Saving up posting material...

...is never a good idea, because the circumstances which lead you to want to write about whatever it was may change abruptly.

For instance: I had been planning on posting here about my increasing feelings, with respect to the IPL, of being overwhelmed. Because I had thought that my project for Virtual Reference Environments (VRE) were insufficient, or might be, I wrote to Cathay Crosby, my boss at the IPL (whom you've been introduced to if you read the story about the IPL in the Philadelphia Weekly--go ahead and read it, I'll wait) about my workload.

Okay, back from reading the article? Good.

I emailed Cathay and wrote something about how Cathay was going to have to let me do inactivations (inactivate IPL questions that have been answered, after checking them to make sure the answers conform to standard IPL content and form guidelines) or some such if she took away one of my two IPL Ref Admin shifts (one of which I was just covering, during my Senior Ref Admin shift), as I needed them, or so I thought, for my project for VRE.

Cathay wrote back to me and told me that an IPL staff meeting, the staff unanimously agreed that I could do inactivations--which days of the week were good for me?

Which is a good example of being careful what you (sort of) ask for.

But for several weeks I had been unable to start doing inactivations, because of various schedule conflicts. And as I had been anticipating doing them--they're a large time commitment--I had been feeling under pressure with the amount of work I've had to do. I had also realized that my wife (who, after various antisemitic comments on this blog directed at her similar to this one directed at me, and written before I turned anonymous commenting off, will not be mentioned by name) would be shortchanged by my having to do inactivations while she was home. She would have dealt with it, but I would have felt bad.

So, with trepidation and self-disappointment in my heart, I called Cathay, told her that I was honored by being selected to do inactivations--so far above the pay grade of even a Senior Ref Admin, told her I was enjoying my current level of IPL involvement, and asked her if it would be okay if I didn't start doing inactivations after all?

And this is why I like working for Cathay so much: she told me it was okay. Whew.

Where does this connect to this post's title? Well, I had planned to post about this around the time it happened (earlier this month), even though my sense of being overwhelmed had subsided. And then the other shoe dropped--my second Ref Admin shift did get taken away from me (last week). So much for being whelmed, let alone overwhelmed. (And yes, I know, "whelm" is a real word, and doesn't make sense being used this way.)

So I emailed Prof. Mon, explained what had happened, and asked if my project was still okay. She said yes: whew again.

Which is why I say (principally to myself) don't store this stuff up. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but (glib) introspection (wry grin) is better served at body temperature.