Why the fuck is that so hard and unsustainable. I want to eat and afford rent and organize an archive of knowledge. I want a horde that I get to share with people. I want curious individuals to come to me and ask me to direct them to the knowledge they seek. I want to read and read and read and get lost in my ivory tower. Is that so bad? Is there no plcae in our society for this? It’s so fucking frustrating to receive nothing in response to a job application. I guess I will teach instead of being the esoteric librarian I crave being. Why did I have to be born into a working class family at a time when archivists are becoming obsolete. It’s such bullshit. I just want to preserve the knowledge I love and pass it on to similarly interested people.

  • onoira [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    9·
    1 month ago

    you solidarity me

    i always wanted to be a librarian but grew up in poverty and had to drop out early to work.

    by sheer will alone i bruteforced my way into high-paying software jobs on merit, but these days my skills are out of date, the work i enjoyed has been replaced with the stochastic parrot and certifications don’t cut it. i’ve heard even if i went back for my degree it won’t matter. but what i loved in every job was creating and maintaining and organising the mountains of documentation and context-building which facilitated my colleagues to complete their tasks. it was so much work, but i was expected to do this in addition to my ‘normal duties’. no time or money set aside every week to compensate me for this work.

    so i resurrected that child in me and thought about getting a MLS. but from what i’ve heard from people in the field… the comments in this thread seem to be about the US; the situation isn’t much different elsewhere. i’m lucky to be currently residing in a country that has archives encoded in its constitution, so i might become an archivist.

    my friends all say i’m a great teacher; that i light up when i teach them something. so maybe i’ll become a teacher.

    my therapist says i should work with animals; that i light up when i talk about animals. but that’s not economically viable either. most of the jobs are hurting (or treating injured) animals and that sounds heartwrenching. i’m reminded of a friend whose special interest is insects, but there’s not even academia down the entomology route: it’s pest control.

    i don’t even know what to do anymore! i don’t know where i’m going and i’m so fucking lost, because every avenue i look down has people walking the other way saying ‘you don’t even want to see what’s down there.’ for now i toil on whatever part time shit is willing to put up with my mentally and physically broken ass, and plod slowly along trying to restart a life that never began.

    EDIT: also, smart person that i am /s, i got my technical writer certificate just before the pandemic. because technical writing is totally something you can get hired for these days…