says, "I want a job like you have.  I've watched you for years and this job was just made for you.  I want a job that's perfect for me like that."

That's when you remember that this job is perfect for you.  Your liberal arts education (five foreign languages, only two of them dead, none fluent but at least the Spanish comes in handy now), years spent doing theatre, love of puppets and toys, arts and crafts background, not to mention years of watching Warner Brothers cartoons, have all prepared you to know a little bit about a lot of stuff, to love stories, and enjoy thinking up things to entertain kids.  If this isn't the most perfect job for me, I don't know what is.  I've done lots of other things: factory work, secretarial, paralegal, data entry - blah-blah, and while most of that has paid better, this has been the best fit.  It only remains for me to turn the concept around.

It's not just that this job is perfect for me, but I am perfect for this job.  There is no one else like me.  Others might be just as good at storytimes or crafts activities or redirecting children instead of just yelling at them (note to self: work on that one) - but when it comes to the whole package, with the shelving and 18 years experience of Dewey Decimal, ease with Webtimewaster 2.0, small office machine repair and maintenance ("Marf! Show me again how the laminate goes in the machine!") - No one can beat me.  I pwn this job. I am in your non-fiction section reading your shelves.  Don't mess with me.  I am perfect for this job.

Gosh, now I need a nap.  Only ten more years to retirement.  Sigh.