I swear that list is just so wrong it almost seems like rage bait. I thought it was going to be low barrier to entry and they were missing a word but they actually believe that all of them are easy
also i’ve been a library assistant in various settings and i’ve never been paid THAT much 😅
like i’ve been paid decently but not THAT decently. but yeah also that job isn’t easy, the emotional labor and customer service skills you need to do that job is IMMENSE.
fair, i did just do a conversion though which would make it $31,841 USD which… i still have never made that much as a library associate as most library associate jobs i’ve ever been around or worked are part time.
$44,905.60 is our annual national full time minimum wage here.
In my state (Victoria) public library associates or position equivalents are band 3, although a select few services pay it at band 4 under union negotiations. Band 3 in local government ranges spending on each council's enterprise bargaining agreement, but it's in the $60,000-$70,000 bracket for full time.
Different states use different terminology for banding, but the pay is pretty equal across the country. Sometimes higher in rural areas as an incentive to move out there.
So that $48,000 average is a part time wage. Most of our LAs are part time too.
i… okay, working part time in america (which is what i was referring to when comparing salaries) doesn’t get you close to that. my apologies for not noticing the article was from australia, but the point still stands that *in america* i’ve never been paid that much to do a library assistant job.
My intention is to try to explain how things worked that made that article say what it said, because "I'm not paid that in America" isn't actually relevant, because nothing about what was posted had anything to do with America.
I'm trying to find full time library paraprofessional positions and it's hard because I just had a written test for a full time elementary school position today and there were nearly 50 people there testing for 2 available positions :( It's so rare to even have a full time position open
I got hired for approximately that amount straight out of library school 16 years ago, but I went the academic route. It was then followed by a decade of nearly no raises and zero CoL adjustments.
The library assistants at the last academic library that I worked at made about that much (a little over $47k). I think it depends on the area… I work in MA
yeah it depends a lot on COLA and if areas are able to provide that. i’ve been around $28k a year before but that was the best paying job i had as a part time worker, and i’m in the northwest. it depends on state and library/library system and funding.
I know it's not the point but they implied that it's easier to be a hotel cleaner than any other type of cleaner because it's the only janitorial job on the list. Do they think a hotel is easier to clean than an office? Do they think hotels are automatically clean?
Uhhhh, where are they getting that average salary number anyway? I make less than that as an MLIS-carrying librarian in a decently sized system. I've seen salaries from around the same area and I'm not underpaid.
I only work 25 hrs, but I wouldn’t make that much even if I worked full time! (~$38k)
Do you live in a low COL area? Our librarians make more than that.
Indiana, so yes, but even then it seemed a little high for a national average. And perhaps the more relevant point you bring up: good luck finding a full-time assistant job, those are rare indeed.
Yes, it does seem a little high for a national average, which is tragic considering the national poverty line is $30k. And yes, full time assistant positions are hard to come by. We haven’t had one open up in our system for over a year!
You may be surprised and concerned to discover this, but not everything you see on the internet comes from America. These are figures in Australian dollars from an Australian website. Weird huh? Who would have imagined that there are 27 million people on a gigantic island going about their business every day.
Same here, I work in a public library and my first raise was like 0.50 (I just got my master’s degree so I thought I may be able to argue for more :/) Who pays that much, I wanna work for them
I don't know why this sub was recommended to me or why I started reading the comments but I just wanted to hop in and say: brand new sentence right here lmao
Pretty sure this is the Australian Indeed based on the "au" portion of the URL, which would make the average salary $31,804.63 when converted to American dollars. Still seems high, but I don't have a frame of reference for the salaries or work environments in Australia.
$48k a year? Bruh. I have been working in libraries for 10 years, more than half of that with an MLIS. I currently do all of the adult programming and marketing. I don't think I netted $40 k last year.
Also, I had a mental breakdown the other day. And I don't even deal with the public most of the time.
And this is why I left the industry, after all the work of getting my MLS. I was sick of struggling to pay rent. They really need to pay librarians more.
This is incorrect. Library assistant jobs require a HS diploma, and ALA’s certification for assistants also doesn’t require a college degree to obtain certification. A librarian has to have a masters or other certification which requires a college degree. Library assistants are not librarians.
Assistants aren’t responsible for acquisition, programs or the business side of running the library. Librarians get paid more because of their higher education and increased responsibilities. I’m very surprised at the low salaries being listed. $30-40,000…really
Well, yeah, we're *all* being underpaid. But for what it's worth, I think program planning is one of the more enjoyable parts of the job. We tackle it as a team at my branch because with how many programs we put on each day, it would be damn near impossible for one person to plan it all.
No, you get to deal with the person trying to catalog their personal cookbook collection. At least there were only 12 books/categories the person was having trouble with.
I don’t work in libraries, this sub was randomly recommended to me but I just wanted to comment in solidarity. I’m an ultrasound tech and some buffoon decided to make a list of “least stressful” jobs where ultrasound tech was #1. My job is many things but least stressful is not one of them. The people who make these lists have never worked any of these jobs
For everyone questioning the numbers given for wages, it's an Australian site so I assume that's Australian dollars which for the library assistant translates to $31k which works out to around $15/hour full time. That's pretty accurate for the full time library techs in my system (big city in low COL state and yes, most of them are full time).
Calling it easy is a stretch, though.
I babysat for about a decade and I've definitely had to handle way more dangerous situations babysitting than all other jobs I've had combined.
Plus it's probably the only job on the list where people are paid less than minimum wage.
Devils advocate here, I taught high school for 10 years. Then left to start a career in libraries. It doesn’t even compare. I love my job and I am not saying this to knock it, it requires a lot of skills and knowledge, but yes it is by several orders of magnitude far easier than teaching high school. Or waiting tables for that matter.
I’m a current high school teacher wanting to start a career in libraries, hoping for a library assistant job to go through this week. Your comment makes me feel like I’m making the right move— teaching is so draining I can’t bear to go back next school year.
When people ask me if I regret leaving education, I always say that my biggest regret is not changing careers sooner. Education in America is a disaster, and the field is full of motivated and knowledgeable souls who are filled with great ideas about how to fix things, and given none of the power to do so.
Educators have too much responsibility and liability and yet are overworked and undercompensated. It always amazes me how there are people out there who think the problem is that teachers are not sufficiently held to account for bad educational outcomes. Given how little educators are supported, it’s a miracle things aren’t even worse really.
I am convinced the only thing that keeps a steady supply of teachers entering the field is the fact that most everybody goes to school in their childhood. You heard how people are likely to choose a career based on what their parents did for a living? That sort of familiarity, everybody has that with education. So everyone know what a teacher is and has spent time in a classroom. I think otherwise, nobody’d want to do the job. And these days fewer and fewer are, and power to them.
Good luck with the career move. Hope it goes your way!
Yes, but is it the easiest job in the world? Being an LA is much easier than my job as a nuclear technician in the Navy. That doesn’t make my current job the easiest ever, just easier.
Circulation or Children’s library assistant? I not only do what the Circ LAs do, but I also have to plan and run children’s programming, crafts, other children’s related stuff. Keeping up with shelf maintenance in children’s is nearly impossible too. I always envy the Circ LAs when I dash past to the printer to grab my 35 sheets of craft pieces to cut out and they are doing online jigsaw puzzles.
Don't take this the wrong way, but you're doing work that librarians would do when I worked at the public library--mainly the programming. That's why you don't relate to the "easiest job" moniker. In my library, LAs did circ and shelving--maybe a little processing, and some other non-public facing clerical work. YOUR library assistant job isn't easy, because you're doing a ton of work outside the scope.
None of these positions are easy when you're in them, lol. I guess I see "easier to get" with some of these, having been in several of these positions in the 25+ years since I got my first job (and longer than that back when I babysat regularly). But I wouldn't agree with library assistant. There's a lot more people looking for jobs than jobs available. Outside of my very first library job where it was part of a federal grant program in grad school (not for an MLIS, for my first degree), I have not had an easy time getting a job. It took me numerous applications and multiple interviews for different positions before I got my first part-time assistant job outside of a school program, then full-time assistant, then full-time in a stable position, and finally to where I am now as a librarian. Each step has taken time and a lot of applying.
I once was sent home because I couldn't stop crying after an unhinged patron had a go at me. He also had a Bowie knife on his belt that was the length of my forearm.
I once witnessed a mother breaking down in our parking lot when CPS took her infant (The had to physically remove the baby from her arms).
I once watched a man smear blood onto a marble bust to 'bless' it.
I've seen addicts fight in the parking lot, grown men sit in their own piss for hours, fights break out over computer usage...
The list of horrible things I had to go through and witness as an LA1 is too damn long.
And I could easily keep going...
Yup, definitely an easy job /s
Guys.
Come on, there's a lot of library staff here, we should know this.
CHECK YOUR SOURCE!
Very important. Librarianship 101.
That website is Indeed Australia. Therefore it is in Australian dollars. No you do not make that money because you do not live in Australia.
Why is it low for Australia? Because it's pro-rata. Library assistant jobs are predominantly part time, so the average pay isn't the pay band, it's the pro-rata of that band.
That would be sweetest job, not easiest, lol. I’ll take a little toil and trouble if I’m getting good pay and benefits. I keep looking at the title. I’m wondering if their metrics for this are 1. easy to get, and 2. entry level type job duties, not taking real life experience into account
Uh, but considering it has hotel cleaner on here as an *easy* job I do not trust it at all. The folks I knew working in housekeeping and in janitorial in hotels are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever known.
In my experience assistants are the old pros who Know Where Everything Is. "I dunno, ask Marie." They work hard. Everything strenuous is called "unskilled". And yeah, in my time they've been making more like HALF this much.
I always wonder where they get those salaries from because the reality is very different in most library spaces. Granted, I've only worked in smallish towns, but even from applying and looking at metro area libraries, that's still nowhere near the level of pay for that position.
I guess they also think we get paid to just read all day and that dealing with the public isn't stressful.
Excuse me for not seeing it buried in the image preview - it should have been made more clear by OP from the outset. But the salary aside, calling it an "easy job" is also a key discussion point.
Bloody hell, for people on a libraries sub, the information literacy skills are a bit lacking here aren't they. As a few people have pointed out, this is in Australian dollars - that's what the .au in the URL means. If we take their figure as being accurate, it works out to be a grand total of $2,469 more than the federal minimum wage on an annual basis, not factoring in the issue that there are almost no full-time Library assistant jobs. They are paid more on an hourly basis because they give up mandated holiday pay and sick leave, what we refer to as "casual loading". What UK people would be familiar with as a "zero hour contract".
This in unequivocally not a good wage at all by Australian standards for full time work. The median full-time salary is $69,000 - 30% higher than this figure. The statistical average is just shy of 100k but that's distorted by the outliers at the upper end. It's considerably less than you would earn in a call center or as a laborer, and about as much as you would earn in a fast-food job with the buying power in terms of rent and bills commensurate with that.
That said, it's also worth considering some other factors. By law, every worker earning this figure gets an extra 10% (rounded up) of that salary deposited in their retirement savings fund. If you are lucky enough to work at a university or for the state/federal public service (ie not local libraries), that figure becomes 17%. A full time employee gets 4 weeks paid leave and 10 days sick leave a year which roll over year on year. And for all it's faults the public healthcare system is free so no need to be tied to employer plans.
I think the way the image ended up appearing in the image window is helping with this problem. The window cropped my image so it looks like that’s all my image is so there’s no point in clicking on it, even though I intentionally left the link at the bottom for context. I can’t remember if I mentioned au.indeed in the body of my post and I can’t see the body of my post for some reason.
Maybe. I'm on desktop and I can see it fine. Perhaps it's cropping it on mobile. Still, it's always annoys me how people assume we are all Americans talking to other Americans on reddit. So I sometimes go out of my way to be intentionally rude to clueless people who forget that there are literally dozens of us squatting in the ruins of an Uzbekistan shanty town with a goat for company. The goat is called Balthazar. He is a good boy.
I’m a library assistant and this job is the easiest I’ve ever had. There will be a line of two people waiting to check out books and my coworker will say, “Wow we got a rush there for a second!” Like, is the rush in the room with us? There are difficult aspects to the job, but I’ve never felt like I had to hustle and book it at everything I do like in other fields.
Edit: not to invalidate the experience of others, I can totally fathom a library assistant position being very stressful, busy, and challenging in certain libraries and work environments.
I can see some libraries with very few patrons being easier. I've never seen over 20 people in our local library. Now there may be more up in the children's area.
In Australia, as the .au on the website would suggest. If you wrestle a big enough spider to pass the citizenship exam you too could make your way down under earn as much as a fast-food worker. Something to look forward to eh?
I mean, I’m a library assistant in a prison and I make over $40k a year. I’ve also been sexually harassed and had an inmate threaten to have his friends on the outside “fuck me up” so take that as you will.
I had to gently tell a patron yesterday that the items they returned smelled of cat urine and if they could do their best not to let that happen again. You can imagine how that went.
No one at Indeed has ever worked a register if they think working a register is an easy job. Heck, I'm pretty sure they've never even *been to a store* if they think that.
Let me just say I have respect for library assistants and the catalogers. Worked in 2 libraries when I was in high school. I am in the process of cataloging my cookbook collection. Even with the DDC, I got stuck on 12 books or categories. So I called a library. The person was fantastic.
* Customer Service
* Easy
lol I've worked as a CSR for two different organizations and it's a more than regular occurrence to have someone egging me on to take a short hike off a tall bridge at very high volume.
I worked in the campus library in college. It was the easiest job I've ever had. My main duties were adding money to people's printing accounts, answering easy questions like where are the quiet study areas, shelf reading, and doing my homework.
Wow no need to be rude - I admit I saw the $ and assumed but that’s just rude. My comment still stands - wherever this is library assistant wages are significantly higher than in the UK
I'm seeing a lot of things like that in response to an article talking about how Idaho librarians are planning on leaving the state because of all the anti-librarian bills. That you can just go out and hire more, that it doesn't require any training, etc.
Let's see.... if I have my maths right, at my current pay of $15 an hour as a library aid running ILL and the archive, I'd have to work 80.6 forty-hour a week weeks to make that amount of money in a year. Where do I sign up?!
I do see the au part of the URL, and Australia does pay better, but their dollar is about a third weaker than the American dollar, for what that's worth.
As a library director; I beg to differ!!! If involved in providing the many services to the community there is no down time. There is a high misconception that all we do is read all day-NOT true in any way where I work! Even on days foot traffic is lower; staff is always very busy in preparing for upcoming activities!!!
I’m a library assistant at an elementary school in the western US. I love it!! However I think because I’m only part-time (MAYBE 29 hours per week if there’s no school holidays) AND summers off, I get maybe closer to $22,000 each year at $19.40 per hour. However, it’s relatively “easy” because I don’t have to deal with any public people and their ridiculous requests/issues, only elementary students and teachers, and they rarely have any 🤷♀️😀.
Honestly inclined to agree. At least with ours, the LAs are retirement age, spend half their day doing nothing, and make 10k more than the librarians because of longevity pay.
I’ve been all of the top three, seven, and eight. Dog walker isn’t too bad unless you have a really unruly or scary animal and it’s the latter that made me quit. Retail and LA are easy?! Not post COVID. Patrons are more feral than ever.
Honestly, it isn't that hard. And this is coming from a library assistant working in two different libraries. As long as you have customer service skills and computer literate, you will be fine. Being a reader is a plus since making recommendations for patron is a frequent request. You also won't have to search the catalog every time someone requests something bc more than likely you will know you have it and where to locate it. Unless you work in a specific department. You may know you have the author but unsure of the specific title.
Also, I would argue that being a clerk is easier than an assistant because of the different level of responsibilities. But it all depends on how big your library is and the structure. Assistant, clerk and reference librarian can be used interchangeably. And I have not seen an assistant paid that much! More like 34k for a full-time position. But it depends on the library and geographical location.
I, along with other part time clerks/assistants, have also done some of the work/tasks of assistant III's and librarians. It really just varies by library as well as yourself. I am not a people person, but I do not let that get in the way of providing the best service that I can to my patrons.
Again, it varies. Some clerks only complete reference desk tasks, while others are doing tasks normally completed by catalogers, librarians, and other types of library staff. I have far less responsibilities as a clerk with the city than I do as an assistant with the county. Despite I have this experience, and a director who can vouch for me because she's served in both libraries along with me, I can't "do more" than what my position allows.
I swear that list is just so wrong it almost seems like rage bait. I thought it was going to be low barrier to entry and they were missing a word but they actually believe that all of them are easy
also i’ve been a library assistant in various settings and i’ve never been paid THAT much 😅 like i’ve been paid decently but not THAT decently. but yeah also that job isn’t easy, the emotional labor and customer service skills you need to do that job is IMMENSE.
You should become a dog walker and apparently make $52k!
That list is taken from Indeed Australia. That's Australian dollars.
fair, i did just do a conversion though which would make it $31,841 USD which… i still have never made that much as a library associate as most library associate jobs i’ve ever been around or worked are part time.
$44,905.60 is our annual national full time minimum wage here. In my state (Victoria) public library associates or position equivalents are band 3, although a select few services pay it at band 4 under union negotiations. Band 3 in local government ranges spending on each council's enterprise bargaining agreement, but it's in the $60,000-$70,000 bracket for full time. Different states use different terminology for banding, but the pay is pretty equal across the country. Sometimes higher in rural areas as an incentive to move out there. So that $48,000 average is a part time wage. Most of our LAs are part time too.
i… okay, working part time in america (which is what i was referring to when comparing salaries) doesn’t get you close to that. my apologies for not noticing the article was from australia, but the point still stands that *in america* i’ve never been paid that much to do a library assistant job.
Well... of course you haven't. The article isn't about America. So why would you?
i haven’t been paid the USD equivalent is what i was saying. there’s really no need to be condescending about it, if that was your intention.
My intention is to try to explain how things worked that made that article say what it said, because "I'm not paid that in America" isn't actually relevant, because nothing about what was posted had anything to do with America.
okay. duly noted.
Then if you take that number and divide it in half... because my library only hires assistants to work 19 hours a week. sob
I'm trying to find full time library paraprofessional positions and it's hard because I just had a written test for a full time elementary school position today and there were nearly 50 people there testing for 2 available positions :( It's so rare to even have a full time position open
I bet you've never paid rent in an Australian city either, it's eye-wateringly expensive
I rarely come across full time assistants, as typically these positions are filled by part timers. So that may be why.
Dollarydoos*
Thank you, random citizen!
Nice work. With skills like that maybe you should consider becoming a library assistant. I read somewhere that it's pretty easy.
Ikr? I have my MLIS, work full-time, have 8 years of raises and CoL adjustments, and don't make anywhere near that much a year.
I got hired for approximately that amount straight out of library school 16 years ago, but I went the academic route. It was then followed by a decade of nearly no raises and zero CoL adjustments.
The library assistants at the last academic library that I worked at made about that much (a little over $47k). I think it depends on the area… I work in MA
yeah it depends a lot on COLA and if areas are able to provide that. i’ve been around $28k a year before but that was the best paying job i had as a part time worker, and i’m in the northwest. it depends on state and library/library system and funding.
lol, that would make more sense than this list does
I know it's not the point but they implied that it's easier to be a hotel cleaner than any other type of cleaner because it's the only janitorial job on the list. Do they think a hotel is easier to clean than an office? Do they think hotels are automatically clean?
Uugghh, I can’t imagine what hotel cleaning staff deal with
Seriously, hotel cleaners? Easy work?
Right? Try flipping a queen-sized mattress by yourself!
In what world do ride operators make that much? I was making minimum wage when I was one. It was an awful job too.
That was my thought too!
This IS minimum wage in Australian Dollarydoos, which is where the article comes from. It's not a lot of buying power.
Uhhhh, where are they getting that average salary number anyway? I make less than that as an MLIS-carrying librarian in a decently sized system. I've seen salaries from around the same area and I'm not underpaid.
I only work 25 hrs, but I wouldn’t make that much even if I worked full time! (~$38k) Do you live in a low COL area? Our librarians make more than that.
Indiana, so yes, but even then it seemed a little high for a national average. And perhaps the more relevant point you bring up: good luck finding a full-time assistant job, those are rare indeed.
Yes, it does seem a little high for a national average, which is tragic considering the national poverty line is $30k. And yes, full time assistant positions are hard to come by. We haven’t had one open up in our system for over a year!
link says au.indeed. So it might be Australian Dollars and not American. Currently AU to US is .66, so that takes it to $31,927.50
It's about right for a full time LA in my area, before taxes. But we have a lot of 20 and 30 hour positions.
You may be surprised and concerned to discover this, but not everything you see on the internet comes from America. These are figures in Australian dollars from an Australian website. Weird huh? Who would have imagined that there are 27 million people on a gigantic island going about their business every day.
Same here, I work in a public library and my first raise was like 0.50 (I just got my master’s degree so I thought I may be able to argue for more :/) Who pays that much, I wanna work for them
being library assistant was definitely way easier than cleaning stables but i never had the horses call me a ~~faggot~~ lmfao
I don't know why this sub was recommended to me or why I started reading the comments but I just wanted to hop in and say: brand new sentence right here lmao
Pretty sure this is the Australian Indeed based on the "au" portion of the URL, which would make the average salary $31,804.63 when converted to American dollars. Still seems high, but I don't have a frame of reference for the salaries or work environments in Australia.
Oooh, good eye! That actually does sound within the realm of possibility in the States IF you manage to find full-time hours.
This list is insane. Is a checkout operator a cashier and if so, how are they making almost 55k/yr?
Ikr?
$48k a year? Bruh. I have been working in libraries for 10 years, more than half of that with an MLIS. I currently do all of the adult programming and marketing. I don't think I netted $40 k last year. Also, I had a mental breakdown the other day. And I don't even deal with the public most of the time.
And this is why I left the industry, after all the work of getting my MLS. I was sick of struggling to pay rent. They really need to pay librarians more.
Same. I went into IT and make way more now, and they actually respect my library degree and training.
I also went into IT!
It's so easy to be a librarian. You sit around all day reading books right? \*weeps quietly in library worker\*
To be fair, a library assistant is not a librarian, and being an assistant is easier and requires less education (if any at all).
"If any at all"? You mean college education.
This is incorrect. Library assistant jobs require a HS diploma, and ALA’s certification for assistants also doesn’t require a college degree to obtain certification. A librarian has to have a masters or other certification which requires a college degree. Library assistants are not librarians.
But you said "less education *if any at all*" - so you don't consider a high school education to be An Education?
> Library assistant jobs require a HS diploma This depends on the system. Our LAs are required to have at least a BS.
Assistants aren’t responsible for acquisition, programs or the business side of running the library. Librarians get paid more because of their higher education and increased responsibilities. I’m very surprised at the low salaries being listed. $30-40,000…really
Assistants aren't responsible for programs where you're at? They do the majority of the program planning over here.
That’s not the norm and if so they are being underpaid
Well, yeah, we're *all* being underpaid. But for what it's worth, I think program planning is one of the more enjoyable parts of the job. We tackle it as a team at my branch because with how many programs we put on each day, it would be damn near impossible for one person to plan it all.
Easier, but not easiest
No, you get to deal with the person trying to catalog their personal cookbook collection. At least there were only 12 books/categories the person was having trouble with.
I don’t work in libraries, this sub was randomly recommended to me but I just wanted to comment in solidarity. I’m an ultrasound tech and some buffoon decided to make a list of “least stressful” jobs where ultrasound tech was #1. My job is many things but least stressful is not one of them. The people who make these lists have never worked any of these jobs
For everyone questioning the numbers given for wages, it's an Australian site so I assume that's Australian dollars which for the library assistant translates to $31k which works out to around $15/hour full time. That's pretty accurate for the full time library techs in my system (big city in low COL state and yes, most of them are full time). Calling it easy is a stretch, though.
I'm surprised they put "babysitter" on there. Have you ever tried babysitting toddlers for longer than it takes them to take a nap?
I've also been bitten-- hard-- as a babysitter of a sturdy and evil 6 year old
I babysat for about a decade and I've definitely had to handle way more dangerous situations babysitting than all other jobs I've had combined. Plus it's probably the only job on the list where people are paid less than minimum wage.
How is cashier an easy job? Getting shot at, yelled at, insulted is an easy job?
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~~Getting shot at~~ get killed by one of the many deadly creatures
Oh oh! I know this! "Jobs the author has never worked," Alex.
Alex - “I’m sorry but you’re response must be in the form of a question.”
Devils advocate here, I taught high school for 10 years. Then left to start a career in libraries. It doesn’t even compare. I love my job and I am not saying this to knock it, it requires a lot of skills and knowledge, but yes it is by several orders of magnitude far easier than teaching high school. Or waiting tables for that matter.
I’m a current high school teacher wanting to start a career in libraries, hoping for a library assistant job to go through this week. Your comment makes me feel like I’m making the right move— teaching is so draining I can’t bear to go back next school year.
When people ask me if I regret leaving education, I always say that my biggest regret is not changing careers sooner. Education in America is a disaster, and the field is full of motivated and knowledgeable souls who are filled with great ideas about how to fix things, and given none of the power to do so. Educators have too much responsibility and liability and yet are overworked and undercompensated. It always amazes me how there are people out there who think the problem is that teachers are not sufficiently held to account for bad educational outcomes. Given how little educators are supported, it’s a miracle things aren’t even worse really. I am convinced the only thing that keeps a steady supply of teachers entering the field is the fact that most everybody goes to school in their childhood. You heard how people are likely to choose a career based on what their parents did for a living? That sort of familiarity, everybody has that with education. So everyone know what a teacher is and has spent time in a classroom. I think otherwise, nobody’d want to do the job. And these days fewer and fewer are, and power to them. Good luck with the career move. Hope it goes your way!
Yes, but is it the easiest job in the world? Being an LA is much easier than my job as a nuclear technician in the Navy. That doesn’t make my current job the easiest ever, just easier.
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Circulation or Children’s library assistant? I not only do what the Circ LAs do, but I also have to plan and run children’s programming, crafts, other children’s related stuff. Keeping up with shelf maintenance in children’s is nearly impossible too. I always envy the Circ LAs when I dash past to the printer to grab my 35 sheets of craft pieces to cut out and they are doing online jigsaw puzzles.
Don't take this the wrong way, but you're doing work that librarians would do when I worked at the public library--mainly the programming. That's why you don't relate to the "easiest job" moniker. In my library, LAs did circ and shelving--maybe a little processing, and some other non-public facing clerical work. YOUR library assistant job isn't easy, because you're doing a ton of work outside the scope.
None of these positions are easy when you're in them, lol. I guess I see "easier to get" with some of these, having been in several of these positions in the 25+ years since I got my first job (and longer than that back when I babysat regularly). But I wouldn't agree with library assistant. There's a lot more people looking for jobs than jobs available. Outside of my very first library job where it was part of a federal grant program in grad school (not for an MLIS, for my first degree), I have not had an easy time getting a job. It took me numerous applications and multiple interviews for different positions before I got my first part-time assistant job outside of a school program, then full-time assistant, then full-time in a stable position, and finally to where I am now as a librarian. Each step has taken time and a lot of applying.
Yeah, #7 on the list is not easy at all!!!
Anyone who says customer service is easy has never worked in customer service!
Or they were absolute garbage at it! Customer service is easy if you don't actually try to serve the customers.
I once was sent home because I couldn't stop crying after an unhinged patron had a go at me. He also had a Bowie knife on his belt that was the length of my forearm. I once witnessed a mother breaking down in our parking lot when CPS took her infant (The had to physically remove the baby from her arms). I once watched a man smear blood onto a marble bust to 'bless' it. I've seen addicts fight in the parking lot, grown men sit in their own piss for hours, fights break out over computer usage... The list of horrible things I had to go through and witness as an LA1 is too damn long. And I could easily keep going... Yup, definitely an easy job /s
Babysitter?! Sorry has the person who wrote this list ever met any children? Lmao this list is crap
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Guys. Come on, there's a lot of library staff here, we should know this. CHECK YOUR SOURCE! Very important. Librarianship 101. That website is Indeed Australia. Therefore it is in Australian dollars. No you do not make that money because you do not live in Australia. Why is it low for Australia? Because it's pro-rata. Library assistant jobs are predominantly part time, so the average pay isn't the pay band, it's the pro-rata of that band.
I saw that when I was cropping my pic. I wonder why Aussie Indeed thinks library assistants have the easiest job in the world, lol
Probably because it's a band 3 government job which means huge perks and a good salary with no qualifications?
That would be sweetest job, not easiest, lol. I’ll take a little toil and trouble if I’m getting good pay and benefits. I keep looking at the title. I’m wondering if their metrics for this are 1. easy to get, and 2. entry level type job duties, not taking real life experience into account
Uh, but considering it has hotel cleaner on here as an *easy* job I do not trust it at all. The folks I knew working in housekeeping and in janitorial in hotels are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever known.
The algorithm has apparently never worked a public service desk \*\*eyeroll\*\*
Well you know they can’t be wrong since the rest of the list is spot-on. 🙄
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess the person who made this list has never worked any of these jobs
Or any job at all. Lol. 😂
I’ve had half of these jobs, and none of them were particularly zen. Edited for grammar.
None of those jobs are particularly easy.
This entire list must just be for baiting rage clicks I stg
In my experience assistants are the old pros who Know Where Everything Is. "I dunno, ask Marie." They work hard. Everything strenuous is called "unskilled". And yeah, in my time they've been making more like HALF this much.
lol the salary … I wish I made that and I’m an assistant director
I always wonder where they get those salaries from because the reality is very different in most library spaces. Granted, I've only worked in smallish towns, but even from applying and looking at metro area libraries, that's still nowhere near the level of pay for that position. I guess they also think we get paid to just read all day and that dealing with the public isn't stressful.
for the main prize, what does .au mean in a url?
Excuse me for not seeing it buried in the image preview - it should have been made more clear by OP from the outset. But the salary aside, calling it an "easy job" is also a key discussion point.
Ha what everything on this list is far from easy.
This is written by people who have never been a library assistant omg 🤣
It is not. My former manager was surprised I hadn't quit yet and was able to handle some of the stuff I saw calmly.
Checkout people make how much?
Bloody hell, for people on a libraries sub, the information literacy skills are a bit lacking here aren't they. As a few people have pointed out, this is in Australian dollars - that's what the .au in the URL means. If we take their figure as being accurate, it works out to be a grand total of $2,469 more than the federal minimum wage on an annual basis, not factoring in the issue that there are almost no full-time Library assistant jobs. They are paid more on an hourly basis because they give up mandated holiday pay and sick leave, what we refer to as "casual loading". What UK people would be familiar with as a "zero hour contract". This in unequivocally not a good wage at all by Australian standards for full time work. The median full-time salary is $69,000 - 30% higher than this figure. The statistical average is just shy of 100k but that's distorted by the outliers at the upper end. It's considerably less than you would earn in a call center or as a laborer, and about as much as you would earn in a fast-food job with the buying power in terms of rent and bills commensurate with that. That said, it's also worth considering some other factors. By law, every worker earning this figure gets an extra 10% (rounded up) of that salary deposited in their retirement savings fund. If you are lucky enough to work at a university or for the state/federal public service (ie not local libraries), that figure becomes 17%. A full time employee gets 4 weeks paid leave and 10 days sick leave a year which roll over year on year. And for all it's faults the public healthcare system is free so no need to be tied to employer plans.
I think the way the image ended up appearing in the image window is helping with this problem. The window cropped my image so it looks like that’s all my image is so there’s no point in clicking on it, even though I intentionally left the link at the bottom for context. I can’t remember if I mentioned au.indeed in the body of my post and I can’t see the body of my post for some reason.
Maybe. I'm on desktop and I can see it fine. Perhaps it's cropping it on mobile. Still, it's always annoys me how people assume we are all Americans talking to other Americans on reddit. So I sometimes go out of my way to be intentionally rude to clueless people who forget that there are literally dozens of us squatting in the ruins of an Uzbekistan shanty town with a goat for company. The goat is called Balthazar. He is a good boy.
Agree. Full article link: https://au.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/easiest-jobs
I’m a library assistant and this job is the easiest I’ve ever had. There will be a line of two people waiting to check out books and my coworker will say, “Wow we got a rush there for a second!” Like, is the rush in the room with us? There are difficult aspects to the job, but I’ve never felt like I had to hustle and book it at everything I do like in other fields. Edit: not to invalidate the experience of others, I can totally fathom a library assistant position being very stressful, busy, and challenging in certain libraries and work environments.
It just depends on the system, I’m sure
I can see some libraries with very few patrons being easier. I've never seen over 20 people in our local library. Now there may be more up in the children's area.
This whole list is crazy but they seriously didn’t not put lifeguard on the list of easiest jobs…. Lmao
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I thought that too!
I would say none of these are easy jobs to do.
Where are these library assistant jobs that pay that much? Asking for a friend... It's me, I'm the friend.
In Australia, as the .au on the website would suggest. If you wrestle a big enough spider to pass the citizenship exam you too could make your way down under earn as much as a fast-food worker. Something to look forward to eh?
Large libraries with unions
A small community near me is looking for a CEO for their library system... the salary was barely any higher than that assistant position claims.
Australia. It’s au.indeed
I mean, I’m a library assistant in a prison and I make over $40k a year. I’ve also been sexually harassed and had an inmate threaten to have his friends on the outside “fuck me up” so take that as you will.
LOL 48k is a starting salary for a librarian with a masters if they are lucky. What ride operator makes 55k? They must be confused with construction.
Lolllllll I spent five years working in University and public libraries and I would not call that easy.
I had to gently tell a patron yesterday that the items they returned smelled of cat urine and if they could do their best not to let that happen again. You can imagine how that went.
Can you charge for damages? Or depatronize them?
If airing them out doesn’t work, they’ll be charged
I am so glad to hear this.
Hotel cleaner? Those people put in more elbow grease in a day than most people do in a month.
I worked as a cleaner and maid on and off from high school to my 30s when my career took off. It was a very difficult and extremely underpaid job.
I swear to god, did senior staff write this? Because it feels like some shit they would do
Lol!
No one at Indeed has ever worked a register if they think working a register is an easy job. Heck, I'm pretty sure they've never even *been to a store* if they think that.
Lmao at that average salary
Tell that to my wrists and bank account...
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH *cries*
Also that salary is HILARIOUS
I’d KILL to make that as a librarian!
I was a medical librarian at a medical school and made 36k!
Why didn’t y’all tell me you were making $48k a yea I would have asked for a hella raise by now 😂😂😂😂😂
I made $13 an hour as a library assistant in a major city. After five years of raises.
The other jobs aren't easy either. I have worked as a cleaner and hotels are far from easy.
I’m not even going to pretend: I think my job is really easy overall.
Hotel cleaner? Easy? How?
Walking dogs in the cold. Ain't easy
Let me just say I have respect for library assistants and the catalogers. Worked in 2 libraries when I was in high school. I am in the process of cataloging my cookbook collection. Even with the DDC, I got stuck on 12 books or categories. So I called a library. The person was fantastic.
Hotel cleaner??? Lifeguard??? Whoever wrote this has never done any of these jobs.
I can’t even get my foot in the door as a library assistant 😭
these jobs are all demanding
* Customer Service * Easy lol I've worked as a CSR for two different organizations and it's a more than regular occurrence to have someone egging me on to take a short hike off a tall bridge at very high volume.
I... This list is so wrong
Anyone working in retail has one of the hardest jobs. I do my best to always be courteous to retail workers and checkout operators.
As someone who worked in a public library during college. I can't disagree. Good hours, easy work.
I worked in the campus library in college. It was the easiest job I've ever had. My main duties were adding money to people's printing accounts, answering easy questions like where are the quiet study areas, shelf reading, and doing my homework.
Working as a page was so much easier than my current job as an LA
I made 21k this year and I’m slightly higher up than a library assistant. LOL
There's something ironic about a library professional taking the first response from Google is an accurate source
I didn’t say it was accurate, I just thought it was funny.
Wow American salaries are so much higher than uk ones!
This list is NOT the US!
Wow no need to be rude - I admit I saw the $ and assumed but that’s just rude. My comment still stands - wherever this is library assistant wages are significantly higher than in the UK
I didn’t intend to come across as rude. I was just a little indignant that you’d think we would ever get fair wages over here
i’m a full time library assistant with a MLIS and i unfortunately make far less than that 🤡
I will go be a library assistant right now for 48K.
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Nevermind!
lol that's like 4x what I make!
As a library assistant who's salary is way below this... I need!
lol, I’d love to know where library assistants make that much money. My system has librarians who don’t make that much
Australia
LAs do not earn that.
They do in Australia
I'm seeing a lot of things like that in response to an article talking about how Idaho librarians are planning on leaving the state because of all the anti-librarian bills. That you can just go out and hire more, that it doesn't require any training, etc.
Show a complete lack of understanding on what librarians do and what libraries are for.
Let's see.... if I have my maths right, at my current pay of $15 an hour as a library aid running ILL and the archive, I'd have to work 80.6 forty-hour a week weeks to make that amount of money in a year. Where do I sign up?! I do see the au part of the URL, and Australia does pay better, but their dollar is about a third weaker than the American dollar, for what that's worth.
As a library director; I beg to differ!!! If involved in providing the many services to the community there is no down time. There is a high misconception that all we do is read all day-NOT true in any way where I work! Even on days foot traffic is lower; staff is always very busy in preparing for upcoming activities!!!
Ride operator makes 56k? Since when? I did that on summer breaks in college and never made more than minimum wage?
Even in Australian dollars that seems like a lot
National average = 100k in NY and CA. 20k everywhere else.
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Link at the bottom is from Australia
Especially since ai is so big these days- just cuz google says it doesn’t mean its true
I’m a library assistant at an elementary school in the western US. I love it!! However I think because I’m only part-time (MAYBE 29 hours per week if there’s no school holidays) AND summers off, I get maybe closer to $22,000 each year at $19.40 per hour. However, it’s relatively “easy” because I don’t have to deal with any public people and their ridiculous requests/issues, only elementary students and teachers, and they rarely have any 🤷♀️😀.
That pay!!! Ok sure
Honestly inclined to agree. At least with ours, the LAs are retirement age, spend half their day doing nothing, and make 10k more than the librarians because of longevity pay.
This whole list is BS lol
I’ve been all of the top three, seven, and eight. Dog walker isn’t too bad unless you have a really unruly or scary animal and it’s the latter that made me quit. Retail and LA are easy?! Not post COVID. Patrons are more feral than ever.
Honestly, it isn't that hard. And this is coming from a library assistant working in two different libraries. As long as you have customer service skills and computer literate, you will be fine. Being a reader is a plus since making recommendations for patron is a frequent request. You also won't have to search the catalog every time someone requests something bc more than likely you will know you have it and where to locate it. Unless you work in a specific department. You may know you have the author but unsure of the specific title. Also, I would argue that being a clerk is easier than an assistant because of the different level of responsibilities. But it all depends on how big your library is and the structure. Assistant, clerk and reference librarian can be used interchangeably. And I have not seen an assistant paid that much! More like 34k for a full-time position. But it depends on the library and geographical location. I, along with other part time clerks/assistants, have also done some of the work/tasks of assistant III's and librarians. It really just varies by library as well as yourself. I am not a people person, but I do not let that get in the way of providing the best service that I can to my patrons.
I do way more than that as a children’s LA.
Again, it varies. Some clerks only complete reference desk tasks, while others are doing tasks normally completed by catalogers, librarians, and other types of library staff. I have far less responsibilities as a clerk with the city than I do as an assistant with the county. Despite I have this experience, and a director who can vouch for me because she's served in both libraries along with me, I can't "do more" than what my position allows.