Job Free

Having never fully adjusted to the 40-hour work week lifestyle after years of graduate school and home-based businesses, I'm quitting my job to get back a lifestyle that works better for me. My last day is June 15.

One of the worst things about being deliberately jobless is being confronted with the question "What do you do?" The question can trigger in me a warped version of the Protestant Work Ethic and feel like a judgment on my choices. But, since it's really a simple conversational opening, I work at not feeling defensive. One possible answer is in the new name in my blog title: online librarian.

Another answer is take the advice that maisie posted on one of Barbara Sher's forums on July 11, 2006: "My reply usually starts with 'well at the moment I'm into…' and talk about whatever interest, hobby, research, etc. that I'm scanning at the time." Barbara Sher wrote Refuse to Choose for "scanners," people who are always into new things. I've found a similar book to be useful, too, in making this decision: The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine.

Here are some ways I expect to complete "at the moment, I'm into..." in the next year:

• Growing herbs
  
• Using herbs we've grown
  
• Fixing up our new house the way we want it
  
• Fixing up our old house to sell it
  
• Fixing up our cabin the way we want it
  
• Gardening
  
• Writing a novel as a NaNoWriMo participant
  
• Eradicating honeysuckle at the new house
  
• Writing for professional library literature
  
• Speaking, particularly in Missouri and southern Illinois
  
• Teaching, same geographical area and on-line
  
• Volunteering on Info Island in Second Life
  
• Participating in the informal network of librarians using social software
  
• Working part-time at a community college library or public library
  
• Consulting or contract work for libraries
  
• Blogging about libraries and life
  
• Learning about WordPress
  
• Learning about Drupal
  
• Reading
  
• Writing about reading
  
• Rediscovering my natural work rhythms which don't conform at all to regular office hours
  
• Exercising
  
• Eating healthily
  
• Cooking and baking
  
• Observing the changing of the seasons, particularly holidays and Sabbats
  
• Observing the phases of the moon
  
• Throwing parties in our new house and at our cabin
  
• Contributing to my community
  
• Volunteering with my local chapter of the Special Libraries Association
  
• Volunteering with the Missouri Library Association
  
• Taking more photos and putting them on Flickr
  

Comments:

That sounds like a good life. I wish you the best of luck with all of it.

# posted by  Jenica : 8:36 AM

 

At the moment I'm into brave women who can make bold decisions about the future and value those everyday things that too often get pushed to the backburner when they should take centre stage. Congratulations!

# posted by  Kathryn Greenhill : 8:42 AM

 

Joy,
From a fellow scanner and lover of many things: Good luck!

One does not have to be in a library to be a librarian. ;)

# posted by  Michelle : 9:01 AM

 

Congratulations! A wonderful decision. I made the same decision some time ago. I'm still working full time - but I'm my own boss. And when the garden calls to be flickr'd, I'm there. Enjoy the freedom to choose your own path.

# posted by  pafa : 10:10 AM

 

Any day you can quit a job that isn't right is a good day--and I've always felt that jobs take away too much time from the important work one could be doing in the world.

Congratulations!

# posted by  Laura : 10:18 AM

 

Congrats again, Joy! It really sounds like a great decision for you, and I wish you the best! I'm glad you'll still be close by, and I'm sure I'll see you at SLA events and such. I already put a hold on the 'Renaissance soul' book - sounds like it's right up my alley. Thanks for sharing - it's all very inspiring.

# posted by  Amy : 3:21 PM

 

Well it's now December 2007, so how's it going? I hope you got over the 40 hr a week indoctrination. It's a hard one to beat. The whole idea of leaving your home ans family and going to a place of work to exchange time for money is a direct result of the disaster that was the industrial revolution. I wax lyrical and at length on this topic in my blog.

If only the Luddites had prevailed.

I wish you success with garden and herbs. There is nothing more satisfying than the simple pleasure of eating home grown food.

Namaste

# posted by  Duranki : 9:10 PM

 

"Barbara Sher wrote Refuse to Choose for "scanners," people who are always into new things. I've found a similar book to be useful, too, in making this decision: The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine."

I'll check out the 2nd book. Sher game me such an ah-ha moment in Refuse to Choose.

Charles Lamm
chaz@affiliatemarketingforscanners.com
http://www.affiliatemarketingforscanners.com

# posted by  Charles : 1:51 PM

 

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