As a famous frog once said, “It looks like we’ve come to the end of another one…”
It’s a new year, and we’re still here. What the upcoming year will bring is anyone’s guess. Personally, I’m nervous about the elections late in the year. As a citizen of the United States I’m unhappy with some of the trends I see, and I’m downright terrified that so many people are very happy with these same trends. With luck I’ll go into that later.
Right now I want to talk about this blog site. Sometimes it drives me crazy. For the past few years I have tried to follow a pattern of one article a week, but can never maintain it. I have considered shutting this thing down, on several occasions. But I keep holding on to it, even though my apparent inability to regularly update it is causing me anxiety. So this year I’m not going to attempt a regular schedule. I will put up an article when I feel compelled to write about something. If that turns out to be once a week, great. But I’m skeptical. I tend to write when I have something to say, and that doesn’t always follow a timetable. That’s been the schedule I’ve effectively been following, so that won’t change. I now think that part of my problem is a lack of a consistent theme. Most content creators, even tiny ones like me, tend to focus on one topic, or a small group of closely related topics. Until now I haven’t been doing that.
One issue I have had, especially during 2023, was that I wanted to address topics that would have caused some real-world problems. Topics that, had they been breached through this online forum, would have been completely inappropriate. Sometimes they dealt with personal issues that simply shouldn’t be talked about online, other times they involved other people in my life that wanted to handle things their own way, and sometimes I was not in a state of mind that was conducive to writing. In the long run it probably doesn’t matter what my reasons were. However, some of those issues have since fallen away. One thing that has changed is that during the past year I have learned several things about myself and the world around me. My last major set of articles followed my stormy career path, and how it came to a pitiful end. That period of introspection turned over a lot of rocks.
I am considered neurodivergent. Which is to say, I see the world, and everything in it, through a lens that is very different from what most people see. For starters, I suffer from a variation of post-traumatic-stress-disorder, usually called just PTSD. It’s unlike most cases of PTSD, in that I didn’t go through a highly traumatic, dangerous, or threatening experience that through my entire world for a loop. (Though some of my experiences from my high school years might qualify.) Instead, I endured a long, sustained barrage of low-level stress issues, that over time created in me a response pattern that is in line with PTSD. Instead of facing a big and terrible experience, I faced a constant flow of small ones. Instead of my psyche being messed up by a few blows with a sledgehammer, it was worn down by a sandblaster. My time with the Library of Congress certainly provided that. I think there is a special name for this variant of PTSD, but I don’t remember it, and I don’t want to trust an internet search engine. I’ll ask my therapist when I see them later this week.
It is also very likely that I am on the autistic spectrum. I seem to be on what is considered the functional end of it (whatever that means…), but I have several of the key issues. The most apparent being that I can get over-stimulated and need to isolate myself. If I can’t, I become increasingly agitated and hard to deal with, and eventually I can’t really function at all. I suspect I’ve put Lisa through some pretty terrible phases over the past few years, especially near the end of Michael’s life. The true nature of my neurodivergency is still being determined. But whatever it is, I am a member of that demographic.
Which finally brings me to my point. At this point my late father would be absolutely seething, and thundering “Get to the point!!” Sorry, dad. But sometimes the point makes no sense unless you use beating around the bush to provide context. As a neurodivergent man in his mid-fifties, I may have some insights into this chaotic world that some people may find helpful, or at least comforting. The world can be crazy, and it doesn’t have a lot of patience for people who think differently, or view the world through a different lens. Perhaps I can help a few people with this. I’ll at least try.
That being said, this blog is likely to take on a different tone. I plan to examine some of the less comfortable aspects of neurodivergency, and how it can effect the everyday person. It can worm it’s way into life in ways that one could never imagine, and create a lot of discord. Other times it can provide a different way of looking at things that may not be obvious or apparent. I hope to look into some of these instances. Where possible I’ll use personal experience, and avoid indulging in self-pity. At any rate, it may get pretty dark in here.
So, it’s a new year, and I’m going try doing something different. Let’s turn over some of these rocks.
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Update, January 3
Apparently the variation of PTSD that I appear to have is simply called C-PTSD, for “complex post-traumatic stress disorder.” I have two observations on this. First, George Carlin would have had an absolute field day with that collection of buzzwords. Second, I thought it had a fancier name, perhaps with a Latin word in it. I’m actually a tad disappointed. I guess I was overthinking things.
Technical problems and intermittent writer’s block delayed this article. My goal for the year was to push out one article per week, and only two months in I’m already a month behind. This doesn’t bode well.
In addition to getting this collective bile out of my system, I’m also writing these experiences in the hope that I can help others who are in, or have been in, similar situations. My circumstances are certainly different from those of anyone reading this, but career problems have become commonplace. Perhaps reading about how another person handled their particular mess can be of help to the reader. If nothing else, the reader can take some solace in knowing that they aren’t alone.
When I left the Library of Congress in March of 2017, I was well and truly adrift. I didn’t have any real confidence in myself, and even less in my professional skill set. But even so I buckled down and embarked on the dreaded job hunt.
I used a lot of the traditional routes, such as trade publications, newspapers, and online classified sites. But I also used some of the more recent tricks, like networking and searching for volunteer opportunities. I set up an account on LinkedIn to re-connect with my professional contacts, more to see what they could suggest for a current job seeker. I actually found that a bit uncomfortable, because several of my contacts went to bat for me in the past, and now here I was with my career pretty much dead. They must have wondered why I was in this mess. Again.
For the first several weeks I was getting good results. I had several interviews, both in person and via telephone, so I was confident that one of my prospects would pan out. That confidence didn’t last long. By early summer I realized that my career prospects were very bleak. For starters I was encountering ageism. Honestly that shouldn’t have surprised me. I was largely restricted to middle and low level librarian positions, which meant that I was directly competing with younger graduates who were new to the profession. These were the same kind of people I used to run with back in the mid-1990’s. My skill set had atrophied to the point where I couldn’t compete with this new crew.
My skill set was another problem. Specifically, it was no longer useful. I fell into a rather common trap of career management, in that I didn’t update or even maintain some of my key skills. Arguably I had a good reason, in that I was too busy just staying afloat to worry about keeping myself current. But the end result was the same: I was professionally obsolete.
In late August I set myself up with a temp agency, in the hope of getting a temporary position at one of the local companies. I was going to have to think long and hard about what I was going to do next, because it was clear that the library field was done with me. The temp agency set me up with a local textile company, which would provide some income while I figured out what to do next. My first decision was to stop searching for a professional library job, and to stop following up on the leads I did have.
I found I needed to start over, from the very beginning. I could have tried getting some new training by returning to school. The problem with that was that my mental health problems would make any such training very time consuming because I have so much trouble focusing. Another problem was cost. The money it would require for me to return to school, even short trade classes, would be better spent on my daughter’s education than on trying to rehabilitate a worn out old guy like me.
I looked into other options, but nothing seemed right for me. Somewhere in mid fall I was mulling through my options, such as they were, and discussing them with Lisa. I was, by this time, completely demoralized and frustrated. I had two possible new career paths that I could attempt, but couldn’t decide. Lisa asked me “which do you want to do?” Surprisingly, I responded with “I don’t want to do either one, but I need to choose.” I then stopped and took a deep breath, having realized my large Freudian-style slip.
I then turned to the latest edition of Richard Nelson Bolles‘s famous book “What Color is your Parachute?” and started working through the various exercises that are designed to help you think through some of the huge decisions that career planning tends to generate. The exercises are very good, by the way, even if your aren’t job hunting. They make for good thinking aids, and demonstrate many innovative ways to approach and solve problems. I highly recommend the book for anyone who is facing difficult decisions of a non-emotional nature.
Despite the book’s benefits, I didn’t feel I was getting any closer to finding a new path. One day, something strange happened. There is a section of the book that talks about how to negotiate salaries and benefits. One thing Bolles recommends is figuring out what kind of a budget you can comfortably live on, so that you have a base line to start with. When it comes to salaries, more isn’t always better. (My salary at the Library was pretty good, but the work situation was so toxic that the money almost didn’t matter.) He points out that you should take into account not only your day to day living expenses, but if possible, how you like to spend your free time. I guess it’s the idea of not only making a living, but being able to actually live. He then mentioned, almost in passing, that you may discover that your actual salary requirement is fairly low, if it meets your requirements and allows you to enjoy your free time as you please.
I stopped reading the book at that point. In a state of absolute bewilderment, I realized that my free time mattered more to me than my work time, and that I didn’t care what I was doing for a living. So long as I could spend time with my family and pursue my hobbies and interests, my job didn’t matter. I was, apparently, a complete burn out, and no longer wanted a career. The career I had was well and truly dead, with nothing left to salvage. And I didn’t have any interest in building a new one.
The one big variable I still had in play was my application for disability through the Federal Employee Retirement System. If I was approved for disability, those benefits combined with my job at the textile plant would be sufficient. It would be tight at times, but we could still manage. What was most important to me was that I could turn my back on the professional world, perhaps forever. So for a couple of months I simply waited. In February of 2018 I received word that I had been approved for disability, and that my new benefits would start the following month. As fate would have it, the textile plant informed me that once a hiring freeze was lifted, hopefully some time in April, they wanted to hire me on as a regular employee. In April they did precisely that, and that was the end. I guess my final career decision was to stop having one.
I’ve been collecting disability since that time, and will continue to do so until I turn 62. That’s when the rules change a bit, and so do the benefits. I’ll deal with that when the time comes. I still work for that textile company, Cintas. The job is very simple, and certainly doesn’t require a master’s degree, so it gets on my nerves from time to time. But unlike my job at the Library, it doesn’t follow me home. A decent meal, shower, and a good night’s sleep is usually all I need to shrug off the worst of days. Sometimes I look back and think about returning to the professional world, but then I remember how during my last months at the Library I often wished to be somewhere, anywhere else. Yeah, I really am a burned out… something.
But, I was supporting my family again, on are far more modest level. I have to say that collectively I’m now a more content, if much poorer man. And I can honestly say that I would rather keep working my blue-collar job at Cintas than return to a job like my white-collar one at the Library of Congress.
So to answer Bolles’s question, my parachute turned out to be blue.
That concludes the narrative portion of this excursion. Questions still remain, though, and I hope to address them in time.
Someone recently asked me why I was documenting all of these horrible memories. I’m hoping that doing so will help me put them into a lasting perspective, and perhaps even “get them out of my system.” Let’s see what time decides.
The National Audio-Visual and Conversation Center was built from a re-purposed, cold war bunker designed to house survival supplies and hard currency to help maintain the eastern United States in the event of a nuclear strike. Clearly that contingency never came about, so after some negotiations the facility was sold to the Library of Congress. With the help of a private foundation, the facility was converted into a storage center for nitrate movie films, videotapes, audio recordings, photographs, and similar media that required climate controlled storage. Given that the building was largely underground, it was very well suited for this purpose.
When I started at NAVCC, it was still establishing standard operation procedures. All of the functions had been transplanted from offices in the Washington, DC area, facilities in the Dayton, Ohio region, and some storage facilities in Pennsylvania. When I first reported for work, my department was still being re-structured, and the Library was still searching for a department head. My primary project involved digital media files from video games and television commercials, which had been a large part of my focus back in Washington. My first year at NAVCC was fairly quiet, but some of my recurring concerns remained. The largest one being my tendency to get distracted. I told myself that I was getting adjusted to a new location and work routine, and that things would settle out in time. But even so I had a sinking feeling, deep in the back of my mind, that something wasn’t right.
I had been there for roughly a year when the moving images section got a department head. I’ll refer to her as Zelda. I didn’t have many dealings with Zelda for the first two or three years she was there, largely because she was dealing with larger, more urgent matters. But she and I had an awkward relationship from the very start. When we first met, I was in the first of what turned out to be the first of many deep depressive phases that made my existing problems increasingly worse. I think she picked up on this, and while she was busy elsewhere, she kept a watchful eye on me.
I wanted to do well at NAVCC. I was pretty sure that I had messed up my career on several fronts, so I had to make things work and get back in good standing. I tried to learn the new procedures and techniques for cataloging movies, but they never clicked for me. I initially approached moving images as just another media, and that the basic cataloging principles that I had been using all along still applied. I just needed to figure out the specifics.
That was not the case. When cataloging moving images, I eventually realized that one has to view the material from totally different angles, and that relying on techniques used for other media will ultimately mess you up! Again, I can only say this with the benefit of hindsight. I think moving image catalogers are born, not made. It requires a very different mindset. A good comparison may be when someone has an “eye for art” or an “ear for music.” Most people will watch a film, or look at a painting, and say “that was good!” But others will see layer upon layer of hidden meanings, and see significance in details that most other people would never notice in a month of Mondays. In the world of music, most people will listen to a symphonic masterwork and think “that was good!” But others will hear all kinds of subtle counter-melodies and harmonies deep within the score, that most people will never pick up. I will admit that I do have some of this skill with music, and when listening to symphonic music especially, I often find new elements that I hadn’t heard before.
I think a similar is needed for motion pictures. There are people who will always view movies things from a different perspective than most everyone else, and apparently that different perspective is a necessary and defining attribute. If my experience is anything to go by, those who do not have this magical “sixth sense” will never do well in that particular part of the library world. I may have an ear for music, but I do not have an eye for film.
Part of this unique perspective appears to be a way for viewing and processing details. Every little detail related to a moving image can completely re-define every other detail, and in order to truly understand and describe such materials, you need to instinctively notice each and every one of these details without effort. In the computer science world this type of thinking of often called “bottom up design.” Sometimes the most effective way to handle a project is to look at the individual details, at length, and come to conclusions based on the cumulative observation of them. The approach used by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, deductive reasoning, is an example of this “bottom up” approach. Dozens of facts that do not appear to have any connection to one another, actually do connect and form a composite picture. But the composite picture can not be seen until all of the scattered details or examined at length, and put together in the correct way.
I do not think this way. I fall into a school of thought called “top down design.” This is a far more common, but less nuanced thought process. Basically someone looks at a problem or project, then breaks it into smaller pieces that can be examined and worked with. Some of these pieces can be further broken down if necessary, until eventually the entire project is complete. When I cataloged material in the past, like a book or sound recording, I had the item in front of me. I knew what I was working with at the very start, and could start extracting the relevant descriptive details.
This approach didn’t work with moving images. For starters I rarely had the physical item in front of me. What I had was a collection of documentation, and I had to glean the relevant information from these documents. The overall nature of an item sometimes wasn’t truly apparent until numerous details had been examined at length. The lack of a “top” to work “down” from often sent me into low level panic. I knew that details needed to be examined, but I found that without a “top” from which to reference from, I had no idea which details were relevant and which were not. Someone with that magical “eye for film” could apparently pick up on this without a second thought, but it was never clear or apparent to me. That Sherlock Holmes method of deductive reasoning never happened with me.
If you’re familiar with the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, then you probably know that he had absolutely no patience for people who couldn’t perform deductive reasoning at the same rate as he. I found that the people in the moving image cataloging arena had a similar contempt for people who lacked an affinity for film, like me. I was generally disliked by my co-workers, and had a reputation as someone who “doesn’t listen,” or “doesn’t learn.”
It didn’t seem to matter how often something was explained to me, or how long I worked at describing an item. I could never truly apply it, and most of it never made sense to me. Often I wasn’t able to retain the training I received. Within a day or so the copious notes I had taken during the training session had devolved into another set of gibberish babble! As time wore on, this grew continually worse.
It was after about four years that Zelda started hovering closer. My work often had errors, often of omission or misunderstanding, and she had to bring these to my attention. This happened with increasing frequency, which caused me more anxiety. That anxiety made more more nervous, which eventually let to more mistakes, which let to more pressure from Zelda, which let to more anxiety, which let to more mistakes… you get the idea. I was caught in a vicious cycle, with no idea how to break out.
My last two years at NAVCC were the worst. Zelda was now on frequently my case, and unfortunately for me she had good reason to be. I need to point out that one of her primary objectives was to restructure and redesign the department to be more in line with other large film libraries like the corporate ones in California, or at some of the academic centers that specialize in film studies, like New York University. That meant that one of her functions was that of hatchet-man: things that didn’t fit in with this new vision needed to be removed. That included people. I wasn’t the first one to be forced out, and I probably wasn’t the last. But I may have been the most difficult to deal with, at least for Zelda.
Every two weeks we would meet, officially for training and review. For me it was abject humiliation. She reminded me, at every possible opportunity, that as a GS-12 this material was supposed to be second nature to me, and that I should be handling larger and more complicated projects that just cataloging items. I wasn’t fulfilling what was expected of me. She also pointed out, often with a certain amount of contempt, that I seemed to work best at things that followed a pattern. I never argued that point, because it’s true. I figured that moving image cataloging followed a logical pattern like just about everything else, and that if I kept trying I would eventually find and master that pattern. I now think that when she pointed out that I worked best when following a pattern, she was trying to tell me that this type of cataloging does not follow a set pattern, that each and every item is unique, and that someone like me doesn’t belong. Zelda would tell me that I needed to un-learn what I had learned and use a different thought process. I tried, but never could. The “bottom up” approach was something my brain simply refused to do. The apparent absence of internal logic, a pattern, was not something I could work with.
I’m now convinced that she was trying to compel me to resign, because I wasn’t of any use. Why did I stick around? Because I had no where else to go, I had a family to support, and the prospect of searching for a new job terrified me so much that I was willing to endure anything Zelda dished out before facing the prospect of having to find a new job. I also knew, deep down, that finding a new job would be almost impossible for me. I knew I had totally lost my way and I couldn’t see any possible way of finding a path again. Sadly, I know myself well enough that the only way I was going to leave the job was if Zelda, or her immediate superior, had told me in straight no-nonsense words that can only be interpreted one way, that I needed to quit. But because of regulations and laws, I don’t think they were allowed to say that.
[Remember the guy at the public library who actually did say something like that to me? I’m pretty sure he got into some trouble, but nothing very serious. Perhaps the state of Maryland is more forgiving than the Federal government.]
Anyway, it was horrible. At least once a month I would come home and lock myself in a room somewhere and have a meltdown. No matter how hard I worked, and no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t going to be enough for even the lowest of Zelda’s expectations. Things were also getting very bad at home. Zelda had become the single most important person in my life. She was more important than Lisa, Caitlin, or Michael. My every moment was spent trying to improve my job performance, in the hope that Zelda would accept me.
But the reality that I was forced to accept was that Zelda needed people with a certain set of skills, I did not have those skills, and she wanted to replace me with someone who did. The only thing she really wanted from me was a resignation. When my final evaluation came down, with the recommendation to remove me from federal service, my world collapsed. So much of my self-worth had been invested in my career that the knowledge that it was probably over and done for was more painful than anything I had experience up to that point. Even the death of my mother was easier for me to handle! I felt like a broken piece of trash that was being placed on the curb to be picked up and carried away to the dump. Forgotten, and of no further use to anyone, anywhere.
That was how I felt at the time. Empirically I knew it was untrue, but the mind of the mentally troubled doesn’t work logically. I had a full scale nervous breakdown.
My last fwo months at NAVCC were surreal. Since it had been firmly established that the best thing I could do for the collection was to never touch it again, I spent most of that time searching for a new job, and cleaning out my work space. I was ashamed beyond description. I did my best to not speak with anyone. Which was easy because everyone else seemed to be avoiding me. My professional guild (similar to a union) had been trying to help me salvage my career. What they did manage was to set me up for involuntary retirement, based on medical disability. Or at least try for it.
On my last day, I left the building using one of the service entrances, far away from where everyone else would be coming or going. I was so ashamed that I didn’t want anyone to know I had left until after I was long gone.
By this point it was clear that something was very wrong with my cognitive functions. I had been undergoing some testing and therapy to figure out exactly what was going on. But that process had a while to go yet, so it wasn’t going to change the immediate situation. I was lost in a state of frantic despair, with little or no hope that things would ever improve. I think the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was because of Lisa and the children. Even there I was filled with despair because of what I had put them through, was still putting them through, and would continue to put them through. I really didn’t want to live any more, but somehow I had to keep going.
One of the things I learned during the last year was that I do not, and never have had much affinity for career management. I feel that the majority of the professional decisions I made during my 25 year journey proved to be unwise.
Let’s go back to 1991, when I chose to enter the library and information science profession. Before I get started I need to say that this is difficult for me to address. Just about every book or article about career management, or every career or life coach, will ultimately ask questions about what we want, what our dreams are, or what we love to do. They will also suggest we choose a field or profession that “speaks” to us, or involves something that we love unconditionally, and are prepared to spend the rest of our working lives doing (to one degree or another).
I was never able to answer those questions. For starters, there wasn’t really any profession or vocation that “spoke” to me. What did “speak” to me was the need for a vocation that would allow me to pursue what I wanted from life. But as for an occupation that I truly loved or wanted to enter, that changed every fortnight. My interests seemed to bounce around like a swarm of bees, moving from one place to another, and never holding still for long. I could never answer that age old question of “what do I want to do when I grow up.”
And this created a real problem. I was 24 years old and had my bachelor’s degree, and it was time for me to choose a career. I had reached that point in my life, and before I could make any other decision, I needed to choose a career path. This wasn’t negotiable. It was how I was brought up (for better or worse), so it was what I had to do. Fumbling around the world, drifting from one job to another was not an acceptable option. But my interests were so fickle and mercurial that I could never make a choice. Because my interest shifted around so much, I was compelled to start ignoring many of them. I couldn’t base a major life decision on something that was so unstable! To do so would have been totally irresponsible. But a decision simply had to be made, and it couldn’t wait. (Or so I thought at the time.)
This created another problem. I have never seen what I do for a living and what I like to do as ever being the same thing. I don’t know if there is anything in the human experience that appeals to me so much that I would be willing to make it the core of my life. I was also pretty sure that whatever I do for a living would periodically make me angry, and lead to resentment. Many of the things I greatly enjoyed, like music and writing, needed to remain safely in the “hobbies” column. The things I love to do and what I do to support myself have never been and never could be the same thing.
When I apply hindsight to this period of my life, and then look at the events that followed, I found that I never made a career decision based on what I wanted, what I loved to do, or what my dreams were. Ever! My decisions have always been based on what was prudent at the time, what had low or manageable risks, and where I stood a good chance of success.
My first major job out of college was as a para-professional cataloger at an academic library, and all things considered I was pretty good at it. I took that core skill set, figured out some possible ways I to apply it, and ran with it. I chose the profession of library cataloger not out of a love for libraries, a fascination for organizing knowledge, or even a passion for books, music, or movies. I became a librarian because it was the prudent decision at that point in my life.
In the fall of 1991 I started working on my master’s degree at the School of Information Science and Policy at the State University of New York at Albany. I enjoyed graduate school, though not as much as undergraduate school. Most of what I learned about the library field was done in a largely practicum style through a graduate assistantship. I also handled the library school newsletter for a semester, and worked part time as an abstracter for a member of the faculty. It seemed to work for me.
But the actual work force proved difficult for me. After graduating with my master of science in 1993, I soon landed a cataloging and abstracting job with a major university. Fairly quickly I found it hard to stay focused. I had grown accustomed to what could be considered a production style approach to cataloging, which could be approached in much the same way an engineering project could be approached. But a lot of the time, that wasn’t what was required of me, and so at times I struggled. But since the job was based on a grant, I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and that I would choose more wisely in the future.
I failed to do so. My next major job was at what I thought was a corporate library position for an academic research foundation. It actually turned out to be a sales and public relations position with some library related duties thrown in. That job was a complete disaster. I lasted only four months before being thrown out into a cold New England winter. That was arguably one of the darkest periods of my life, and I seriously considered suicide.
But I pulled myself back together and landed a contract librarian job with a government agency in Washington, DC. In truth, this job worked out for me. My primary task was to handle cataloging and acquisition tasks with methodical regularity. I became a one man assembly line for catalog information, and for a few years I did just that. I also got along well with my co-workers, so I even had a modest social life. All in all, I was content with it.
Unfortunately, contract positions are inherently temporary, and eventually that position fell to a budget cut. My company moved me to another contract at another agency, doing much the same type of work. And this one also worked, though the environment was a bit toxic, with two contracting companies constantly trying to drive each other out of the picture. But even so, after almost three years I was the head of the cataloging project, with two librarians, three paras, two technicians, and a translator reporting to me. It was actually a pretty good gig, and looking back I suspect it was actually the high point of my career.
The problem was the political climate at that agency. I was constantly being pressured to expand the contract, and help develop more business for the contracting company. These were things I had no real ability at, though I did try. Eventually I found myself caught in the middle of a battle of wills between my company and a few of the federal employees we reported to. No matter how that battle turned out, things didn’t look good for me in the long run. So I started looking to move on.
Note again that I said this job was likely the high point of my career. From this point on, things seemed to either stagnate or deteriorate. My supervisor from that time period would probably say “I told you so.” But I left that job and went to a public library position, which I held for about two years. I was a happier person, because the political mess was gone, but in all honesty the job wasn’t very rewarding one. What I enjoyed was the decent paycheck, and the freedom follow my own interests outside of work. I took that job for personal reasons instead of professional ones. And ultimately it ended badly.
Another budget cut eventually resulted in my position being eliminated, and I was moved to a reference position at one of the branch locations. This was a complete fiasco. I was not suited for working with the public, and the branch manager didn’t want to deal with a re-purposed cataloger. After three months he told me, flat out, that I should look for a new position, because he wanted to remove me, and was going to start setting me up for failure if I remained much longer. I now suspect that the neurological disorder that would eventually ruin me was starting to have an effect, though I don’t think there was any way I could have seen it as anything other than vanilla stress and depression.
When the opportunity presented itself, I returned to the world of contracting. This was another prudent move, in that it kept me working while I figured out what to do next. I took a contract in the library of yet another government agency, and was relieved to be cataloging again. I liked the material I was working with, but my personality didn’t mesh well with my project manager. I think my work pace was too slow for their liking, and my problems with distractions persisted. In hindsight, whatever is amiss with my cerebral cortex was in play by this point.
When that contract expired, I started working for the Library of Congress. At the time I thought I had finally made it. I thought I was set up for life, at an agency with a solid reputation, a certain amount of prestige, and doing what I honestly thought I was best at.
This was in 2003. Lisa and I had gotten married that year, we were planning to start a family, and generally were setting up the foundations for the rest of our lives. I thought I was in a good place. But here too, I was wrong. The culture of the Library of Congress turned out to be very toxic. I was again having trouble focusing, which I attributed to the pressure-cooker environment of the place. But there seemed to be more. Things that were obvious or second nature to some other catalogers, never entered my thinking. I seemed to be running on a completely different frequency from nearly every other cataloger there. But, I thought, so long as I keep getting good evaluations, I should be fine.
I was hired at the GS-9 level of the civil service ladder, which was typical for a cataloger at that agency. The usual promotion path goes to GS-11, then GS-12, and perhaps GS-13 or higher. This is an over simplification, but the Library pretty much forces people to ascend that ladder to at least the GS-12 level. To effectively do that, you need to be running in sync with the rest of the pack. And I wasn’t.
The process of moving to GS-12 proved extremely difficult. At least two of the higher catalogers told me, point blank, that I didn’t seem to have the necessary mindset. I was struggling with the job, and the promotion that I was being railroaded into didn’t seem like a good place to be going. But I was committed to the process, and kept slugging forward.
To complicate things, the Library went through a re-structuring that resulted in my particular unit being disbanded. If memory serves, I was slated to be transferred to one of the book teams; physical sciences, I think. But I wanted to continue working with digital media materials, and most of that was being moved over to the moving image section, which was in the process of re-locating to a recently opened branch location in Culpeper, Virginia. So after a lot of negotiation and maneuvering, I was transferred to the moving image team, and my family and I relocated to Culpeper, Virginia.
Professionally, this would turn out to be my largest, most costly, and final mistake.
