Eating coal and drinking urine, or Time to deal with it

Remember those two miners in China who survived a cave-in? The rescuers had given up on them, but the two guys kept going, eating coal and drinking urine.

And here I am, my leave is up, and I am torn up with emotional conflict because I feel I really can’t go back to my job. And surely this is ridiculous. It is a pleasant job. I am perfectly educated and experienced for the position. I get to use my MLIS and my subject master’s degree as well. I do not have to do things I find unpleasant – like clean toilets or work outside in cold and rain, or clean up biological waste and effluvia.

To help me get a grip on reality, I’ve been Internetting to find out what the world’s worst jobs are. I thought there’d be some UN report, or something from a NGO that works with the most misused workers of the world. Instead I kept finding ridiculous things like President of the United States, or the press secretary of the previous example, or anything to do with farting, armpit odor, or poo poo.
The Times chooses three jobs as the world’s worst, but it’s not serious. The choices would appeal to giggling elementary school children, and are written up as classified ads:

• Manually collecting semen from bulls, horses, sheep, and pigs
• Analyzing stool samples from dysentery victims
• Smelling and analyzing intestinal gas

Newsweek’s ariticle about a sewage worker in New Delhi, India is much more inspiring. Starting with a description of a young father who earns his tiny salary by entering sewers, nearly naked, and unclogging pipes by digging out the crap, bucket at a time. He has health problems from exposure to toxins and biological contaminants. Generations of people from his social caste have worked in the sewers. Death rate is high. Illness is high. Although protective equipment was purchased, the workers never received it… That’s a bad job. Dangerous, smelly, with rats and large cockroaches, wearing nothing but and undergarment covering your genital area…

I really have nothing to complain about.

Still, I have to call my boss today and I just don’t know what to say. Due back on Monday.

I guess I need to figure out why I feel I can’t go back. And is it a feeling that will pass? Or do I really think I’ve hit the end of my career as a librarian?