[deleted paragraphs about election returns]
Hey! Pretty heartening U.S. election returns, eh?
[deleted paragraph about weather and leaky apartment windows]
Guess what? It's cold here.
But my new all-glass door is tight and dry. I love it!
And now...
I had a revelation last week:
I DON'T WANT TO STUDY NONPROFITS.
I don't want to go into business management, even for Important Causes.
NO. I am not suited.
I want to be an artist!
I mean, I want to spend my time on fiddling with things, and with bits of things, including words, at my own whim.
This will be more profitable all-round because it will protect me (and those around me) from terminal annoyance.
In recent weeks, I'd gone to the library twice to get books about nonprofits--once re fundraising, once re creating and running committees--my workplace does neither, or not well...
I'd researched, read, and chose key passages online about best practices for nonprofits.
It was fun, because I like digging into things, and it was annoying to realize how our practices are far from the best. I was wondering, I truly was, if I should sign up for some workshops... grad school even fleetingly occurred to me.
It became clear to me that my boss wasn't reading the carefully selected passages I was sending him. He's good, but he's not a reader: when he asks me for help, I'm realizing he means in spoken word, and actions.
That can work.
Still, I was pissed off and deflated at the same time, and I felt lonely, tribeless among nonreaders.
"What should I be doing here?" I asked. And what do I want to be doing?
My job is to be a custodian of books.
I should do that.
I want to do that.
Further, I think "fixing" the store might break it.
Things that drive me crazy, I also benefit from:
Because there's no oversight, I could ask ArtSparker for a bookmark, print and distribute it, without getting approval.
That is not "best practice," and I do well with it.
(My boss did say he loved the bookmark when I showed it to him, printed up.)
Yesterday, it was as if I were rewarded for recognizing my Personal Best Practice:
When I got to work, my desk was blocked in with a couple dozen boxes--dropped off, my workmate told me, by "a guy in a van."
That was hopeful, as opposed to boxes dropped off from our warehouse truck.
The truck picks up leftovers of library sales and the like, and I get boxes of worn paperback bestsellers––equivalent to hit TV shows from the 1980s––and hardback thrillers, only read once.
My nonreading bosses think these shiny books are the good ones, but they are a dime a dozen.
(NO MORE TOM CLANCY!!!)
Plenty of individuals have libraries of them same sort, of course, but I was hopeful.
And . . .
BINGO!
The first book I pulled out was a 1928 copy of "We" by Charles Lindbergh. The 33rd impression = not valuable to collectors, but a Cool Old Book, for sure, with its yellow, embossed biplane flying across a blue cover.
I priced it high: $4.99.
I've barely started unpacking, but I've pulled out a couple cool old things too--including this amazing glass jar:
It has a screw-on metal lid that identifies it as a mustard jar, and I was able to find out it's Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949.
It reminds me of a Benin mask--like this ivory one (at the Met).
* goes off to work, singing,
"I aint' gonna study nonprofits no more..."
Hey! Pretty heartening U.S. election returns, eh?
[deleted paragraph about weather and leaky apartment windows]
Guess what? It's cold here.
But my new all-glass door is tight and dry. I love it!
And now...
I had a revelation last week:
I DON'T WANT TO STUDY NONPROFITS.
I don't want to go into business management, even for Important Causes.
NO. I am not suited.
I want to be an artist!
I mean, I want to spend my time on fiddling with things, and with bits of things, including words, at my own whim.
This will be more profitable all-round because it will protect me (and those around me) from terminal annoyance.
In recent weeks, I'd gone to the library twice to get books about nonprofits--once re fundraising, once re creating and running committees--my workplace does neither, or not well...
I'd researched, read, and chose key passages online about best practices for nonprofits.
It was fun, because I like digging into things, and it was annoying to realize how our practices are far from the best. I was wondering, I truly was, if I should sign up for some workshops... grad school even fleetingly occurred to me.
It became clear to me that my boss wasn't reading the carefully selected passages I was sending him. He's good, but he's not a reader: when he asks me for help, I'm realizing he means in spoken word, and actions.
That can work.
Still, I was pissed off and deflated at the same time, and I felt lonely, tribeless among nonreaders.
"What should I be doing here?" I asked. And what do I want to be doing?
My job is to be a custodian of books.
I should do that.
I want to do that.
Further, I think "fixing" the store might break it.
Things that drive me crazy, I also benefit from:
Because there's no oversight, I could ask ArtSparker for a bookmark, print and distribute it, without getting approval.
That is not "best practice," and I do well with it.
(My boss did say he loved the bookmark when I showed it to him, printed up.)
Yesterday, it was as if I were rewarded for recognizing my Personal Best Practice:
When I got to work, my desk was blocked in with a couple dozen boxes--dropped off, my workmate told me, by "a guy in a van."
That was hopeful, as opposed to boxes dropped off from our warehouse truck.
The truck picks up leftovers of library sales and the like, and I get boxes of worn paperback bestsellers––equivalent to hit TV shows from the 1980s––and hardback thrillers, only read once.
My nonreading bosses think these shiny books are the good ones, but they are a dime a dozen.
(NO MORE TOM CLANCY!!!)
Plenty of individuals have libraries of them same sort, of course, but I was hopeful.
And . . .
BINGO!
The first book I pulled out was a 1928 copy of "We" by Charles Lindbergh. The 33rd impression = not valuable to collectors, but a Cool Old Book, for sure, with its yellow, embossed biplane flying across a blue cover.
I priced it high: $4.99.
I've barely started unpacking, but I've pulled out a couple cool old things too--including this amazing glass jar:
It has a screw-on metal lid that identifies it as a mustard jar, and I was able to find out it's Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949.
It reminds me of a Benin mask--like this ivory one (at the Met).
* goes off to work, singing,
"I aint' gonna study nonprofits no more..."
The jar is $18 - 30, which you no doubt know. Wonderful find!
ReplyDelete(O)
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is good to realize what we don't want to do!
ReplyDeleteHaving worked for several nonprofits, they can be fun and a real pain at the same time.
Be the artist! I think you are great at it as well as the book stuff and have a real knack for it. Unlike the persons who come in with a scanner and totally bypass the really good stuff.
Love the jar!
Kirsten
SPARKER: It is a find, isn't it! Someone already bought it... for only $10 (lower than we could have got online, but I price our vintage stuff lower, given what a poor clientele we have).
ReplyDeleteGZ: Thanks for saying hi!
KIRSTEN: Thanks for your encouragement!
Yeah, good to know where we are likely to be happiest AND most effective. (Are they related? I think often they are.)
"Fun and a real pain"--that's what the store can be like, for sure!
XO
P.S. I do fret a bit about pricing cool antique/vintage stuff at the store.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I want it to be affordable to thrift-store shoppers like me, who don't have much money.
But I want prices to be high enough that the re-sellers don't snatch everything right up--
not that I'm against them (I used to be one), but I want local people to get first choice--
and to support the local economy.
It's a fine line... Not always sure I've hit it.
I love when I SEE the purchaser, so I get a sense.
The other day I sold that 3 78rpm-record Woody Guthrie "Ballads from the Dust Bowl" album to a young woman who was also buying a Grateful Dead book---she said she was a musician.
She was excited to look at the Guthrie album, but said,
"Is it really $75???"
I said, "No, I just priced it high. Make an offer."
She said ruefully taht she only had $30.
So I sold it to her for $25.
That felt so right!
Oh, I was totally talking about the online price. I get the part about finding and passing on things that fit people for sure. Objects can be a sort of communication.
ReplyDelete