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February 25, 2007
It Only Took 4 Years, 9 Months, and 25 Days
April 29th will be my five-year anniversary of working at WPL. I started just a couple weeks before Webster opened a new library, and, in fact, the plans for the Children’s Room were what upgraded my interest in working at WPL from “vague” to “I must.” The Children’s Room is set up like a park – complete with a picket fence, a gazebo, a river, a bridge, a rainbow, clouds, and the sun. The great thing about coming into the project at the time I did was that everything was planned and almost done. I would just be responsible for finishing things up.
1763 days later, I’m still working on it.
There were a few things I noticed right away that were going to be problems or need attention in the new building, and there are things I’ve noticed since. That’s part of working in any building, really. One of the biggest problems that was driving me crazy for the 152,150,400 seconds leading up to this past Friday was that there wasn’t enough light in the most landlocked parts of the room (near the Story Room, for those who have visited us in person). The area has very high ceilings and, for some unknown reason, they decided to light it with little cans that only shed light figuratively. There were shadows and the whole area felt dreary. I told my boss at the time, Marvin, that it was a problem, and he kept selling me variants of, “Yeah, we’ll take care of that soon.” That went on for a few years. Then he retired. Then I started singing my song to my new boss, Terri, who finally gave me the go-ahead to do something about it sometime this past summer.
Then we ran into several of my anxieties: a lack of confidence when dealing with anything involving electricity, uncertainty over what needed to be done, reluctance to commit to big physical changes in my space, and outright hatred of talking to strangers on the phone. Between my anxiety and plenty of other things to do, I put off calling anyone until December. Then the first guy I called came in and treated me exactly the way that professional women hope men won’t treat them. This unhinged me enough that Jason volunteered to take over the project (whether it was out of concern for me or a desire to shut me up, I cannot say). It took him a couple weeks to come up with a solution, and then Terri took care of getting multiple estimates, getting the right approvals, and getting it scheduled.
So I came in to work Friday and found a clean, well-lighted place.
In the end, it took the electrician a couple hours to install those lights. I was so happy when I saw the light that I almost started crying right there in the middle of the Children’s Room. I’ve been in the library every day since, and I still have a hard time not staring at the radiant wonderfulness. It’s hard to say what amazes me more: how long it took to do something so simple or how satisfying it is to finally see it done. Seeing the difference, I realize that I should have worked more stridently to get it done sooner, but maybe the real moral of the story is that if I whine about something long enough, eventually someone will take care of my problem – if only to shut me up. Have I ever mentioned that they treat me really well at WPL? Because, yeah, they do.
Posted by adrienne at February 25, 2007 11:02 PM
Comments
I hope that you have before and after pictures. When I first started we made LOTS of changes, and never took any pictures. Stupid stupid stupid.
BTW I hope you got my email!
Posted by: Cathy at February 26, 2007 12:37 PM
I hope that WPL gives you a party!
Posted by: Cathy at February 26, 2007 12:50 PM
*Every time* I have chewed my knuckles about making an expensive change in my house, and have dragged my feet about contacting contractors, getting estimates, choosing paint/light fixtures/blah-blah-woof-woof--I have been miserable after the fact about having waited so long. Life's too short; go for the gusto.
Yay, say I, to light in the Children's Room. It really was depressing to essentially face that dark corner every minute behind the gazebo--and it's so lovely to see the "sunshine" over there now. Thanks, Boss!
Posted by: Marcia at February 27, 2007 05:51 PM
Yes, Cathy, I did get your email and have been wanting to write back. The days have been flying by.
You're so right about pictures. I haven't been taking enough. I tried to find good shots of the lack of light, but I generally avoided taking photos over there because they all came out crappy on account of there wasn't enough light.
Posted by: adrienne at February 27, 2007 09:54 PM