I don't know if I'll ever live long enough to fulfill my dream of telling an employer to kiss my ass. The job I have now is pretty good. No, very good. No, absolutely freaking awesome. I have almost complete autonomy in that people leave me alone. They assign me things to do, and then I do them, and then they go away. It's a perfect arrangement.
So I feel sad for librarian Ray Messing, but I also have respect because her employer was making her job impossible, and she quit.
This story says that on June 18, Ms. Messing announced that she would retire as of the Children's Library because she had been reassigned to "a project indexing historical obituaries in the library basement."
And then in a separate paragraph of just one line, it says, "On Friday, June 28, Ms. Messing did actually retire from the library."
She didn't drop her bloomers and tell everyone to kiss her ass, but she said she would do something and she did it.
You could argue that Messing is one of those old librarians who shushes noisy children just once then boils repeat violators in oil to brew her potions, because after that final Board meeting she said, "We disagreed over what was appropriate behavior for children and caregivers in this tax supported public space." So maybe she didn't want a modern Children's Room with computers and too many windows to let in too much light to spoil her bat tongue and eye of newt concoctions. It's possible she was on her way out anyway.
But still, how often does a job turn sour and the right moment. Maybe she was planning to retire anyway. Who knows? But wouldn't it have been the coolest if she could have remembered to say those three little words?
