So you want to become a librarian?

Or: is there a job… where I can just live my life? Like, spend time with friends and doing hobbies and still getting paid?

During my first "job," I was too young to be legally employed, so I volunteered at a library with my mom. Initially I worked in one of the back rooms, hidden from the public, helping to scan and sort books put in the return bins. (I discovered several great books by seeing them come back; among them were Dogsbody, Lovely Bones, and Me Talk Pretty One Day. Those are listed alphabetically by title and that wasn't even by design!)

After I volunteered long enough, I was deemed sufficiently experienced to put books on the shelves in the stacks. I was titled a "page" and proudly announced that while attending a LAN party. One of the other attendees of said party said "and if you do that long enough maybe you'll become a full book!" I laughed quite heartily.

If you've never read anything else I wrote here, the post above will probably tell you everything you could possibly want to know about me.

Librarians require a master's and make like $34k a year.

Me at 46: I want to dismantle the machinery that makes trillionaires.

I had the job shelving books. I'd show up in a button-up shirt and slacks and I could shove all day with no problem at all. No one would bother me. I'd show up in ripped jeans, a Metallica t-shirt, and 4 years since my last haircut and people would ask me for help every moment of the day. Libraries are weird.

I found a nice quiet job in a lab that’s like this. No one fucks with me, some days I’m completely by myself, but the one drawback I’ve discovered is I find myself getting stuck in my own head a lot. Sometimes I have to go find something or someone to distract me.

Buddy of mine was a night janitor during college. I had to help him a few times, and it wasn't a bad gig, run around and vacuum, mop some stuff, take out the trash. Dude listened to music the whole time and basically never saw anyone. Sometimes I kinda want to quit doing software just to do night janitoring.

I work in a hospital in a lab where I look at small pieces of the human body through a microscope in a quiet office where people apologize for interrupting me. It’s heaven

me at 50 after the latest round of cutbacks and layoffs, "are there still jobs that will allow me to pay my bills?"

I dunno I thought I wanted this and took a job at a datacenter

Some days I don't even interact with another human

5 years into this and it's completely killed my social skills and therefore social life, im thinking about moving on for this reason actually

Never wanted to climb the ladder, but it was the only way I could really get better pay.

The higher I go, the more I can't stand the conversations. Being straightforward is a career killer. Competing with folks that talk big without knowledge, knowing I need to carefully balance working with them while making sure my ass is documented and covered for any blame when they screw up and want to throw someone under the bus.

I have generally still loved talking to the "grunts" and customers. People who have real problems and doing real stuff without so much office politic crap going on. Not people trying to write blog posts to try to sound smart without actually doing anything or actually knowing the material.

I've climbed the corporate ladder and traveled all over the world until I got near the top where the nepotism is thick. Said 'fuck that' and bailed out early.

New plan: "Work for myself." Took me a decade to get here because of little things like health care and capital.

Been on my own for almost 2 years now and it is glorious.

If I could organize the arkane library daily with my current salary, I would be happy

The job you are looking for at 38 is Page but like every job within the library system. It pays worse than teaching for the no-exceptions required-education

I never wanted the former, even as a kid.
All I've ever wanted is something that's unstressful and fulfilling by doing good to others and gives me enough, both time and money, to be comfortable (and my view of comfortable in the money part is a lot less than the vast majority of people want).

I'm 40 and getting my massage therapy license out of nowhere. Similar line of thinking.

IT security is like that. It's really boring until it isn't.

I actually started climbing the ladder and to be honest, I fucking hate it and am looking for a way out. I have never dealt with so many people that are willing to sacrifice their own dignity to be a sycophant for the sake of money.

Don't librarians in the US have to have masters degrees? I thought it was another underpaid very competitive career path where you had to wait for people to retire to find a job.