Night has descended here at the library, the windows now might as well have thick sheets hung over them, and night is pretty close to what I'm feeling, too. I've come up for a one-year performance evaluation at NEA, and I should have seen it coming. I "need improvement" nearly all down the line. No surprise, as I spend most of my days reading blogs or news and, every so often, clenching my fist with rage at having to answer the phone.

The things that my evaluation list me as needing improvement in are things that I just don't want to be good at: having a tidy work area, having a polite and courteous voice when I answer the phone, asking for more work when I'm not busy, making sure the doors around the building are locked every night. Fuck it!

I understand why they want a tidy work area, since I'm at the front desk. I'll try to improve it, even, but I would rather it be a non-issue.

On the phone, I listen at length to everyone who calls and I try to help everybody as best I can. If the callers actually take the time and energy to think that my voice isn't warm enough and then tell this to my supervisor, though, they can stick live alligators up their ass.

As for asking for more work, well, that just strikes me as perverse.

Anyway, I don't want to get fired at the end of the month, so I'm going to try to improve. I was already planning to leave around year's end, though, and this only improves the chances that I'll actually take the necessary steps. It's even kind of useful to receive such an evaluation, because at the heart of the matter is the fact that I took a job with responsibilities that I didn't care for, and then I didn't live up to those responsibilities. I guess even at age 25 I still need other people to drive home the point that it shows.