How I spent my summer vacation circa 2006

So there I am April 2006 trying to decide how stay in Potsdam so I could get the hell beat out of me on a weekly basis (i.e. playing for the Trailblazers, which is a whole other set of stories). My best friend in who shall be known as Agent 23 pointed out that they were hiring for summer work at the Clarkson Library. 40 hours a week and free housing fucking A right sign me up.

I met several interesting people my first week on the job. One kid started every story he had with "So we were drinking heavily in Riverside" and ended with "which was a bad decision.".

I met CK for Chipmunk Killer because she professed to us that she killed one on accident driving and it devastated her which I found funny (I actually sang Alvin and the Chipmunks to her once, she hated me). I also met Kimpossible who defies my ability to describe her in this blog other than to the name fits. Another girl we worked with was nicknamed Caliente (which is not known to her) but was given for the reason that of all of the options she was by far the most Caliente. She was a solid Clarkson 8 but I feel she was painfully dumb. Every time she opened her mouth it made you want to insert something anything to prevent the onslaught of stupidity that would spew forth. That takes care of all of the women and they got the easiest jobs. I dont say that to be sexest I say it because it represents the truth and makes me glad that I found ways to cheat the system later.

The other guys who thought that the library was a good idea that first week are Other Guy who was really quiet which is the main reason he recieved that nickname (OG turned out to be the shit). Freshman was there and recieved that name because he was a schoolie freshman and annoying as anyone I have ever met in my life. He called his mom nightly to ask for permission to do anything. He had to ask to go to a hockey game on campus. Hearing this kid talk would make a nun punch a baby.

Agent 23 was there and other stories with him will be well documented at some point but he and I usually got the truly shit jobs. You need a big ass piece of wood carried up 30 stairs because you can't fit it in the elevator no problem I would love to herniate a disk for 8 dollars an hour. Oh you have 12 other pieces of wood that you would like me to single handedly carry because you dont feel its heavy enough to warrant two people please sir may I have another.

The last person that was there was New Guy and he did not come until after two weeks into the summer so he was the new guy, original right. New Guy is one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life mostly because he inflicts such pain and embarrassment on himself that it takes masichism to a whole new level. From recording porn on a Dragon Ball Z tape and "hiding it" back on the shelf with the other tapes because "No one would ever think to look there, it was the perfect spot", to buying 6 cans of whip cream and getting pulled over by the cops stoned, to hurting himself trying to shelve books I have never laughed harder.

New Guy had no shame when telling his stories and also no filter much like myself. He was blatantly honest when sitting around during lunches with our bosses. He was the person who nicknamed me Shrek and it has stuck. NG, A23, and myself became friends if for no other reason than we got handed the crap jobs. I have touched every book in that library 3 times because we were too efficient. About a month into the job we were told that we had completed all of the jobs that they had come up with (I think these are the same people that run the US Census) so the decided to think of new ways to make our lives miserable. We in turn found ways to cheat the system. We took naps while hiding up in closed stacks coming up with very elaborate "traps" that would wake us up if anyone came to check on us and make sure we were working.

While we were working up in closed stacks shifting books we came up with the brilliant idea that it would be much faster to throw the journals (which were usually very heavy slick encyclopedia like books, I know we are engineers and we are retarded, I fear for your safety). This was much faster but also very dangerous because we got a sick sense of pleasure from doing little amounts of pain to each other. One such incident was me being the middle man passing books down the aisle to shorten the toss. As I went to make my toss to A23 I notice he is not ready and isn't looking so I pause then toss. As I turn to catch the next brick I hear New Guy say "Oh shit" and then I tasted book. You know what it tastes like dust and blood, oh wait the blood is from my mouth, fuck me.

This is just one of the many injuries that I incured from the dangerous life of being a librarian. After the summer job was drawing to a close we were given the option to "interview" for a position during the school year. Well I thought this job could not get worse so I decided to apply. I was wrong. The director of the library hated me and to this day I do not know why. I just know that the Barb-arian tried to find special ways to make my life unhappy while at work. From making me catalog journals by the 1,000 by hand on what they called "the purple sheets". I tried to inquire as to what these sheets would be used for. In my second semester I was lucky enough to find out. They would be checked to make sure that they were in our collection and then would be copied by hand again to another binder with "the white sheets". I shit you not I thought I would have an aneursym when I found this out. It was at this point that I vowed I would do as little work as possible. I drew pictures, I wandered around, I would do homework and just generally find anyway I could to not do anything work related because the work was bullshit.

Also as an engineer what the fuck can I do with that on my resume "I was really good at throwing books and getting shit done really fast".