Today

I want to write something more hopeful than I wrote earlier in the week. I am grateful- EXTREMELY grateful,for the love I received and the encouragement.   I will say this again, I am overwhelmed by the love from my community of friends.  I hope I can and DO return the love you have all shown me.

Today marks 32 years as the Branch Facilities Manager- although it had no such title when I started. Wide-eyed 28 year old me, thinking this was just a stop on the way to something ... bigger.  WHAT, I ask could have been bigger than this?  I was fortunate to fall into something that suited me and my meager talents.  I grew.  My late, and much missed boss, Betsey Hoage once observed that I "created" the position, which I  suppose to some degree, I did.  I found a niche for myself.  I really miss the thrill of moving and opening buildings, but given my current health challenges, I am glad we are NOT doing that now.  I am looking at two years before I retire.  I hope to leave my colleague  filled with the knowledge of how to get it done, so she won't have to reinvent the wheel, as I did. Truth to tell the wheel has changed substantially since that bright October day when I entered the elevator at the then-ARCO towers and rode the express up to the 35th floor .  We used to do everything by hand, the pace was slower. There were 62 branches and two bookmobile units- Chinatown was branch 63, but the Valley Bookmobile was number 62. InnerCity Bookmobile was 91, in case you are wondering...

Things are faster, people expect immediate results.  Sometimes it is possible, sometimes it is not.  I have days when I go home feeling like I really earned my paycheck and some days I feel like I let my co-workers down. It's like any other job, I suspect, but this one has a meaning dearer to me than getting the records straightened out at Rent Stabilization or talking complaint calls at Parking Enforcement ( after we designed the areas, they seriously had NOT thought out what we would do and so I took phone calls)  I like to think this job makes a difference in the Department.  I love my  "peeps" as one of my co-workers calls my folks out there in the branches, and YES I have a real affection for them.  I was told once that I should not care as much as I do.  I can't work like that, hell, I can't LIVE like that. Love is always part f the equation for me.