Communication Breakdown

Or maybe I should say that the library staff is not Google. We are not required to give instantaneous information. Information, yes--and quality information at that. I will not sacrifice quality for speed.

I also will not sacrifice boundaries for information. What do I mean by that?

You might not agree with me, but my feeling is that unless something at my job is a life-or-death situation (which, um, at a library, never comes up), my job should not be calling me at times when I'm not on the clock.

Don't call me because you can't find something right away. (And most likely you didn't even bother checking the standard locations.)

Don't call me because you don't feel like doing a little deductive reasoning, like to find out the hours of the next teen event (hint: there's a calendar on the library's website; or you could, I don't know, take a walk over to the YA section where there are flyers posted? There's no anti-adult force field).

Don't call me when you are too passive to tell a patron, "I'm sorry, I don't have the answer right now. Let me take your name and number and I or one of the other staff will call you with more information as soon as possible." We may have a few patrons that are doozies, but most people do not get PO'd if they have to wait not even a day to get the answer they're looking for.

Don't call me about something I don't need to know right that minute. A note in my mailbox will work just fine.

I'm sorry for the rant; it just really baffles me that, for some reason, it is largely accepted at my workplace that I am on call for them anytime I'm not there. I am the only librarian who is not salaried; I am the only one who is part time.

I'm also the the only librarian who is not married, and I wonder if that's part of it, too. Even though they know I have another job (or two) outside of the library.

Additionally, I wonder if the do-it-all-myself attitude of my supervisor has conditioned the rest of the staff to regard me in the same way. The thing is, I wasn't hired for all this back-of-the-house stuff--I am very happy to delegate as much of the non-librarianship procedure as I can. I'm no micro-manager. Not at all. I will not complain that you're stepping on my toes if you take care of something yourself.

This afternoon I had a bunch of last minute minutiae thrown at me, and I have to go in even earlier than planned, ahead of tonight's event. I'm annoyed. Because (A) I had other personal things to take care of beforehand that now I don't have time for, and (B) it's not going to change.

If anything, I have to try to work within their dysfunctional paradigm, in order to get through to them--give them what they need in order to preempt that ridiculous impulse to pick up the phone.

And really lower my expectations, so my blood pressure stays down.

UPDATED 10 p.m.: The event went O.K. Slightly better attendance at the event than at the last one. Wondering about the kids who made total messes--including leaving a dropped/dumped soda in the middle of the parking lot (guess they didn't pay attention to the kid who read a "stop pollution" poem). Had a little conversation afterwards with a desk person whom I didn't expect to stay late tonight. Interesting perspective. Confirmed my sense of raging politics and that any change to the status quo isn't really welcomed (even though several really want change. . . she's on the fence). Praying that the new director, who was felled by illness right at the start of his directorship three weeks ago, will be able to come in soon and start easing this library into, I don't know, the late '90s at least.