Last day as an intern

Yesterday was my last day as an intern at Southfield Public Library. I thought about how strange it is to turn in a two-week notice. My transition to a new job has never been quite like this. Before it's always been "My contract ends on so and such date."

It was not necessarily a sad day. I loved my experience at SPL, but I am really excited to take the next step and shed the intern title. I will actually serve as a substitute librarian there, but I'm going to miss seeing the people on a daily basis. The staff was full of excellent people and everyone from the head guy to the volunteers were critical to running the library like a well-oiled machine. No library is perfect, but SPL is pretty dang awesome. It was a fun ride.

So, I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write about my last day at SPL and found it was nothing too compelling. I had a few little projects floating around, including Ebay research for a class and leaving a pirate message on my boss's voicemail (see International Talk Like a Pirate Day). Some tasks I finished on my own. Others were ongoing and needed to be passed on.

We enjoyed coffee and donuts. We rocked the reference and fiction desks. I skipped lunch, because I chowed on one too many donuts and wanted to shoot the breeze. At about 3:30, I really started feeling the lame duck status sinking in (read: crashing from donut sugar high).

That was it. There were no sappy goodbyes or tears, which was great. I'll take laughing and telling stories over weeping like a dork any day! We all understood that I wasn't leaving the state. I was sticking around as a substitute. Of course, I'm still a patron and I found friends there that I'm pretty sure are going to be lifers.

I think I'll write about how both of my internships changed my life at a different time, but it's safe to say that working at SPL was one of the coolest places to work, ever. Not perfect, but close.