What's in a name?

For most of my life I've hated my last name. Reitmeyer is German so it sounds choppy and I don't like the flow of it. Also the "ei" part confuses people. In English, "ei" can sound like an "e" like in "receive" although it sometimes sounds like an "i" like in "heist" or like an "a" in "weigh." Because of this, people have been butchering it for as long as I can remember. It is pronounced Right-my-er not Rit-my-er, Reet-my-er, or Re-it-mir.

That part I'm used to at this point. The part that makes me cringe to this day are the intentional modifications used to mock me in school. My P.E. teacher in elementary called me Wrongmeyer because I was/am terrible at all things athletic. And since a teacher made it up to taunt me, all of the other kids thought it was hilarious to follow her lead. In middle school (7th or 8th grade?) one of my classes had a substitute teacher. He was taking attendance and had difficulty pronouncing my name and decided to call my Rottweiler instead. Although he was only there torment me for one day, the rest of the kids remembered and continued to call me that well after he was gone. Kids can be so cruel, especially when adults teach them to be cruel. 

Several years ago, my Dad started his own technology consulting business which he named Reit Consulting, although the second part has since been changed to Technologies. My sister, a realtor for less than a year, also used it for branding herself as in, "We'll find you the Reit Home." I've also sort of grown fond of and adopted the "Reit" brand. I may never start my own business or use it in an official capacity but I've considered making it my middle name if I ever get married and take a new last name. 

To What End?

The In Crowd, or Fear and Loathing in Library Land
I've definitely become aware of the "secret society in the library profession" since I started working in library-land. In fact, it's one of the reason I decided to stick with this job and pursue this profession. The appreciation of my local community or co-workers is not enough for me. I know that it should be but (almost) no one here seems to care as much about the big picture. I want to be part of the group of motivated librarians that help shape the image of the "library" and what it represents to people.

Valerie's post is a good reminder that I have plenty of work to do at the local level, and that work will earn me the support I need at a higher level, even if I never keynote a conference or win a national award. For now I'm just going to keep listening and work on my degree because I'm sure I'll have plenty of time for all that other stuff later.

Does being right always matter?

{“Kindness is a/the language the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”  ~ Mark Twain}

I don't know if Twain really said this or not, but my experience with the source of this info makes me automatically question it's validity. Does it matter? Do I need to spend 15+ minutes searching for the answer but does it matter? 

It's not like the quotation contains "fact" that might be detrimental if found to be wrong. It's not like someone else is losing copyright profits by Twain getting credit. Anyone could have said it first. Maybe the first person to put those words together in that order unwitting gave the credit to Twain thinking it was something he said. 

Trying to always be "right" is exhausting...

Renovation. It Starts.

The construction crew has been working outside for a while, clearing trees, digging a giant hole for the lower level, tearing out a lot of concrete, etc. On Monday, whoever is in charge came in and said that they were going to move inside soon, especially if it started raining.

Carly & I were tasked with cleaning out the Friends room on Tuesday which wasn't too bad, but not what we were expecting to do all day. We already a lot of stuff out on the book sale tables and had Giggil scheduled to come that morning to take all of the hardbacks that weren't selling. We did have over a dozen shelves of discarded Children's books that we hadn't looked at which we had to sort at break-neck speed. We wanted Giggil to be able to take the majority of them so we were trying to get it done before they arrived. We managed to get everything ready but the Giggil guy didn't have enough room in his truck to take everything but he came back the next morning to get the rest. The stuff we saved for the book sale is now just hanging out on carts since there was no table space. I just finished moving the FOWL file cabinet and other misc supplies to my office yesterday (Friday). 

On Wednesday I started to gather all of the crap equipment (11 CRT monitors!) I wanted out of the building into the Front Office so that the Recycle Force guys could come Thursday morning. I stopped for a while because we were having a Magic Science Show in the morning and I didn't want to be carrying heavy, awkward things around with lots of kids running all over the place. While I was taking a break from that, I helped Sheryl clean out the Front Office closet. I was amazed to find a graveyard of equipment in there that I had no idea existed. I found a reel-to-reel filmstrip projector, a slide projector, a brailler, and a machine that says it scans books and turns it into "high-quality audio!" I moved all of it to my office and now I can't wait to try out all of it. I'm thinking about making a display of "Vintage Technology" in the future.

On Thursday morning, the Recycle Force guys showed up around 9:15-9:30 and were out of the parking lot with their giant truck before we opened at 10. I feel like nothing ever goes according to schedule so I'm mentioning this so I can remember that ALMOST nothing ever goes according to plan. After that we needed to shift children's books. Thousands of children's books. Some boys from the middle school football team came to help later that morning. I had two helping me shift which was almost not helpful at all. Others moved furniture in the front office and shelving from Children's to Reference. The foreign language collection was moved from the wall to the previously mentioned, newly relocated shelving.

On Friday I moved what was left in the Friends room (file cabinet, tablecloths, etc.) into my office.  

Shelving Locations in A/V

Every three weeks I work at the A/V circ desk... until I hire an assistant anyway (note to self: hire assistant). The first time I worked over there, I was astounded by how many genres and shelving locations there are in that place. Each of these has a corresponding colored dot on the spine so that staff will know what shelf an item should go on.

The following are what I can remember as I walk through the department in my head. There may be more.
Anime
Action
Drama
Comedy
Sci-Fi/Horror
Musicals
Foreign
Adult Non-fiction
Children's Non-fiction
Children's Musicals
Focus on the Family
Hallmark Movies
Television Shows
Adult Christmas/Holiday (permanent)
Children's Christmas/Holiday (permanent)
Family DVD Collection (feature length)
Children's DVD Collection (30 min cartoons, etc.)
New (1 week)
New (3 day - no holds)
"Faith-based" (permanent display)
"Oldies but Goodies" (temporary display)
"Out of This World" (temporary display)
"New TV Shows" (Permanent display)

*all of the displays share the shelving location of AV-DISPLAY but are in different places around the department. 

Blu-rays are stickered with the appropriate collection color but they are all located in one place instead of being inter-filed. We do still have some VHS copies and they are inter-filed and I've been given no logical explanation for why the blu-rays aren't. There are also music CDs, audiobooks on cassette & on CD, playaways, and Wii software.    

Do kids really care whether a DVD is a movie, episodes from a show, or a musical? Probably not. I think the staff has just put way too much thought into things.

Casual Friday

I once read (heard?) something along the lines of, "If you're going to break a rule, make sure it's one worth breaking." I think it's good advice although I can't say that I follow it that closely. I'm a frequent rule-breaker and subscribe more to the "do what you want and ask for forgiveness later."

One of the rules I used to break a lot was the part of the dress code that says, "no jeans except on the weekends." I normally feel better when I dress up a little but there were (a lot of) days when I could hardly pour myself out of bed, let alone find an outfit (this has since been remedied). These were the days that jeans and a sweater were my uniform, otherwise I wouldn't go to work at all. 

No one ever said anything to me about it, hopefully because I'm so awesome that they're just happy that I grace them with my presence everyday. </sarcasm> One day at a staff meeting our director announced that anyone could wear jeans on Friday if they made a $5 donation to a local charity she had selected. 

Suddenly I felt like all these rule violations equaled an opportunity to help others lost. I was stealing from the mouths of babes! I'm really pretty good now about not breaking that rule anymore. Ok well I have two pairs of denim looking slacks (I guess?) that are much nicer than regular jeans and a lot better than the yoga/sweatpants I've seen other people wear on a regular basis. 

What prompted this idea on the director's part? Did she intend to me feel so guilty that I would stop breaking the dress code? I doubt it. Did it work? Absolutely. Either way I feel that it was a stroke of genius whether it was intended that way or not. Also I must remember this for the next time I have to deal with a rule breaker. 

Why Rules Exist...

Recently a coworker did a few things that, in my opinion, were unacceptable. I'm not going to go into specifics because with a little digging it wouldn't be that hard to figure out who I'm talking about. (I don't have anything to hide so I'm not trying to be anonymous and librarians are excellent at digging deep for information.)

Admittedly, this librarian doesn't have a lot of common sense in the first place, but she does have a MLS and we do have written procedures that staff are supposed to follow so these errors should have never happened. Also it all could have been stopped before everything kept piling up but there were many other factors that let the nonsense continue. 

Whether the infractions were egregious (they were) or not, there should have been consequences. Having procedures and policy are a waste of time if there are no consequences for violating them. 

I reported most of the activity to our assistant director because the librarian working in the same department as the librarian in question should have reported but would have been retaliated against (another issue that I wish I could fix). The assistant director wrote everything down on a scrap of paper while I was in her office and promised to follow up with the staff member in question. 

The following week, the assistant director asked me if I had talked to our director about the incident (she was out of town at the time) or if I had assumed it was taken care of. I told her that I assumed that she, as the AD, would have reported it to the director. I do have a better relationship with the director than possibly any other employee but it really wasn't my place. I also report to the director but I'm in a different department and I could have stayed out if it but I knew nothing would happen if I did. I reported it to the superior (AD) of the person who committed the crimes which seemed more appropriate. Anyway, the AD said she would talk to the employee. 

Later I overheard the discussion where she promised to "talk to her about it" although it was ineffective at best. For example, when questioned about a specific step in the procedure the AD responded that she "prefer" that it was followed as written. Uh, prefer? I understand the desire to speak ambiguously (my mom always said maybe instead of yes or no) but this is was a black and white question that deserved a yes or a no.

I'm doubting any of this is going to get put in her yearly performance review. Even if it did show up on that report nothing would be done about it. I think the results of the review are supposed to affect your raise but since we haven't had any for years, there is really no consequence for having a low score. Also no one has been fired in the time I've been here although I think there are a few people that should have been. I know that there are plenty of freshly minted MLS grads looking for jobs that would have new ideas and motivation to do a good job, but we're stuck with what we have.

When I worked in retail, there were a lot of rules with consequences which I hated at the time, but now seem like a great idea. There was a list of things that you could be "written up" for doing and if you got so many write-ups in a certain span of time you were fired. I don't think there is anything like this in place now. Maybe the director just has final say and can fire anyone at will. I can see how that would be a lot of responsibility because someone can easily sue you for firing unjustly. That's what documentation is for. That's what a written policy is for. It takes the responsibility off of the director and puts it squarely on the employee.

This is how I know I'm meant to in charge... I fantasize about writing policy and procedure AND enforcing it!