Last Friday advertisements for both of my assistant posts appeared. The subject one I share with the science librarian and the promotions one I share with his/her enquiry work. Both internal only at this stage which rules out my brother looking for a changing of scene. (Now that would be weird! Little brother as an assistant!) Next Friday is the deadline for applications. No idea who might be thinking about it so anything could happen.

My subject assistant (the one who applied for the business post)... got the job. She starts today. (So from my point of view has now finished.) Congratulations to D and I'm sure she'll be good at it.

On the other hand that means I've lost both my assistants in very short order. To lose one might be regarded unfortunate, to lose two just looks like carelessness.

There's a part of me however that, recognizing she's been more than a little involved with helping at other posts for the last couple of years of our restructuring, thinks that it will be a good opportunity to start again. At least I understand that both will be replaced, but it will be a couple of months most likely.

What was interesting, just before Easter, was the person who approached me about the possibility of replacing D and making it a job share. But that's supersecret and I promised I wouldn't breathe a word of it until personnel have worked out some details.

Nice to have had three days away from work. I was beginning to struggle the last week or so and feeling very rough.

Actually have the rest of this week of as well however to go to an Easter celebration of teaching and worship. That won't be so restful and after last year's experience I'm a little concerned about how it's going to go. Plus we're sharing a chalet with a friend from way back.

Great to see my brand new nephew yesterday at my parents'. There were 18 of us around the table (Mum, Dad, us four 'children' and our spouses, eight grandchildren!) The newest one was only born on Wednesday and balances us all out to two a piece for myself and my three siblings. Any bets on whether that's us lot 'maxed out'?

So farewell to my *other* assistant. The one I've just had for a couple of months helping with promotions. Time for him to retire just as I felt I was beginning to get to know the old curmudgeon (as he styles himself!).

(The assistant mentioned in the last post is on the subject / liaison side, although throughout our staff restructuring she's pretty much been doing another role so assistance has been limited).

So, now I'm looking at a job description and advert for his replacement. It will take a little while, but at least he is being replaced. That's something of a relief. In the meantime, it's just his (brand new) assistant - the one I had such a trauma over appointing - and I to hold the fort.

All the best to K for his retirement though.

Not sure that I'm cut out for management. We've now had the *first* stage of interviews for the replacement business librarian. We had so many good candidates hat they could get 26 only down to 8 and they neither wanted to weed any more interesting looking possibilities based solely on paperwork, nor wanted to interview 8 in one go.

So a two stage process was designed where the 8 would be invited to give a presentation and have a half hour peer group discussion, followed by some
of them being invited back for a formal interview.

The first part was where I came in. Two and a bit hours of 10-15 presentations. 40 minutes of lunch with all the candidates. Four hours of peer group discussions. One hour of peer group discussing who to invite back (large based on 'points' accumulated by various measures in the candidates' two performances.

So 10am-6pm. Without a break really. I should have protested more vigourously. It would be exhausting without all the emotional extras, but as it was I arrived home way past any ability to do anything.

And just to add to the fun my assistant (shared with science librarian) was he one internal candidate - but at least she made it though to the interview stage despite running on far too long in presentation. (Given 10 minutes with 4 for questions, 17 minutes of talk is really pushing it).

At least I'm nothing to do with the interviews. We'll see how they turn out.

Last night went to see a terrific actor on stage in a dear little intimate theater where I couldn't have asked to be much closer to him. It wasn't a play, or even the readings from his new biography that I thought was on the cards. It was just him on stage for 100 minutes or so without break telling us the life story of a long dead writer who had inspired him.

With no props (except a table on which a glass and a bottle of water stood) he kept us spellbound not so much with an interesting story - although it was that - but with his presence and manner and wit and words. It was entrancing.

I can't work out whether he's inspired me more to Write something or take up a life on the stage!

Learned some scary things today from The Candidate himself and from elsewhere which only confirmed my worst fears about the process. Know any good buses I can thrown myself under?

We'll just have to see how it turns out but I think my faith in the 'system' has taken a blow from which it may never recover. I can't help feeling I would have got as good a result (almost certainly better) by rolling dice. It was best summed up by a former colleague who said "it does sometimes seem that the meticulously fair tick-box approach to performance on the day can be unfair in a wider sense."

What an awful day yesterday. One I hope I never have to repeat although I may be going through something similar in a few months time.

It was interview day for the post I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The assistant to my assistant (who will soon be retiring himself).

Four candidates, all internal, all suitable and no doubt capable. I knew it would be trouble. Two of them I don't know so well; two I know better from book group and work social events; and one of the latter I get on really well with.

Two of the candidates were real artists which was a bonus in promotions work. For me they stood out - one for his interview and his experience - the other for her poster in the exercise we asked them to do and her enthusiasm.

All things considered it was an extremely close run thing but utterly frustrating to find in the end that the way the panel discussion and assessment goes that there's no room for feelings about how well you think you'd work with someone or how ideal you think someone might be. Or for including knowledge about the experience you know someone has which simply didn't get expressed. With some input from the exercise, it's mostly down to how well the questions were answered.

The upside was that all four were "appointable" as the expression goes; the surprise was that, asked in the exercise to create "promotional material", everyone focussed on producing a poster rather than also thinking about how they might put something on a web page, our plasma screen, or social media. I know they didn't have a lot of time, but a hint or a tweet wouldn't have taken a moment.

Physically it was a demanding day - 11am to just before 5pm with virtually nothing in the way of a break. I'd been prepared for that and knew it would be hard. Emotionally/socially/psychologically - well, I knew that would be hard too but I had absolutely no idea of just how utterly impossible it would be. Especially having to face a result that will probably be the hardest and strangest for me. And you're so aware that there's only one job and therefore three very disappointed people. Why can't I have all four?!

I cried all the way home and having taken the phone to bed I was so nearly unable to move, called each of the four for ten minutes apiece and slept the sleep of the dead. If I never have to do that again, it will be too soon.

I had a letter published in a paper of note this week. Still glowing from that. Not quite sure why it was so exciting. It was inconsequential enough in an ephemeral form that will soon disappear. I'd emailed them a couple of times before but this one was a bit more thought out and obviously hit the mark for whatever reason.

The letter itself was responding to an article I'd seen two days before celebrating one of their crossword compiler's 40th year. I recognized him as my old music teacher at school and commented on his still haunting me and still teaching me all these decades later.

Most amusing was my wife's response. Despite the professional book chapters and peer reviewed articles I've had published; despite the hobbyist books and articles I've had published and even earned the odd cent or to for; this was the first time she admitted finally a modicum of being impressed. Ah well. Such is life. Sic transit gloria.

From one end of the personnel process to the other. Yesterday, along with two others, I was shortlisting candidates for my assistant's assistant as it were.

All internal, all very capable.

But as I have to deal with personnel from this end of the works, I suddenly see why everything seems to take so long with them... .

To a party at the weekend thrown by the map librarian who has turned 50. He'd invited quite a large number of people from several of his different 'lives'. So there was a good gang from the library there.

Fun evening. But as some of us were the last to leave a little after midnight, and I had a couple of boxes of books to drop off, and I was doing the driving for three others, we took a turn around the Library at 12.30 to see how 24/7 opening was going.

We were all somewhat taken aback by just how full the place was on a Saturday night and how much actual study seemed to be happening rather than just chaos and rambunctiousness which we were expecting.

Bit of shame the the library system had fallen over. It happens very rarely but did mean self-issue was a non-starter for those who wanted it. But it's good to see that with exam period on us, the extra opening certainly seems to be being used.



[1] Well, old Science Fiction magazines from the 50s that I accumulated somewhere along the line) to give to the SF society.

Just an update although the news is still officially embargoed I think.

Didn't get the job - but really the best of outcomes. Performed really well, didn't let myself down and was apparently considered 'appointable' which was encouraging. But beaten by more experience of leading
large teams and managing big projects.

I think I'm relieved really as not at all certain I would have loved the job. I wish the candidate who got it all the best and will watch with interest. But surprised to find it wasn't who I thought it would be.

All done now.

50 minutes of grilling.

Actually, it wasn't as stressful as it might have been. I had feared I might have been humiliated as I was in an interview a couple of decades back for a school library post. (You can get away with not being able to answer one question, two might look a bit bad... but three? Really they wanted a teacher not a librarian.)

I think I did as well as I could and it's now down to the panel (four, not three as I expected, the head of IT was there too) and what the other candidates were like.

At least I'm not too stressed about the outcome either way! But I'm relieved not have let myself down.

Book group now. Definitely time for a drink!

They're running way behind now. So still not been in.

On the up side though, several people have told me that my presentation was by far the most interesting. Which is encouraging. (Not that 'interesting' necessarily equates to 'good', and even if it did may only say that it was in poor company or not be what they were looking for.

Good grief. I can no longer run on adrenalin for 9 hours straight. Used to thrive on it.

Well, I'm through the presentation, sit-around-making-polite-conversation and lunch stages.

I think my presentation went well. Nervous, but I kept to time, didn't hurry and enjoyed my first outing with Keynote and the iPad direct to the screen.

Now it's the interview (brought forward to 3pm as one of the five candidates has chosen not to come). Not sure that I'm at all prepared for the searching questions about my (in)ability that I'm expecting. OK, maybe not inability - but lack of management experience. And one of the other candidates seems very strong from chatting with him...

Nerves have definitely set in now.

But I'm as prepared as I think I can be. For the presentation at least; not at all sure about the interview later this afternoon.

Time to go...

New Year and back to work.

Atrocious weather, awful headache - it's not boding well already.

But I've sorted some outstanding problems I couldn't fix before Christmas so that's good and I've had an eye-test that's unsurprisingly revealed that I do indeed need new glasses - of the varifocal kind - not so good.

But before I go home I thought I'd better write about the next BIG thing.

Last year one of our two deputy librarians retired. Off to sunnier climes. We duly advertised his post - managing cataloging and acquisitions and systems.

Now for some reason I managed to miss the adverts and even the fact that they'd reached that stage in the proceedings so I accepted that what with health and not being at all sure I'd really want the job, that was that and it wasn't meant to be.

However, only two people applied - one internal - and we didn't appoint anyone. Human resources and the Library Head decided to review the job spec and see if that was the problem. I'm not sure they changed it much, but by the time I did catch the advertisement second time around I was wondering if I shouldn't give it a go. Several factors came into play:
- I'd been stung by former colleague S, somewhat dressing me down for not applying for the other Deputy post when it had come up
- I can't let illness put me off - it's up to them to tell me they don't want me
- what if they had appointed the internal candidate and I'd not even bothered?! (The fact that he was the guy I beat to my present job also confuses things!)
- can I really keep doing what I've been doing for the last fifteen years?

on the other hand:
- would I be promoted to the level of my incompentance? (the Peter Principle)
- would it be all the tedious bits of my job and non of the fun bits?
- (related to the last) would I mind no longer being an 'academic'?
- and related to that and the differing pay scales, is it worth it for the small increase in salary?

Well, for better or worse I put in an application. And although it took an astonishing amount of time before I heard from HR, I was offered an interview.

That takes place on Thursday. I'll keep you posted.

Last day at work of the year. Here till 3pm - if head cold doesn't drive me out earlier.

Looking at some stats of various universities - we score extremely highly on ebook segement downloads.

Some disappointment being expressed that our Christmas tree was removed yesterday.

Spam email now arriving faster than work email which is kind of good.

Have finished all the jobs I really wanted to do before the break so now on tidying up and more 'fun' things.

Just in case I can't be bothered to post anything until the new year - have a great Christmas and a happy New Year!

Yesterday reminded me about the importance of feedback. I maybe a sucker for encouragement feedback but it's surprising how much I thrive on it and find I need it even.

I've written here about my efforts to write haiku and to write Traveller material. It's not been a bad year for occasionally having haiku published and it's been an astonishing year for the amount I've both written (I wrote here before about why I think I've been more inspired) and also had published in the Traveller universe.

Until a couple of months ago that was when things seemed to dry up. Not quite sure why.

When things were being published - nearly instantly sometimes - it was sufficient feedback in itself. Acceptance emails or other commentary isn't generally a feature of any of the three editors I submit to (although one responds to queries very helpfully). But if the piece in question is published, it's not particularly a problem.

The difficulty comes when submissions aren't being used.
Is it just not good enough?
Are there just too many other good articles?
Does the editor want to balance content? Authorship?
Have I done something to offend?!

It would appear I can discount #3 above as some journal issues have only articles by one author and/or on one subject.
Difficult to think of anything I might have done on #4.
And it's hard to see much difference in quality in what I've contributed which would rule out #1
I shall optimistically hope for #2 and see if the new year brings any change.

Perhaps I'm just overly sensitive as one of the submissions was my first attempt at a fully fledged adventure. All 7000 words of it, with pictures (and even a fake bibliography!). What's worse is that I sent it for comment to an acquaintance who I'd also sent some physical books to - and he seems to have dropped off the face of the planet!

It's interesting comparing the above with the world of haiku where editors are pretty good at the whole acceptance/rejection thing - so at least you know where you stand. On good days, you might even get commentary on why something was rejected which can be really useful.

Good feedback is exceedingly hard to do. Being critical but not demoralising is a fine line to tread and my hat's off to the editors who manage it.

Reminding last week of the staff restructuring (more interviews for junior positions today), I was reflecting on one bit of the process that I found encouraging.

I think I mentioned that the six faculty librarians had to take on six areas of special responsibility.

The 'process' called us for us each to express an interest in on of the areas and then if more than one of us wanted a role, we'd have to do formal applications.

With six very different strong personalities I could see this being an awful task and frankly I didn't think I had the energy to face a formal application procedure. So I floated the idea of us sitting around a table and seeing if we couldn't just agree to split the six jobs between us.

There was much harumphing and "it'll never work" and fears that weaker voices might be hassled into doing something they didn't want. A couple were up for it, but the others couldn't see it working. But I persisted in saying, at least let's try. Give it one hour and if we can't hash something out in that time, we're unlikely to. And if there's the slightest doubt from anyone, we do the formal applications.

A few days later, somewhat to my surprise, we did get together for an hour and even more to my surprise we managed to divide the six roles between us quite happily. All the worries folk had had that "so-and-so would be put out if I went for that" and so forth proved unfounded.

The Head was utterly astonished when we all put in an expression of interest for a different role! She had no idea we'd be able to come to any such arrangement!