Well, if I thought not getting hired by my library last time around was awkward and strange, it turns out that that’s just how they do all hiring aspects in these parts, on both sides of the coin.

My start date is 10/15, which I only know because I caught my boss in the break room and because city HR had to cancel (“We’ll reschedule soon!”) my benefits orientation, but “that won’t affect your start date, which the director says isn’t until the 15th, right?” Right.

The reason it’s so far off is that at our library, subs cover more desk shifts than permanent librarians, and they need time to hire a few more subs to take over what I won’t be doing. They need three. Apparently, I was doing just that much.

Meanwhile, I’m in this weird limbo where I don’t actually know what I am doing. I’m still doing my old desk shifts, but I’m also trying to keep up with the duties I “temporarily” took over from the librarian who I’m replacing, and the boss has started forwarding me emails relating to jobs I can’t do yet or haven’t been shown. I don’t know my new schedule, I don’t know the budgets or framework for my collections, and I spent three hours yesterday making pinback buttons with pictures of dogs, because that’s what I got a master’s degree to do.

And every time I try to ask anybody about what I need to start on first, where I should begin, I get shrugs and smiles—“It’s your job! You can do what you want!” Okay, so they’re good if I start by replacing the entire teen collection with hentai and then doing The Vagina Monologues for preschool storytime, check.