My Job

I am an assistant librarian for a primary school in New Jersey. I'm the person who puts all the books away and checks out the books for students and staff members. I assist in making the bulletin boards, and putting together the crafts. Lately I've been putting new spine labels on the books to make it easier for volunteers to put them away. I do most of the clerical work that happens in the library.
I work part time; only three hours a day. I love this job though because as a mother it keeps me on my children's school schedule. I also get to do things that I like to do, such as organize,read books, and create crafts. I spent last summer reading children's books so that I could help the children pick out good books. I also take books home and read them so I know about them when children ask "is this a good book?". I know that this is a small job, insignificant to the big world, but it is my job and I love it. This is the first job that I have had where I have felt fulfilled as a person. It is a job I look forward to going to each day. I know that many people do not have this same feeling. So the fact that it is ending is heartbreaking to me. Let me share my journal entry with you from a week after I found out I would lose my job.
January 21, 2010: "If you have been diligent in reading my journal (I'm assuming some day some descendant of mine will read my journals) then you know that I love my job as assistant librarian. Here is something that I found out last week, being called to the principals office even when you are an adult is a "BAD" thing. I was told last Thursday that my job due to New Jersey legislature is being cut in June. So at the end of the school year I have no job.
Oh how heartbroken I have felt. I've cried quiet a bit these past few weeks. what was very hard is I was told at the beginning of my work day, and so I had to work for three hours without totally falling apart. The librarian would have let me leave, but I did not. When I got home I called my husband and told him that I could not make dinner (again just crying so hard). He asked what was wrong and as I told him it just hurt so much. My job is being cut. My job is being cut. He actually was able to leave work and come home."
Looking back on that day there are a few things I'm very thankful for, one that I was told by the principal that my job was being cut. Others have not been so lucky. I've had friends in the same position call me and say did you hear that our job's are being cut? How did you hear? I felt that being told directly by my
supervisor instead of hearing through the grape-vine was although hard such a great example of a supervisor who respects and treats their staff with dignity and kindness.
I'm thankful for my husband and the support he has given me. I'm thankful for my family and friends who were there to hug me and say "That is so unfair!"
I have become determined to stay at my job until June and be the best employee that I can until my last day. To smile and enjoy every bit of every moment that I have left. I try to get as much as I possibly can done to make sure next year when I'm not there that things will be easy for the volunteers who will hopefully help fill the gap.
I feel sometimes like the charater "Kathleen Kelly"(Meg Ryan) in the movie "You've got mail" She has a small children's bookstore, she loves her job, she knows about the best children's books and then the big fox books comes and causes her bookstore to go out of buisness. I have that little book job that I love, and the big New Jersey Legislature has come and said my job should be cut. I'm hoping that like Kathleen in the end the something new will be as great as what I'm losing.