I have been at work exactly 24 minutes today and here is what has happened so far:
A taxicab was just sitting in our entryway as I was trying to get into the parking lot. Had a nice little confrontation with him to explain how he was snarling up traffic and needed to find an actual parking place.
When I walked in the building a woman I have never seen before had removed stacks and stacks of things from our community information display area and had them all over the floor. I ID'd myself as the branch manager and asked if she had cleared this with the person in charge of displays. She said "No, but I'm just getting some things for my community and rearranging things better." I sicced our display person on her.
Read my email to discover major changes in upper management which of course will affect me because now I will have yet another new supervisor. I was just getting used to the last one (who is nice but not too bright) and now I'm not sure who my next new boss will be. Very unsettling.
I guess the upheaval we're experiencing at my branch, and in the library system as a whole, is reflective of what's going on in the larger society. Things are going crazy these days.
I've been thinking about how nice it would be to go on walkabout or become a hermit somewhere, away from all this madness.
Showing posts with label administration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label administration. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Monday, October 13, 2008
Ah, the sweet smell of tobacco, and other random thoughts
One of the clerks came to my office today to say that a woman was complaining because some guys were smoking cigars outside. Instead of saying "So what?" (which was of course my initial response), I said "Okay, I'll go check it out." Walking out into our lobby I noticed a slightly sweet smell and thought, "That smells good." I walked outside and saw no-one, but then noticed the woman who had complained coming out. I thought I could avoid her (sorry, this is the real me here - I do things like that now and then) by coming in the other door as she walked out the main exit but no, she had to come around and intercept me. Drat. She said "Do you smell that?" and I thought it would be better to say no than to admit that I thought it smelled good. She pointed out two young men who had just walked into the library and said they had been standing outside the exit smoking cigars and that was offensive to her. "I mean, there are children walking in and out of here!"
Now I am pretty much an anti-smoking fanatic - I hate being around people smoking cigarettes and go out of my way to avoid it wherever possible. But this woman was complaining about these guys smoking OUTSIDE, an area over which I really have no control. If they just HAD to smoke, at least they weren't trying to do it indoors - now that would have gotten a reaction from me. But as it was, there was little I could do but tell her I was very sorry about what had happened.
Why do I always have to apologize for everything anyone does that offends someone else? I'm getting mighty sick of these holier-than-thou people who think the world revolves around their preferences.
Today was pretty sucky from the get-go, though. Our accident-prone children's librarian (well, she always seems to have something wrong) called in to say she couldn't come to work because she was on medication for a pulled muscle. I didn't say to her, "Now what were you doing that caused you to pull a muscle?" No, I was polite and thanked her for letting me know, then hung up and cursed her with all my might. We were already short-staffed due to someone on vacation, so I had to re-work the schedule to fill in at the children's desk. I ended up being on the desk nearly the whole day. Which is totally exhausting at my library (remember, we get at least 30,000 people coming in this building on a monthly basis - sometimes more).
Add to that, the issue that I talked about in an earlier post about our renewal limits has reached the attention of the director, who wants to FORM A TASK FORCE to look into it!! Rather than just making a decision, she wants to form a committee that will endlessly argue about this issue (oh, a recap - some staff have taken our 2-renewal policy a step further and will not allow customers to check items out again or transfer them to another card when the renewal limit is reached because "it's not fair - other people should have a chance at finding this material on the shelf." It's my position that as long as nobody has placed a hold request, who gives a crap - let 'em have it! I don't understand why some staff want to argue with customers about something this inconsequential - I just want the circs!), and then make a recommendation to the two circulation-related committees WE ALREADY HAVE!! And guess who she was hoping would be the chair of the committee - me!
Luckily I am not being forced to chair the committee and it's a good thing because I don't really believe it's necessary. Just make a freakin' decision already. She keeps talking about getting "buy-in" from the staff, but I don't believe she's serious about doing whatever the staff would actually recommend, so the buy-in is just a sham. I guess it would depend on who is selected to serve on the committee - I mean, if it's all people who already agree with what she wants to do, then I guess she can pretend she's getting buy-in, but what if the committee recommends something that she doesn't want? Will she go with what they say? I seriously doubt it. In this case, I don't think buy-in is necessary - the current practice at many libraries is causing a great deal of customer dissatisfaction, so the administration just needs to clarify the policy regarding renewals so staff won't keep making up their own procedures.
There's of course a larger issue that somehow this tiny controversy has gotten linked to, and that is the serious divide between the librarians and the clerks, to which I have alluded before. In this particular controversy, most of the librarians tend to be fairly flexible about allowing people to have a new checkout of materials they've already renewed twice, and most clerks are adamant about NOT allowing the new checkout. So it's becoming a divisive issue and this task force is supposed to be some kind of an attempt to start somewhere in addressing this issue.
Which makes me even less inclined to want to chair it. I'm no negotiator and have no wish to mediate between the two groups. I just want to do my job, get my work done, and go home when I'm done for the day. Now I wish I had never opened my big mouth and brought it up with the circulation manager in the first place. Crap.
Now I am pretty much an anti-smoking fanatic - I hate being around people smoking cigarettes and go out of my way to avoid it wherever possible. But this woman was complaining about these guys smoking OUTSIDE, an area over which I really have no control. If they just HAD to smoke, at least they weren't trying to do it indoors - now that would have gotten a reaction from me. But as it was, there was little I could do but tell her I was very sorry about what had happened.
Why do I always have to apologize for everything anyone does that offends someone else? I'm getting mighty sick of these holier-than-thou people who think the world revolves around their preferences.
Today was pretty sucky from the get-go, though. Our accident-prone children's librarian (well, she always seems to have something wrong) called in to say she couldn't come to work because she was on medication for a pulled muscle. I didn't say to her, "Now what were you doing that caused you to pull a muscle?" No, I was polite and thanked her for letting me know, then hung up and cursed her with all my might. We were already short-staffed due to someone on vacation, so I had to re-work the schedule to fill in at the children's desk. I ended up being on the desk nearly the whole day. Which is totally exhausting at my library (remember, we get at least 30,000 people coming in this building on a monthly basis - sometimes more).
Add to that, the issue that I talked about in an earlier post about our renewal limits has reached the attention of the director, who wants to FORM A TASK FORCE to look into it!! Rather than just making a decision, she wants to form a committee that will endlessly argue about this issue (oh, a recap - some staff have taken our 2-renewal policy a step further and will not allow customers to check items out again or transfer them to another card when the renewal limit is reached because "it's not fair - other people should have a chance at finding this material on the shelf." It's my position that as long as nobody has placed a hold request, who gives a crap - let 'em have it! I don't understand why some staff want to argue with customers about something this inconsequential - I just want the circs!), and then make a recommendation to the two circulation-related committees WE ALREADY HAVE!! And guess who she was hoping would be the chair of the committee - me!
Luckily I am not being forced to chair the committee and it's a good thing because I don't really believe it's necessary. Just make a freakin' decision already. She keeps talking about getting "buy-in" from the staff, but I don't believe she's serious about doing whatever the staff would actually recommend, so the buy-in is just a sham. I guess it would depend on who is selected to serve on the committee - I mean, if it's all people who already agree with what she wants to do, then I guess she can pretend she's getting buy-in, but what if the committee recommends something that she doesn't want? Will she go with what they say? I seriously doubt it. In this case, I don't think buy-in is necessary - the current practice at many libraries is causing a great deal of customer dissatisfaction, so the administration just needs to clarify the policy regarding renewals so staff won't keep making up their own procedures.
There's of course a larger issue that somehow this tiny controversy has gotten linked to, and that is the serious divide between the librarians and the clerks, to which I have alluded before. In this particular controversy, most of the librarians tend to be fairly flexible about allowing people to have a new checkout of materials they've already renewed twice, and most clerks are adamant about NOT allowing the new checkout. So it's becoming a divisive issue and this task force is supposed to be some kind of an attempt to start somewhere in addressing this issue.
Which makes me even less inclined to want to chair it. I'm no negotiator and have no wish to mediate between the two groups. I just want to do my job, get my work done, and go home when I'm done for the day. Now I wish I had never opened my big mouth and brought it up with the circulation manager in the first place. Crap.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Why do they care???
My library system has 2-renewal limit policy, meaning that a customer can't renew an item more than twice. It's a good policy; it makes it harder for people to keep our stuff forever simply by renewing over and over.
Unfortunately, over the years, clerical staff have developed an *extension* to the policy that is pretty much impossible to explain or defend when customers complain. There is now a widely accepted practice of not allowing customers to return an item and then check it back out on someone else's card (wife or husband, for example). When customers ask why, they are told that it gives other customers a chance at the material and makes things more fair. I have even heard staff members telling customers that there is a "24-hour waiting period" before materials can be checked back out again.
This is ridiculous - there is no 24-hour waiting period, and we have no policy that prevents customers from switching items from one library card to another. Not only that, but it's truly impossible to enforce. If a frustrated customer left the circulation desk and came over to the reference desk and asked for the item, the librarian would simply do his/her job and go look for the item, and, finding it on the sorting shelf in the workroom, would give it to the customer with no questions asked, allowing the customer to check it out on the self-check with the clerks being none the wiser.
Recently I questioned this practice with the systemwide clerical services manager. Although he agreed with me that we can't defend this practice because there is no policy to back it up, he said that when he brought it up at a meeting of the clerical supervisors from around the system, they absolutely FREAKED about it and were vehemently opposed to changing the practice. They seem to have such a personal stake in it but I don't fully understand why - why do they care so much?
For my part, I just want the circ stats!
I understand the origin of the practice - a concern that people are hogging stuff and not letting anyone else get a chance at it. But if a staff member has that concern, all they need do is place a hold request on that specific item and the next time the customers try to get it, the hold request will prevent them from checking it out again. So in my mind there is a simple solution to their concerns.
My theory is that many clerical staff members feel essentially powerless - they are frontline staff who take an incredible amount of crap from people all day long and have to work so hard moving materials around, but they don't really get to control who gets to do what at the library - the high muckety-mucks make all the decisions. So when they get an opportunity to say "you can't do that," I think it makes them feel like they're in control, EVEN IF IT MEANS AN ARGUMENT WITH A CUSTOMER!
However, in spite of their objections, I understand that sometime in the next few weeks the administration is going to come out with a clarification that reinforces that we have no policy preventing customers from switching items from one library card to another.
At that time I will have to tell my staff that they need to stop doing this, and I'm not looking forward to the resistance and resentment that I know are inevitable. Every time a librarian bends "the rules" when a customer complains, the clerks get PO'd because we're not supporting them. But sometimes the rules need to be bent; everything isn't black and white all the time.
It will just be one more thing to reinforce the divide between the clerks and the librarians, which is truly unfortunate. What I wish is that I could figure out some ways to make us all feel part of a single team that's working together to do the best job we can, but so far I'm not succeeding. Sigh...
Unfortunately, over the years, clerical staff have developed an *extension* to the policy that is pretty much impossible to explain or defend when customers complain. There is now a widely accepted practice of not allowing customers to return an item and then check it back out on someone else's card (wife or husband, for example). When customers ask why, they are told that it gives other customers a chance at the material and makes things more fair. I have even heard staff members telling customers that there is a "24-hour waiting period" before materials can be checked back out again.
This is ridiculous - there is no 24-hour waiting period, and we have no policy that prevents customers from switching items from one library card to another. Not only that, but it's truly impossible to enforce. If a frustrated customer left the circulation desk and came over to the reference desk and asked for the item, the librarian would simply do his/her job and go look for the item, and, finding it on the sorting shelf in the workroom, would give it to the customer with no questions asked, allowing the customer to check it out on the self-check with the clerks being none the wiser.
Recently I questioned this practice with the systemwide clerical services manager. Although he agreed with me that we can't defend this practice because there is no policy to back it up, he said that when he brought it up at a meeting of the clerical supervisors from around the system, they absolutely FREAKED about it and were vehemently opposed to changing the practice. They seem to have such a personal stake in it but I don't fully understand why - why do they care so much?
For my part, I just want the circ stats!
I understand the origin of the practice - a concern that people are hogging stuff and not letting anyone else get a chance at it. But if a staff member has that concern, all they need do is place a hold request on that specific item and the next time the customers try to get it, the hold request will prevent them from checking it out again. So in my mind there is a simple solution to their concerns.
My theory is that many clerical staff members feel essentially powerless - they are frontline staff who take an incredible amount of crap from people all day long and have to work so hard moving materials around, but they don't really get to control who gets to do what at the library - the high muckety-mucks make all the decisions. So when they get an opportunity to say "you can't do that," I think it makes them feel like they're in control, EVEN IF IT MEANS AN ARGUMENT WITH A CUSTOMER!
However, in spite of their objections, I understand that sometime in the next few weeks the administration is going to come out with a clarification that reinforces that we have no policy preventing customers from switching items from one library card to another.
At that time I will have to tell my staff that they need to stop doing this, and I'm not looking forward to the resistance and resentment that I know are inevitable. Every time a librarian bends "the rules" when a customer complains, the clerks get PO'd because we're not supporting them. But sometimes the rules need to be bent; everything isn't black and white all the time.
It will just be one more thing to reinforce the divide between the clerks and the librarians, which is truly unfortunate. What I wish is that I could figure out some ways to make us all feel part of a single team that's working together to do the best job we can, but so far I'm not succeeding. Sigh...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Flag anxiety
About a month ago I noticed that our US flag was looking pretty tattered. It was less than six months old but I guess recent storms and high winds had really beaten it up a bit. I asked our supply clerk to order a new one, which she did fairly quickly, but we haven't gotten it yet.
On 9/11 an extremely irate customer informed me that not only was our flag not at half-staff (as it was supposed to be on a national day of mourning), it was extremely tattered. Luckily I was able to tell him that we had a new flag on order but that it hadn't come in yet. I checked my email and lo and behold there was a message from the administration that the flag was supposed to be flown at half-staff that day. The message had been sent exactly two minutes before we opened! They always wait until the last possible second to tell us the important stuff. Granted, I should have been on top of it myself, but I was on the desk and we were incredibly busy that morning, so I just blanked on it.
Anyway, I promised the customer I would lower it to half-staff right away and he went away relatively happy.
Yesterday the new flag STILL hadn't arrived, so I had no choice but to go out and buy one myself ($36! Of course, we have no mechanism for me to get reimbursed). My boss is coming out today for a meeting and she always notices details like that, and just LOVES putting me on the spot. One day someone had put an Olympics bumper sticker on the front door, and of course I didn't know it was there. She came out for our meeting later that day and very pointedly asked me what was the deal with the sticker on the front door. She seemed delighted when I didn't know anything about it. Sigh...
I know I'm supposed to be aware of everything that's going on in my library at every single moment and handle all of it immediately but sometimes it just isn't possible. But at least my boss can't get her jollies today from telling me the flag is tattered! (She is sure to find something else, though - she's good at that.)
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