Well, to stay alive, but I find my old habits have snuck back, not in the same form. I'm not eating a bag of Mrs. Fields or M&M's, but I find sometimes I have a hard time staying away from nuts or a protein bar or other snacks that I have identified as ok.
It's distressing to think I could very easily gain all this weight back.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
THE NEW REGIME
Worked as a sub on Fri for a small library that has a new manager. She scheduled me on the reference desk for the full 4 hours. Two things about this: this is the new regime as far as subs on the desk and we used to be used with more consideration.
I have heard the horror stories of subs working at libraries where they are working the desks, circulation and reference, for five or six hours at a stretch. But this is the first time it's happened to me.
It didn't used to be that way.
There are a couple of small, one-person libraries where you're stuck at the desk, but my experience there that they are not so continually busy that you can find time to eat lunch. But, yes, technically you don't get a break.
With the cut in allowable sub hours a library can get, they are asking for six or five hour shifts instead of seven or eight. Which means a sub works the shorter shift with just a fifteen-minute break instead of the longer shirt with an hour break.
Sitting on a library desk for many hours looks so easy but one sub. described it to me as sitting on a complaint desk for six hours. Not fun. Of course, that's an exaggeration Sometimes it is fun, but mostly it's just routine.
And it's exhausting. Or I think it is. I have a hard time doing four hours now, not that is was ever easy-peasy. But, I think everyone who does customer service knows how draining it is to deal with the public for any length of time. Most of the time, they are fine but you also deal with abuse of one kind or another. And library work is physically draining, going from one end of the building to another, hauling books or carts of books around.
I was sure the exhaustion was me. I had major surgery this year and still find my energy levels erratic. Yesterday, in my regular job, I was on the desk four hours over an eight-hour shift. Means desk time every other hours - there were only two of us in the branch because one of the regular employees was on vacation and of course we couldn't have a sub for her full hours.
I felt so done in, that I could hardly concentrate on the computer and it took all my energy to focus on the patron's questions. i work hard at times like that, pretending to be ok and sometimes the acting becomes the reality, especially if the transaction is a pleasant one.
But it is hard to deal with the public for hours at a time, make no mistake.
Well, this is the new regime which also includes the new managers of which there are many. In the last couple of years, most of the old-school managers have retired. In fact, now that I think of it, I don't think there's one left.
It seems now that subs are not just considered a substitute for an ill or vacationing staff member, not just covering the desk while someone is at a meeting or a school visit or to make sure there are enough staff to open a branch. We used to be used humanely, on the desk for two hours, off for one and back on. On and off all day with jobs like the holds or router to do in-between.
In the good old days, managers worked the desk - also Saturdays and evenings, the same as the rest of us. The good ones now will take a shift on the desk when it's really, really necessary.
The jobs were saved for us, not given to volunteers or aides, which is what happens now. Which adds to the impression we have now that subs are an opportunity for the regular staff to get work done off the desk.
You used to feel appreciated. It's a cold, hard new age at the ole lib these days. I guess it's time to put up or shut up as they say.
I have heard the horror stories of subs working at libraries where they are working the desks, circulation and reference, for five or six hours at a stretch. But this is the first time it's happened to me.
It didn't used to be that way.
There are a couple of small, one-person libraries where you're stuck at the desk, but my experience there that they are not so continually busy that you can find time to eat lunch. But, yes, technically you don't get a break.
With the cut in allowable sub hours a library can get, they are asking for six or five hour shifts instead of seven or eight. Which means a sub works the shorter shift with just a fifteen-minute break instead of the longer shirt with an hour break.
Sitting on a library desk for many hours looks so easy but one sub. described it to me as sitting on a complaint desk for six hours. Not fun. Of course, that's an exaggeration Sometimes it is fun, but mostly it's just routine.
And it's exhausting. Or I think it is. I have a hard time doing four hours now, not that is was ever easy-peasy. But, I think everyone who does customer service knows how draining it is to deal with the public for any length of time. Most of the time, they are fine but you also deal with abuse of one kind or another. And library work is physically draining, going from one end of the building to another, hauling books or carts of books around.
I was sure the exhaustion was me. I had major surgery this year and still find my energy levels erratic. Yesterday, in my regular job, I was on the desk four hours over an eight-hour shift. Means desk time every other hours - there were only two of us in the branch because one of the regular employees was on vacation and of course we couldn't have a sub for her full hours.
I felt so done in, that I could hardly concentrate on the computer and it took all my energy to focus on the patron's questions. i work hard at times like that, pretending to be ok and sometimes the acting becomes the reality, especially if the transaction is a pleasant one.
But it is hard to deal with the public for hours at a time, make no mistake.
Well, this is the new regime which also includes the new managers of which there are many. In the last couple of years, most of the old-school managers have retired. In fact, now that I think of it, I don't think there's one left.
It seems now that subs are not just considered a substitute for an ill or vacationing staff member, not just covering the desk while someone is at a meeting or a school visit or to make sure there are enough staff to open a branch. We used to be used humanely, on the desk for two hours, off for one and back on. On and off all day with jobs like the holds or router to do in-between.
In the good old days, managers worked the desk - also Saturdays and evenings, the same as the rest of us. The good ones now will take a shift on the desk when it's really, really necessary.
The jobs were saved for us, not given to volunteers or aides, which is what happens now. Which adds to the impression we have now that subs are an opportunity for the regular staff to get work done off the desk.
You used to feel appreciated. It's a cold, hard new age at the ole lib these days. I guess it's time to put up or shut up as they say.
Friday, May 6, 2011
I COULD SPIT
Of all the jobs I haven't gotten, and there are a baker's dozen of them. this last one really frosts my balls, as my mother used to say. That they hire a young woman without experience into one of the very few full-time positions and one of the rarer than hen's teeth Advanced spots.
At a meeting yesterday am, I sat across from a Deputy Director who claimed that she being a plain spoken individual, wanted us to come into our meetings with respect and the intention of working together. This meeting was with administration and representatives of the two library unions. It is a regular committee that meets to discuss policy questions staff may have.
It was a good meeting and the DD was merely confirming that. We were all working for the good of the institution. (Actually, I think of my work on the committee to be for the good of the staff.)
But when the DD spoke I wondered what she would say if I had the guts to bring up the hiring practices, if I asked what the fuck are you people doing? You signed the MOU, you agreed to do what the arbitrator said you must do, why aren't you?
At a meeting yesterday am, I sat across from a Deputy Director who claimed that she being a plain spoken individual, wanted us to come into our meetings with respect and the intention of working together. This meeting was with administration and representatives of the two library unions. It is a regular committee that meets to discuss policy questions staff may have.
It was a good meeting and the DD was merely confirming that. We were all working for the good of the institution. (Actually, I think of my work on the committee to be for the good of the staff.)
But when the DD spoke I wondered what she would say if I had the guts to bring up the hiring practices, if I asked what the fuck are you people doing? You signed the MOU, you agreed to do what the arbitrator said you must do, why aren't you?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
EARLY MORNING MUSING
I don't go into work until 10 but I wake up at 6:15, my mind full of the latest . Yesterday, I learned that once again the LA-Advanced position had gone to a young woman, N.< who has worked for the library since 2008. What makes it worse is, she had no experience in cataloging or other aspects of Technical Services. Another employee, A., of course older, with years of experience in the same department, did not get the promotion.
Of course, I didn't either. I'm going to write our HR person, who just started with the library about 8 months ago, asking why I did not get the job. I was completely ready to not get the job when I was sure A. would get it. But now that she didn't and someone with less experience in general at the library than me got it, I'm really pissed.
But not surprised. It is quite clear that library administration and the managers along with it, are completely discounting the rules laid down and agreed to by both the union and the library. Every job that has been filled in the last year has been grieved.
As my colleague said last evening, the deputy librarians are not passing down the rules to the managers. Instead of choosing among the most senior, they invariably go with the less. And now they have promoted someone with even less experience than me.
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