When I was about eleven I decided I wanted to be a composer, Beethoven-Style. I went to summer programs and took lessons in high school, got my B.A. in music, got an M.A. in music composition, and then…went to library school.

How did that happen?

I’m going to quote Peter F. Drucker, a writer on management who I’m reading for class (this blog is going to be full of a lot of my class readings, at least until the novelty wears off, and probably for the next two years or so):

“If, however, Joe got promoted because he is a politician, everybody will know it. They will all say to themselves, Okay, that is the way to get ahead in this company. They will despise their management for forcing them to become politicians but will either quit or become politicians themselves in the end.”

At first I thought I left the music world (it was the music world I had a problem with, not the music) because I was terrible at networking. But I can sell myself just fine as a student, as an experienced paraprofessional (isn’t that a great word?) library clerk, as a good cook. I can’t sell myself as a composer because it shouldn’t be me I’m selling. It should be the music I’m writing, and that should sell itself. But modern classical music is in a weird period right now, and no one is really sure what good music is. So they go on credentials. How many performances have you had? What European music festivals have you been to? Worse, they go on old boys club-style networking. You apply to a music festival. Your current professor happens to be former student of the guy in charge of the festival. You’re in.

Maybe I’m just bitter. Maybe my music wasn’t good enough to sell itself on its own. I choose to believe I was an awesome composer and a sucky politician because that’s what makes my world go ’round.

Now, watch in horrified fascination as I try to grope my way back to something about library. I mean, in the end I don’t know why I think I can be a better politician as a librarian than as a composer, or why library would be a less political field. In part I’m just hoping. In the end, I wanted a field where what I would be selling to employers would be the skills I’m actually going to use on the job, and not semi-meaningless connections.