Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Nemesis, Choosing a

Every librarian should identify a nemesis within their library. This person can bear the brunt of all your frustration, moaning, and general ill will. Think of this colleague, patron, or pesky employee as the mascot for your misery. No search committee required.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good idea, but we have so much misery here that might we have more than one nemesis. Ultimately, though, the Evil Director is responsible for such nemesis-like characters as the Dullard, the Mercenary, and the Teacher's Pet...so perhaps we could just attribute them to the E.D. as Nemesis-in-Chief.

Anonymous said...

Can there be more than one?

I'd say a large library warrants several nemeses.

Anonymous said...

can it be everyone you work with? i think that if your branch is not airconditioned and the windows are bolted shut and you have lovely skylights over your desk and it is literally 100 degrees at the reference desk that everyone, coworker and patron alike become nemesises, but the administration (at a different branch in their air-conditioned offices) even more so.

Anonymous said...

I call mine Bleh. I think she's given me an ulcer. That, or the nightly bottle of wine is to blame.

Anonymous said...

I had a nemsis at my last job--I called her the energy vampire because she sucked the life out of everyone--like the Salt Vampire on the orginal Star Trek.

One of the senior librarians was always giving advice to me about not stepping on her toes--it didn't take long before I told him to tell her that she needed steel-toed boots. Then I bailed for significantly more money...

I think there is a moral in there somewhere...

katreenka said...

now that i have switched libraries i don't really have a nemesis at my library; however i was just mentioning to a friend the other day that i have a new nemesis within the system~a fellow librarian (which actually makes more than a couple of nemesi{?!?} relationships i have within the system itself~does that say something about them (perhaps the profession) or me (perhaps my tendency to rampage occassionally)?

Anonymous said...

I'd agree, it seems we all have serveral nemisii. We have Tanty Woman, BooHa, Bells man (who comes in wearing pants with bells all down the legs) and Mother-in-law (thankfully not related to any of us) Lurch aka the flea has left for sandier pastures (somewhere in the middle east)

Anonymous said...

No one at my library deserves this title. They're not intentionally malevolent, and for that I'm grateful. The habit of 'tattling' is, however, unattractive in anyone over the age of seven. Mel

Anonymous said...

I think most people in government jobs have a nemesis. I'm behind the scenes and have Mrs C to contend with.