Last week and next week both qualify for that title. Last week classes started. There was no “ramping up,” there was no sense that things would get busy soon. Things just got busy. Period.
What was even more depressing was that I spent most of Wednesday simply entering things into my calendar. Meetings got scheduled, reference shifts got scheduled, students started making appointments to see me, and little by little my whole Google Calendar turned blue (my chosen “busy” color). That was one of those days when I could have used an assistant to schedule things, reschedule things, answer my email, and generally free up my time so that I could do all the things that I consider to be fundamentally part of my job, like plan the very challenging class I’m teaching on Monday, or find the answers to the in-depth questions a couple of people sent my way.
To top it all off, a couple of us (me included) spent most of Thursday and Friday redrafting the document we’ve come to call our “White Page.” This page started off as a white paper on The State of Research at Carleton, which was to be handed over to the campus’ curriculum review committee. Then the Dean of the College asked that we please condense our paper into a one-page document, hence the “White Page” moniker. I’m lucky to work with people who are willing to write collaboratively, but the process is quite laborious and by the end of each day we wandered around like zombies, completely fried by hour upon hour of collaborative writing. Friday we were so lifeless that we could hardly get up the energy to leave work. We just stood around, staring at walls, and wondering why we weren’t leaving.
Meanwhile, I didn’t get to finish planning for that class I’m teaching TOMORROW… so guess who’s spent most of her Sunday afternoon and evening at the office.
Next week promises to be much worse. We have consultants coming to do workflow analysis as part of our project to explore cooperative collection development with St. Olaf. I have classes and appointments and only 4 unscheduled hours all week. And my parents are coming to visit for my birthday. The parents-coming-to-visit thing is WONDERFUL, but I wish I didn’t have to be so busy while they were here.
It’s a good thing I’m addicted to my job. That’s all I can say.