My first class in library school was Management. I was very excited. I was Going to Be a Librarian.
The first assignment was a two-page report on a management title of our choice. Yes, a book report.
I chose what I thought would be a profound and instructive text from the Harvard Business School. I was very proud, carrying it around in my backpack. I was reading material published by Harvard. I was so cool.
So, I wrote my two-page report with my solid English training behind me:
- Seven and a half years of English coursework in high school
- Bachelor’s Degree in English from Michigan State with a concentration in writing
- Ten encyclopedia articles published for Gale to earn a little extra cash
I handed in my two-page report and got it back with a
big, fat B+ on it.
B+. I could lie. I could say it was an A-, but no, it was a B. A B+, sure, but a B variant nonetheless. If I couldn’t ace a book report, how could I possibly complete a graduate program?
I left class and headed straight for McDonald’s. I supersized a Big Mac meal and added an apple pie. I ate them while furiously commuting back to Lansing. Upon my arrival, I dove into bed and sobbed. I began calculating how much money I had wasted on the failed enterprise of graduate school… tuition! Could I get a refund? $30 for registration, $55 for the management school textbook, $75 for a backpack…
I began thinking I had passed my true calling: three stints at Burger King, ten weeks as a Drive Thru Princess at a corporate McDonald’s, and six months at Pizza Hut (where it took me a full week to get the large pizzas out of the pans without breaking them).
Perhaps fast food service was where I was better suited. I thought about settling back into the boring, miserable, non-Harvard Business School-reading life to which I was apparently destined. I was unquestionably doomed.
Hubby chuckled good naturedly, cuddled me, and patted me on on the head. His own little drama queen.
The next week I returned to class. I’d been sitting in the back corner and I realized I’d been with the same three women since class started. I asked the one with short, dark hair what her grade on the book report was. “An A,” she replied off-handedly. This was my introduction to Marie, who is regularly featured on this blog.
Hearing this, unLibrarian turned around pertly and began to read to me from her report. The management title of her choice was from the 1940s and it was library-specific. It had an entire chapter devoted to disinfecting books that came back from patrons with polio.
She read me her summary paragraph on this and then went on to another summary of a very judgy chapter about employee hem lines.
She looked up, an evil little glitter in her eyes. I was stunned by her bravery, by her cheek, by her daring and out-of-the-box thinking. She had picked a book from another era and reviewed it with stalwart sincerity. Then I felt profoundly boring on top of profoundly unsuited to graduate school.
“What was your grade?” I blurted.
“He took one point off for font. I’m going to get it back,” she got up and marched over to the prof. My jaw dropped. She got her point back.
I considered. If they could do this, so could I. It was just one assignment. I made friends that night, friends that I still have. And I decided not to give up.
Plum Librarian LLC 