On being a public employee

My paid employment is in a public library, hence the librarian part of the blog title.  If you've read my other posts about the library, you know that it's not all smooth sailing these days.  My library system has become management heavy - and when you have too many managers, they tend to trip over themselves trying to find something to fill their days.  And sometimes that something is you.  We currently have 2 full time managers in our building for 3.6 full time librarians.  The circulation staff is almost the same: 2 managers for 3.8 full time staff (although they also manage the shelvers, of which there are 4 or 5, who work 14 hours/week each).

One of the edicts they passed about a year ago: no staff are to, under any circumstances, go to the back room of the library to look for a recently returned item for a patron.  WTF?  Really?  We are allowed to check the shelves in the public area, but not to check the carts/shelves in back waiting to go out.  When this was announced we were told that disciplinary action could be taken if we disregarded the policy.  We were to tell patrons that we would be happy to request the item and they could come back in a day or two to get it.  WTF?!?  Really?!?!  And they wonder why people bad-mouth public employees?

Here's the deal.  I am a professional Librarian, with a capital L, with an advanced degree in Librarianship.  While not as strenuous a degree as, say, engineering, law, or medicine, it is still a professional degree.  I am a smart, capable adult.  If an item was returned to us yesterday or today, I know that it is most likely in the back room because we are rarely caught up with re-shelving.  Our back room is very well organized and I am smart enough to gauge how long it will take me to get there & look through the particular returns for an item. In most cases it will take just as long to walk out & search the public shelves - when I know the item is not there.  From the beginning I have disregarded this policy.  I will not stand in front of a student who needs a copy of Fahrenheit 451 for school and tell them they can come back in a couple of days, when I can put it in their hands in less than 3 minutes.  I will not tell the senior citizen, who visits the library weekly, that they can have it next week but not this week.  And should I ever be disciplined for this, I will take it public & library administration will get to explain themselves to the local media.

The other side of this is that there are occasions when the item can't be found.  It isn't on the shelves where the computerized catalog thinks it should be, and because of its return date I'm pretty confident it's not in the back room.  In those cases, I must offer to request the item and have it delivered in a couple of days, or to call another branch to check their shelves and arrange for it to be held for the patron to pick up.  I am a professional.  I know how to do these things, and in which order, and what makes sense in a given situation.  And that's what I do.  Being a public employee is often hard, and often stressful.  The public tend to want what they want, now.  I have to say no to members of the public often enough that I refuse to say no when I can just as easily say yes.