I’m very flattered to be here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to talk to people about my work, but career day? An immense honour, thank you so very much. Wonderful to be here, wonderful to be here.
Okay. So what I do is I drive the plow. You’ve all probably seen it; you’ve DEFINITELY all heard it, and I drive it and make sure the roads stay clear of obstacles. In the winter I plow the snowfall, in the fall I plow the leaf drifts by the park, the rest of the year I plow the weasels.
Is it dangerous? You bet, but it’s not the exciting kind of danger. It’s the kind that’s dangerous because it’s a LITTLE bit dangerous, and it’s very very very boring and easy to forget about the little bit that’s dangerous. You can do all kinds of things to make that little bit of danger go wrong if you’re not paying attention. Maybe you slid around a corner without braking as hard as you could’ve, but there’s black ice there this time. Maybe you don’t clear enough leaves out of awkward places and they make something jam up in the engine. Maybe you don’t put on your helmet properly because there’s like six buckles and the cabin’s sealed anyways, and then a weasel gets in through the air vent.
Yes, that last one really did happen. Lucky I’m fast with the buckles. No scars – not from that, at least.
The pay’s good. The hours are long, but steady. You probably won’t write books about your career, but you’ll never starve. And as long as you remember to pay attention, you won’t be surprised.
No, they can’t get through the suit. It’s Kevlar. Hot as hell in summer but very livable. There’s too many buckles, but they’re very sturdy and seal well.
No, the plow doesn’t hurt them – it’s just blunt trauma and crushing force, nothing fancy, it rolls them around and sometimes forces mitosis. Mostly it makes them angry.
Right, that’s the bell, my time is up. Remember: just because something’s boring doesn’t mean it isn’t important. That’s about a lot more than just my job, too.
Thank you.
***
Sorry, sorry, my bad, didn’t mean to be so late, ahahaha JESUS it’s been a MORNING let me tell you.
Right! So. I work at the library. What’s that about? Well, the obvious answer is books – yes, you’re right, you’re right, you’re not WRONG… but what’s an even better way to put it is ‘information.’ We store information that’s in books, and we store information that’s not in books, and we store the information of where and how to find all of that stored information. What you could call ‘metadata,’ except unlike advertisers we use it to help you instead of throwing unavoidable barriers between you and convenience!
So. Most of what I do is keeping track of things. Where the books are, what the books are doing, when they’ll be back, when we need to change the mustelid filters on the air circulatory system…
Air quality control is very important in a library. Paper likes specific temperatures and ranges of humidity, and it dislikes others very much, and there’s so many different KINDS of paper. So we have to put a lot of money and time into maintenance and management of our climate control, and an equal amount of the same into protecting it from unexpected weasels. Lots and lots of fine advanced-material mesh; a host of slow-release chemical deterrents (scent and abrasive); some fairly byzantine architecture… in military terms they call this ‘defense in depth.’ We have a ton – let me emphasize this: a TON – of security layers between the public and all of this, so that even if anything leaks through it’ll never come near the public, and if it does come near the public it’ll be confined in the most remote stacks, and we have panic room doors on the children’s section. So you all don’t have to worry. At all.
Oh, do we have guns? No! No. God no. Those wouldn’t do anything. Don’t you pay attention in your history classes? We do still teach local history, don’t we? What are you all, twelve? Ten? You should know this, oh FINE I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. Sorry for being late. Read more books, they’re portals to the world of imagination. Bye.
***
Hello. I am happy to be here at this career day. I am the head fireman. I am trained to both destroy and deploy fire, to extinguish loose flames and to create firebreaks in the event of an intruding wildfire or a brewing spring-tide weaselstorm. This is a very difficult job and if you do it properly you will do very little except prepare for the moment when you need to do too much, too fast, all at once. And when that happens, you will need to be ready for it. Failure can mean losing a block to a fire, or everything west of the river to a Weasel-King. You are not old enough to remember that happening, but it is how I got this job. My predecessor stepped down because a single decision she made led to that. It was a reasonable decision. Maybe I would have made it too. Maybe not. All I can do is hope to avoid it in the future.
This career is physical demanding, mentally taxing, emotionally draining, and essential to community safety. This concludes my remarks. Thank you.
***
Hello there! My name’s Under-Magister George Tranh, and I’m part of the Brewer’s Valley branch association of the Art Arcane.
Yes, although ‘wizard’ is not actually a title, everyone knows you’re talking about us when you say it! We do a lot more than just wizardry, however – besides things like fireballs and making voices come out of doors and rocks, we also do a lot of community projects! For instance, we coordinate the autumn colours on the trees; make sure the lake freezes over for safe ice fishing, make sure the river DOESN’T freeze over so anything west of the river can’t cross over and say hello, and help with the fireworks. Although I guess that’s sort of fireball-adjacent, really.
No, we can’t enchant the buildings to keep them out.
Yep, we do birthday parties, but only big ones – national holidays, famous historical figures, and so on. If we showed up at everyone’s birthdays all year we’d have no time to make them really special, and that’s what we like doing. Remember five years back when we made that rotten statue in the park climb off its plinth and walk into the lake? That took a few weeks to brew up and plan; you can’t just wave your hand and expect things to happen like magic.
No, it’s actually pretty easy to qualify. You just take apprenticeship volunteer hours in high school; you could all try that as soon as next year. Honestly you could probably get your parents to ask ahead of time right tonight once you’re home safe; we never have enough hands to get all the work done.
No, we can’t get rid of them.
I’m sorry, but we really can’t do anything about them. It’s the law. I’m not fooling around here! Ask your parents! Heck, ever since Christmas ’67 when a fit of the holiday spirit led ol’ Arch-Magister Tobias ‘Mumbles’ MacGrooder to attempt a townwide enchantment of Grastor’s Multitudinous Wassail, it’s been firmly established in the county law that no practitioner of the Art Arcane may so much as mention by name – let alone interact – with any member of the mustelid family. And I’m sorry guys, I love Captain Moore as much as any of you do, I admire all the work she does in keeping the traffic laws enforced and the houses secured from angry furry slinkies, but I don’t want her to take me to jail for saying the w-word.
No, not ‘wassail.’
No, not ‘what.’
No, not ‘whale.’ Look guys, you’re not going to get me to say it, let’s move on.
Yeah, we help with the animal sanctuary. Keep the mice out of the bins; keep the ice from freezing over the water buckets. And yes, that’s the sort of thing we’ll usually get apprentices started on. It’s fun work and there’s animals involved.
Nope, just regular animals. Moving on.
No, we can’t just call them ‘ferrets’ or ‘stoats.’ First, those are different animals; and second and more importantly if there’s one thing you learn in this business it’s that trying to argue your way around technical definitions of words ends poorly – the Art Arcane, just like anyone else, absolutely HATES weaselsoh goddamnit don’t tell don’t tell DON’T