So you know how I spend all my time yelling about gay shit

I officially went back to work today! It was fairly standard for a workday outside term-time – we're understaffed and that's okay because we get MAYBE two customers in the entire day. Nice to go back to! Weirdly peaceful! And management's management have sent me an email about the staff reward scheme!

The context here is that the staff reward scheme basically require managers to battle royale to nominate people. Management brings a list of candidates to their management, argue their case for how great each staff member is, and management's management takes the winner of that round to argue with their management, then whoever's in charge of funding the reward scheme.And my line manager decided to go to bat for me, so I'm getting a £50 reward voucher "in recognition of the way you proactively contributed to creating and promoting the LGBTQ+ reading list."

galfjhsdfhialbsfanlnk!

I don't know how I feel! Weasel brain is trying to go "... But I didn't do anything?" an "They HAVE to do that anything I did was to get out of doing real work, right?" and then I started to make a list of things I'd done, and uh. Maybe I did more than I thought?

• Work: Oh hey, we're taking suggestions for a brand new leisure reading collection in our library —
  Me: *already stuffing suggestions into the box*
  Work: — and we need suggestions for a queer reading list and a Black history month list —
  Me: We're gonna need a bigger box.


• (I'm not even joking. I scanned most of the forms out of the suggestion box and I think I wrote like thirty of them.)


• Volunteered myself forthe LGBTQ History Month team with like negative three days notice, and made a display with helpful/"helpful" commentary! Then I went "Hang on, this team doesn't have anyone on it from [all but two of the campus libraries], and they've not mentioned anything to staff officially. What if I just... Email some people I've worked with in those libraries, and give them all of the information and files I have for this...?" Which apparently spins really well as a teamwork/initiative thing?


• Manager: Do you have any recommendations for stories with trans protagonists, written in first person POV? I like graphic novels but not so keen on SFF.
  Me: I see we're playing on hard mode today, cool!
  (I fucking managed it an' all, I know what I'm about.)


• Talked Most Anxious Coworker through assembling a display of Problematic queer media, even though I kinda didn't get it.


• I have no memory of pouncing on staff members from a different department to shower them in reading list links and personal recommendations the second they show interest, but my manager swears this happened.

It just! Feels weird! Because this is all stuff that I did to avoid doing "proper" work! Writing arguments about why Nagata Kabi and Monstress and Lumberjanes and Witchmark and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend and a bunch of other stuff are amazing is literally what I do for fun! But it also feels like doing my little goblin dances about how great books are actually contributed to work, somehow, and that's – really validating? Maybe? I'm happy and confused and a little guilty, but my manager fought to get me £50 and I am go to spend it on something cool!