okay y'all. i'm listing here everything that's gone wrong (seriously and not so seriously) since i've come to savannah in an effort to make myself laugh. because right now, not much is going right and i'm just trying to muster a smile and a reason to get out of bed...
1. when i arrived, my apartment was not even remotely ready. not cleaned, no appliances installed, closet doors broken, floorboards missing, um--i think you get the point. unfortunately, some things are still not done and the property management company is not that great to deal with.
2. when i went to orientation for my job, too many alarm bells and red flags materialized in my head. i didn't listen to them. for example, there is no faculty staff directory. when a new hire in admissions asked about this, she was told, "well, just use the contacts you have." um, we're new. we don't have contacts. "well, just call anyone, they'll direct you." okay--is there a list anywhere at least of titles and phone numbers or extensions? "no." how do i contact people? "okay, just ask a coworker and see if they'll share their contacts." okay, how do i make my own contacts? "well, you'll just have to call people and get directed to the right person and see if they'll share their contact information with you." REALLY? this is a true interaction, though some exchanges may not be completely accurate after this 9-week distance.
3. by the end of my first week, i found out that everyone in the library hates the president of the college.
4. by the end of the second week, i found out that the library is gossip-central.
5. i am being watched by the library "spy." she has aggressively hounded me on facebook, delves too much into my private life, and is the caricature of what a southern girl is. we do not speak the same language, she is prejudiced--she will not help learning-disabled students (an art school, right? we have lots of kids with "learning disabilities!" that might be why they are visual learners!) and she thinks the rebel or confederate flag "don't mean a thang." she is also a self-described red neck when she drinks. and she tells the dean everything when she goes out for drinks with her... not professional...
6. i then fell victim to the office tattle tale. um, there was nothing to tattle, but it caused a big stir. i did not get in trouble, because it was nothing to tattle, but it was unsettling nonetheless.
7. i had to hound them to get my benefits. no one would contact me after my 30-day probation and if you don't sign up for them at that time, you are not eligible until open enrollment which is next october.
8. the "spousal relocation assistance" that was part of my offer was abandoned. we have been given no assistance, no local contacts, nothing. in fact, my recruiter ignores me when i contact him with any questions. i have not heard from him since the day i moved to savannah. i have contacted him three times.
9. i work in what my friend and coworker jessica--also new, from seattle--describes as the "bitter barn." that's where all of our colleagues work because they hate the place so much but won't do anything about it except complain and complain and complain. oh, and tell you not to do anything about it because all you can do is complain because nothing will change.
10. i became the most hated person in the library because i was sent to a conference in sarasota. then i found out that no one has been sent away for a conference in years. they wanted to know what "the new girl" did to get this honor.
11. we decided that there was no way my husband could move here--high unemployment, and hey, you can see, savannah isn't going so well! then, my husband lost his job. he is our primary income and we now have two very pricey rents to pay. this is not good.
12. my colleague, jenna, who i described as fantastic not that long ago, has informed me that she will not back me up on anything because she is too bitter and nothing will change. so i have no departmental support. period. it's just the two of us, so that's not very productive.
13. i'm trying desparately to work on the new donation policy because of the moldy book situation described below. i am in charge of all donations, so i would like this not to happen again. this may or may not happen. oh, and my colleague jenna will also not support me on this.
14. jenna just yesterday proved to me that she is just like everyone else i work with (except jessica who is also new and confused by this library). she basically sat me down and said that now that we've finished the quarter, i need to work on my own instruction materials for next quarter. okay--so this is a collaboration right? i mean, WE TEACH THE SAME CLASSES! she said no and then proceded to tell me why the last person in my position annoyed her--because she expected to develop materials for classes together and share them because WE TEACH THE SAME CLASSES. jenna then informed me that i have no access to her handouts or outlines for classes because they are hers. i am to do my own. these classes are called STANDARD bibliograpic instructions. the idea is that each class gets the SAME instruction so they get the SAME library literacy skills. generally, departments work on making COLLABORATIVE materials so that anyone can step in at any time and teach any class without fail. apparently, that is not the goal where i work. the goal is to make your own stuff, protect it like a rabid dog, and make sure that no one can sub for anyone so that you maintain your vitality to the library. weird.
15. jessica then told me that the office tattle tale came and asked her for coffee and then specifically told her to stay away from the reference department. "they" (um, me?) are apparently not good people to know. jessica is my friend and very miffed by this library. she is having similar problems here, but was confused what i might have done in 9 weeks to now really be on the gossip/tattle tale train.
16. i went to go pick up my new glasses today after going for 24 hours without being able to see much and they were wrong. i could see out of one eye and not out of the other at all. after i almost threw up and did walk right into a door and then realized i had no depth perception when i tried to grab a pencil, i took them back. they may or may not be ready by the holidays, so i may have to go for more than a week without glasses. i have never been able to afford a back-up pair, so this is also no good.
17. i found out that the college i work for is a family business. it was founded in the 1970s by a couple and their daughter (now the president). the daughter would have been in her 20s, i think. she has then gone on to make her children top positions at the savannah campus and another daughter and her husband run the new atlanta campus. i have also heard that the vice-presidents are family friends. many have been on board since the college was founded, i believe, which means that also some one them would have been in their 20s when they got the job. so this college is being run by a bunch of people who started here young and this has been their only job! no wonder there's all this crap that goes on! family businesses are normally a good thing, but i'm not sure about that in higher education.
18. i have a bloody nose everyday. i'm convinced it's from breathing in the air and chemicals spewed by the paper mills. it makes me gag outside, and yes, that smell even gets trapped in my office at work, so i have to smell it all day inside too.
19. each utility i have set up has gotten something wrong. my electric company decided it could make up an address for me and my internet provider just decided that it didn't have to listen to the actual service i wanted and so just gave me what they wanted to so my bill was three times as much as i thought i would be paying. i'm beginning to think that people down here can't understand my "accent."
20. i have been called a yankee--several times. unlike up north, this is actually akin to a racial slur down here and it means they hate you.
21. an old woman at a bus stop yelled "scad!" at me and then spit on me as i rode by on my bike. not everyone likes the students here, and i guess i look like i don't belong here so she mistook me for a student. the bad thing is that i work there, so she would have spit on my anyway!
22. my 60-something neighbor was hitting on me, pretty blatantly. i was pretty friendly when i first met him because i don't live in a safe neighborhood. it's the kind of place where you want your neighbors to know who you are. but then he started saying things like:
"you a librarian? that's not possible. you too sexy to be a librarian!"
"it's a good thing your husband isn't here. he'd know how sexy the neighbors think you are."
"can you do a favor for me? you see, i'm looking for a book--the kama sutra."
"you seem like a nice girl. i'm your friend. i'd like to share some wine and cheese with you. if i came and knocked on your door, would you share some wine and cheese with me?"
i now avoid him at all costs--i pretend i'm on the phone when i walk by or i just don't stop my bike. i think he's getting the hint because he asked me if i'm avoiding him. um, yes!
this might be it for now, but i'm wondering when this will end. i am laughing a bit now at some of these, so thanks...
if you go to charleston, please eat here and support good local business :) jessica and i will be going back.
then lee promptly arrived on friday morning! we went to clary's for a good diner breakfast. he enjoyed greatly the georgia pecan pancakes with georgia cane syrup. we had a lot of fun just tooling around town. the highlight might have been going into st. john the baptist cathedral. i had never been inside but heard it had great stained glass windows. well, the place is beautiful and has more than fantastic stained glass windows!
we also checked out colonial cemetary and tasted wonderful local honey at the honey house. lee wanted to catch a glimpse of paula deen's restaurant, too. well, i obliged--but then he had to buy me a cupcake from the cupcake emporium! lee also got his fill of sweet tea. i don't like it, but lee has a sweet tooth, as you all know, so he just kept getting it in little cafes!
do you see the reddish orb below the lights? yeah, squint--it's there! the guide told us that if we catch orbs on our cameras, they are spirits. reddish ones are "negative" spirits. um, that means angry, right? whatever--the orbs generally show up around flood lights :) it's a hokey little tour, but a lot of fun. here's our guide and a picture of jessica, her brother travis, and scott being "interested" in the photos of orbs that the guide was passing around. i think scott is showing just a bit of skepticism!
the next day, we did some gallery hopping throughout savannah. it was fun, and there were some places with some nice artwork. it makes you sad when you can't buy anything nice though. we also stopped by the telfair art museum. this is the oldest museum in the south, and they have a new building for more contemporary art called the jepson center. well, this is where the love hate relationship between the town and scad comes into play. i asked if scad employees got any type of discount--the jepson was built by famous architect moshe safdie in 2006 and lee was hoping we could get inside--and the woman said real southern snotty-like, "well no, but i'd encourage you to become a member." sigh... so we went back to the telfair and took some goofy pictures instead.
lee also got some nice southern style seafood--fried oysters and shrimp. later that night, there were fireworks and the parade of boats. this is an annual event where people don their boats in christmas lights and they go up and down the river and show them off. it was kind of nice, but it was pouring rain by this time, so we got pretty soaked. here's a close-up of one of the boats.
all in all, a nice weekend. it's a shame that he couldn't stay longer though and i was sad when he left. but in four weeks, i'm heading up to boston for new year's. so until then, a nice picture of the two of us :)
not part of the same complex, but next door is charles ringling's mansion. this is the brother of circus fame. his house is now a part of the new college of florida and this building has classrooms in it!
but i can't imagine classes with a view like this...
we also got tours of the brand new library at the museum, tours of the ringling college of art's campus, had great sessions on art law, and had wonderful chances to network and meet other art library professionals in the region. it was a good conference, but exhausting to be gone for almost 4 days. but, i also had fantastic ethnic food! i miss that in savannah. i had lovely peruvian and spanish food. and for all the old fogeys in sarasota, they sure like to have a good time. the town is quite lively and i would go back--just for the museum and the food alone. speaking of, check out this m&m gelato :)
but for me, the real highlight of the trip was a visit to the circus museum, at the same complex as the ringling mansion and museum of art. wow, what childhood memories of going to the ringling bros. & barnum & bailey circus! my favorite thing in the museum was this cannon--and check out the picture of the people being shot out of it!
wow!
so we all met at moon river brewing company for dinner and drinks and then left for molly macpherson's, where the tour started. the cool thing about savannah is that there is no open container law. so when you show up for the tour, they take your payment and tell you to go inside to get yourself a drink. you go to four bars on the tour and they stop and give you time to get a drink at every one. you just go up to the bar and tell them you want your beer to go, or you can also request a traveler. the only rule for drinking in savannah is that it has to be in a plastic cup. that's it! but savannahians being what they are--uptight, rich, southern folk--they have special words to make drinking sound better. to be "in your cups" means your drunk and when you have the "savannah flu" you are hung over.
but anyway, it's not too bad. i mean, my bedroom and my kitchen are fully functional. same with the bathroom. i just don't have any furniture in the living room to speak of and i have two other empty bedrooms. i'm using one of them for a "yoga room." well, i would, if i had done any yoga yet!
