Dan Scott @dbs@code4lib.social
Don't forget the meds, Dan!
work gripe
Why do I have to send this to management on an annual basis?
"Please just send calendar invites, rather than an initial email with tentative reservations. You can modify the calendar entries if the dates/times change, and it will update all of our calendars, instead of leading to us creating our own entries which then get out of sync."
Therapy
First f2f (video) meeting with my therapist went well.
She had me walk through all the events of my past year and asked, if somebody else told you they had gone through all that, would you be surprised if they were depressed / angry / burning out / needed new coping tools?
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Also, good intro discussion about the logical mind and the emotional mind and the need to balance both in making decisions. I've been mostly suppressing the latter for...ever?
I'm incredibly privileged to even have the option of making a decision, and I feel guilt about that.
Need to get back into therapy.
Need to start running again (I was at 50k/week before the university declared insolvency).
Unsure about whether to add the SSRI back in; suppressing the depression symptoms might be nice, but I also value anger that is valid and motivating.
What to do about work is the hardest part. Working with faculty and students is fulfilling, salary is good, but the mgmt environment is toxic. And I can't just shrug and mail it in. That's not me.
So my doctor and I have been experimenting with my meds. Dropped the SSRI so have only been on a stimulant for over a month now. I started the SSRI for mild dysthymia but it appears to have masked the evolution of a major depression--almost all of which relates to my work environment. Several tiers of shitty management, with no support at the level closest to me.
I've been fighting so long, but I'm tired of fighting. So I need to figure out my next steps.
Started the day with an awesome bike ride on some trails that looped around a lake. It's pretty hot here so after breakfast I was hiding out in a dark room to cool down. Felt strangely low energy and ended up doing almost nothing but dozing for many hours.
Then around 16:00 realized I forgot to take my meds this morning. OMG!
Dan Scott
boosted
I just wandered by the late-stage capitalism temple to wage-slavery known as LinkedIn. There was a survey there that was interesting mostly for the hellscape of comments it drew. I'll ask same question here where I hope to read much more sane commentary.
Would you rather make:
While much of this year has been crap, our rhubarb seems to have used it as fertilizer. Crumble coming up.
Here's my draft workload as a librarian for the coming year:
Liaison, School of Architecture only
Liaison, Faculty of Arts (English programs)
Liaison, Faculty of Health and Education (English programs)
Interlibrary loans
Accessibility
Data & Statistics (English)
GIS
Research Data Management
Scholarly communication & publishing
Technical services
Systems
If it isn't obvious, this is *ridiculous*. The equivalent of at least 4 separate positions.
Even better, when I enter "2430", it says "The information supplied does not appear to be a valid time. Please use the HHMM format."
🙄
No no no!!! That's not how time works. There is no "2459"--especially if you're making me choose between AM and PM!
Peer reviewing hijinks
That made my reviewing job significantly easier.
Peer reviewing hijinks
I was asked to review an article in my research area. Okay, cool, I'll do my academic duty.
By the time I finished setting up my reviewer account and downloading the paper to start reading it, I received a *ping* from a vanity service telling me one of my own papers had received another notification.
Curious and grateful for the opportunity to procrastinate, I checked it out, and it was *the exact same paper that I had on my screen* but published in a different journal!
Hey Sudbury Ontario friends, Cambrian College is hiring a full-time Professor of Game Design!
Salary $67K - $115K. @victoria
Every time I change something in our Ex Libris Alma system and then go to create a report based on it, I am reminded that the report database uses an ETL process that runs once a day.
So of course things are out of sync.
"""
Data available as of: 2021-05-04 24:31:51
Data updated as of: 2021-05-03 20:00:00
"""
ARGH.
Just completed point-and-clicking to apply a minor config change to 212 collections in Ex Libris Alma because they decided not to provide an "update batch job" (unlike most of the other entity types) and instead offer an "E-collection quick edit cloud app"... which failed to update 18/20 and 41/50 of the collections in my first two test runs.
Guess I should have used the API. I just can't believe how hostile this program is.
So if you're wondering why I've been quiet for a while, it's because of this awful situation that has been playing out.
Apparently the layoff notices are being sent on Monday.
How was Senate forced to approve this odious package?
By being told that if they said no, the university would close entirely. Duress and conflict of interest should have had the while thing ruled out of order, but apparently not.
I urged faculty Senators to resign from Senate rather than be complicit in this travesty, but AFAICT none resigned. I suspect many abstained.
Yesterday our university Senate was forced to approve an academic restructuring package they didn't see until the meeting started, that cuts programs and will result in mass layoffs of tenured faculty and staff and leave students with no way of competing their original program.
And it was all in-camera, so none of the discussions or arguments will be part of the publicly available minutes.
The administration made a mockery of collegial governance and the bicameral model.
