I find it had to believe that I have been doing this job for thirty one years. My working at the Library is all my daughter has ever known. Thirty-one years ago today a 28 year old me took the elevator to the thirty-fifth floor of Arco Towers to begin a new job and a new adventure. I had been working at Parking Enforcement, a job I still consider "A Season in Hell" for reasons which I will not enumerate, but to say that working with SOME of those people was a lesson in how NOT to treat co-workers.
I was only going to do this for five years. I thought I might get some budget experience then move on, maybe work for the CAO or the City Attorney. My job in Rent Stabilization made me appreciate how the rules and laws were created for the City and I thought either agency might be interesting work.
Then I got pregnant. Kate was a hoped-for "planned" child, but being a mother changed what I wanted. I really wanted to stay home with my baby, but the economy and other things prevented that. I guess I should be grateful, because having a job made ending my marriage possible when the time came. When I was off, there was an earthquake that damaged some of the Northeast and Hollywood branches to a degree that they were uninhabitable. I came back to relocate first my own office and then to work on getting the damaged branches into "permanent temporary" housing. We began a campaign for bonds for building projects, which passed and I spent the next several years working on building projects. Just as that was winding down, the Northridge quake happened and we were off again! 24 building projects later, I was a moving specialist. I had at that point moved more libraries than anyone in the country ( if you reason that the second building project was the largest ever undertaken and I already had a number of moves under my belt by the time that happened.) I was well suited to that job and it was a lot of fun. I kind of miss it, but given the current state of my body, I'm glad we aren't doing anything like THAT right now.
I think about retirement more and more these days. The job is not as much fun as it used to be and some days it is positively draining. I am hopeful they will bring in some new wide-eyed rookie I can train. My predecessor left a sheet of notebook paper with three phone numbers and the words "Good Luck"
AND - I can personally testify that had you not been with me on the Los Feliz post-earthquake emptying (is that a word - it is now!) and then the moving INTO the new temporary Los Feliz, and then moving into the brand new Arroyo Seco Library, I am not sure how it would have all played out. I learned through you that you and ONLY YOU could give instructions to the Crest movers, no matter how polite they were to me - ALTHOUGH - because of YOU, by the end of the job, they would actually allow ME to give them some work instructions. And naturally, the other, perhaps BEST, certainly most fun, memory was you, the morning of the opening of the Los Feliz temporary branch, doing some last minute vacuuming in high heels, pearls, but alas, alas, no chiffon apron - Robyn Donna Reed!
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