Stress

[altivo]

I do not care for being pulled in multiple directions at once. I can handle being the sole person on the desk at work if it is quiet and routine, but that is never the case during summer reading. With multiple kids clamoring to turn in their forms and get the next ones, more of them wanting to check out stacks of books, book drop overflowing with returned books, adults wanting help with using the copier and to send faxes, plus a couple who could only speak Spanish and more kids wanting to sign up for summer reading (sorry, signups are closed now,) as well as the phone ringing and people printing from the internet and wanting to pay for it (or pick it up without paying,) I am now ready for two days off.

Why did this happen? Well, my usual partner for Weds. night is in Guatemala on a walking trip. The new boss assigned herself to help cover the desk, but also had a board meeting scheduled so, "You'll be all right alone, it's not busy" was the assumption. It was busy. And unless there's smoke, fire, or running water/blood I'm not interrupting a board meeting. So...

Getting the last group out the door was almost impossible but they finally got the message five minutes after closing time. Then I still had all the closing chores: locking doors, shutting down computers, turning off lights and copiers, etc. Some people, including I think the new director, enjoy that sort of hectic situation but I do not. And they wonder why I've resisted desk assignment, particularly solo, all these years.

I could handle reference OR circ, if that's all it was, but both of those plus teaching people for the 20th time which button to push and where to put their stuff on the copier glass, and unjamming printers, and all the rest of it at once just drives me mad.

I did meet with the director this afternoon to go over technology upgrade proposals from an outside group. To my surprise, she agrees that the proposals are too expensive. (They sure are, especially when we can't have any raises or hire anyone new.) And I think she agrees with me that nearly half of the stuff can be cut out for now.

I'd better not dream about work tonight. And there's a load of hay coming tomorrow which will eat the afternoon up even though I get to leave work early on Thursday.

Comments

[avon_deer]

Hectic workload. I feel for you. It's a daily reality in my job. I don't think everyone appreciates just how hectic some jobs. Only yesterday I had to deal with a BB contractor (who I had to call up to use his scissor lift so I could reach a switch high up on a wall.) When he arrived (late) I noticed how awful he looked. When I asked him if he was OK, he said this to me:

"I am just exhausted, mate. Honestly I had no idea just how much actual work you guys in hospitals did before I started working here. I am never going to bitch about NHS workers being lazy again."(1)

What a frank admission! I almost died of shock. I very nearly told him to phone the Mail and tell them they have been talking deliberately divisive bollocks for years.

When I pressed him on it..he elaborated. “It’s not that the work is taxing. It’s just there is SO much OF it!”

That summed up my experience working for IT here as well. The individual jobs are easy enough. There is just simply not enough staff to cope with them comfortably.

(1) I am assuming by this; he meant ALL public service workers, not just us here.

[altivo]

Uh, what's a switch doing up on a wall where you can't reach it without a scissors lift? Sounds insane to me.

Yes, when I worked IT as my entire job, I was emphatically NOT in any direct support positions. Almost the entire 13 years at two companies were spent in systems, analysis, planning, and behind the scenes operation. I was still dragged in multiple directions sometimes, but nothing like when you deal with the public.

Managers at Time Inc. generally objected that I was "not a team player" but at the same time lauded me for my "overall vision" and ability to see flaws and incompatibilities that escaped others (including themselves.) I still got in frequent trouble for criticising their stupidity, of course.

We have the same problem in libraries that you do there. The public thinks we just have to sit around and read books all day. They have no idea of the work that goes into keeping a library system working.

[avon_deer]

Uh, what's a switch doing up on a wall where you can't reach it without a scissors lift?

The need for it was not identified in the original build plans. So no room at the inn in the hub rooms. ;)

Yes, when I worked IT as my entire job, I was emphatically NOT in any direct support positions.

I am still in the "Salt mines" after ten years. Although my position here is less cabby these days and more dispatcher I still get SOME tech work under my belt to keep me in practice. Ours is an incredibly demanding job, and we are short staffed enough to struggle to keep our heads above water when fully staffed. When missing a person, we REALLY feel it.

In order to help their cutting agenda, the government has played on the jealously that the "redundant" members of the private sector feel concerning the public sector's pay and perks. Basically; playing down the fact we generally attract less of a salary than corporation workers in the good times(1); and playing up the fact we seem to be able to keep our jobs in the bad times (the traditional trade off for this lower salary.) And by goodness, those pensions! They've really got something they can give the rest of the population to stick their teeth into there.

As a result the government have a workforce divided against itself, and this kind of "them and us" atmosphere it makes it easier for the real criminals to slink away under cover while the agenda of the shock doctrine is put into full effect. As a result, this contractor joined the organisation (well..actually he joined Balfour Beatty, as they are our PFI partners) thinking that the job was going to be, in his words "a bit of a doss." After all, he had been reading in various News International owned rags how little work we in the civil service do. How we get paid for twiddling our thumbs and counting paperclips, just counting down the days until we can retire on a bloated gold plated pension. The reality came as something of a shock for him.

I should imagine the customers of your library would experience a similar feeling if they were to spend a day on the floor with you.

(1)Although this is less of the case these days; this is purely down to private sector pay stagnation through the "good" times, rather than significant public sector pay inflation. In essence our pay kept pace with inflations; theirs did not, thus closing the gap. But of course, the papers print a very different story.

[altivo]

If a member of our public followed me through a day at work, they mostly would find what I do to be incomprehensible even though they might understand the results. Library technology these days is even less understandable to an outsider than the more generalized IT support work that you do.

Some might recognize the result of a post-graduate degree and 30 years of experience, while others would just clap their hands together and shout "Aha! Just as I thought, he isn't doing anything at all." This of course applies to my real job, not to the other things I do, like acting as the living encyclopedia and dictionary to my colleagues so they don't have to go look anything up. That last skill comes not from training but just from the sheer luck of having inherited an exceptional memory for pointless details.

[avon_deer]

"Not a team player" to me is code for "someone who refuses to be bullied."

It is used as a stick to hit down the proud nails. Those who stick to the terms of their contract, and who refuse to be bullied into "going the extra mile" on pain of being first in the firing line when the redundancies come.

I take my responsibilities to my employer seriously. I do an important job, and failure on my part has REAL effects on REAL people. So there ARE times when I "go the extra mile", or stay that hour or so later, or work outside the confines of my contract. But these are done on MY terms, and to MY rules. I will not be bullied into it. I am proud to work as part of the overall health service team, but also proud to NOT be a "team player."

[altivo]

I have the impression that our pension expectations (if they aren't gutted before we actually collect) are slightly better than yours. However, my pay has not kept pace with inflation at any time since 2001, and there were some very low inflation years in there.

"Not a team player" in the case of my work at Time meant that I wasn't a "yes man" rather than that I didn't put in extra time and effort. I was often the one to correctly point out that the emperor had no clothes on, or that some complex proposal was in fact a house of cards or worse, a mere smoke screen. This did not endear me to some higher managers. In the end, my refusal to be bullied into going along with a corporate relocation and meekly move to another state at my own expense made me extremely unpopular with a few. What, take a pay cut, a benefit reduction, AND move to a backward place like Virginia or Florida? And pay my own moving expenses too? Of course, that was set up to allow the company to get rid of a lot of people with seniority who were getting too expensive to keep on. I took my severance and left.

[moonhare]

*nods* We're averaging 75 patrons an hour now, and they all seem to be extra needy this year. What doesn't help is that my co-worker on the Circ desk for two days a week just has to complicate every transaction with things like "can I link your family's cards?" and "well, you have a forty cent fine... would you like to pay some of that? Oh it was on such and such on such and such a date... blah blah blah...." and the lines snake through the building... I can move four to six patrons out for her one.

Our Reference staff won't work Circ, willingly, and when they do it is comical to watch. "Stick to what you know best" would sum that up, and they don't know or want to know Circ. There is no possible way our desk would operate with one worker trying to cover both check-out and patron help.

I'm very happy that the Library is so well appreciated, though we're viewed with that "wait on me, NOW" attitude. And the lady we had with 137 books for her kids, who didn't bat an eye and just yanked out another child's card when she maxed out her first one, these just take a barely tolerable situation and turn it into Bedlam.

[altivo]

Yeah, the "extra needy" thing is part of the problem. We seem to be seeing more the the normal number of users who have never used a computer in their lives, don't know how to operate a photocopier, and can't find anything on the shelf unless you go out with them and put it into their hands.