Manager Training: Reviews

When I worked for Sears Credit during college, we had a mini review every month, a big review every quarter, and our giant review annually that determined our raise (or lack thereof). I was always at the top of the heap, but I could never get the highest rating. Like most businesses, they believe the perfect employee does not exist. So they made up a rating system that made the highest point value completely unattainable. This was both annoying and disheartening. I mean, what am I working my butt off for if my best will never get me a perfect review? It's like they make the supervisors find fault.

So, then I got my first job at a library. Only an annual review with a short little "How're you doing?" conversation quarterly. This time, I could get the highest rating, but the annual review didn't mean anything as far as a raise. We all got annual "cost of living" increases, but the only way to get a yearly bonus was to have 99% attendance. Yeah, um, I have Crohn's disease. And a rotten immune system. No way was I ever getting that bonus. But at least they had some sort of goal you could work towards.

My current place of work, you can definitely get some high scores on the annual review. Unfortunately, it means nothing. The union contract determines raises, there is no bonus, and basically the only reason for the review is because the contract says you must have one. Probably because people who have bad managers (i.e. those who do not TELL you if you are doing something good or bad) need a document to show what they're up to. And managers with bad staff members need documentation so they can fire the people. ;)

Lucky for me, I have the most magnificent staff who all do more than their share, really care about the library and our patrons, and get along with each other really well. They are willing to try new things, they don't yell at department meetings (yes, this is a big plus since other departments are not so lucky), and they BRING EACH OTHER GIFTS AND FOOD. I'm serious, I've never worked with a better group of people. Which means their annual reviews have pretty much been routine. I tell them what they did a good job on (pretty much everyone does just "good" on interactions and working the desk) and what they did a great job on (which is pretty much everything else).

At the end of the reviews, there is a place for staff comments. And this year, everyone has put something to the effect of: "I love this department, I love my job." It's a bittersweet end to the year. My library, like many right now, is going through tough financial times. And my department may be torn apart as a part of the changes that are going to happen. I think we're all in mourning for this great environment we've had for the past year. Just when we were getting some amazing programs off the ground, everything has to come to a halt until all the decisions are made.

So, as I'm looking at the annual reviews of my staff, they may not mean anything in the sense of raises and bonuses, but they mean everything to me. They all get gold stars for their hard work this past year, and if I have to send them on their way, they will each have a glowing recommendation.

Humor In the Midst of Chaos

So, life is a bit stressful right now. I've spent the last two weeks going through my own Swine Flu hell (my son had a febrile seizure to start it and we were home an entire week) and watching all of my friends with small children deal with their own version (thank you Facebook). Not to mention work stress, which is at an all time high right now for a variety of reasons. Oh, and did I mention that the house my boyfriend and I are trying to buy (that is currently owned by his parents and that he is currently living in) decided to belch the contents of the sewer up into the basement? To the tune of $10,000 that we don't have?

Yeah.

So, I needed a little laughter in my life. Don't we all? I happened to walk over to browse the new arrivals for our picture book section and came across this .

Now, had I read the Publisher's Weekly Review of this book before trying to figure out what the heck was going on, I would have understood that Meno is a "space elf." (Really?? Because he looks like a small child with slightly pointy ears and a beanie hat on.) Which would have helped with the weird, "just-off-the-boat-trying-to-speak-English" text. However, we have Tony DiTerlizzi on standing order, so somehow the book, and its sequel, landed on our shelf before the review was out in PW.

Okay, okay, so now I'm getting the alien-speak and the retro pictures. But I'm still thinking this is a junior version of Ren and Stimpy, which I adored as a teen. Why? Well, in the first book Meno and his floating jellyfish (but looks like an octopus) friend Yamagoo are going to have "Big Fun." And what is this Big Fun? Apparently farting. Complete with little strategically placed speech bubbles of "toot" and "poot." Nice.

Then, there's the second book. Yamagoo, being a floaty jellyfish, is missing his "wet friends." So Meno produces a bowl filled with water. But they have no "wet friend" to put in the water. So, down comes the green fairy creature, Wishi, who produces some options: A crab? Nope. The second option is rejected as well. The third option, in this book for small children is... DAVID HASSELHOF! Complete with hairy-chest, red-shorted illustration and an inclusion of how to pronounce his name on the last page! Seriously? The guy whose daughter got him on video completely trashed is appropriate for a picture book?

I guess it could have been worse. They could have picked Pam Anderson.

While there is no denying the appeal of the weird humor of the books, I'm confused as to how the target audience of little kids will react to them. Once they are routed in (and once everyone in the department has seen them and has gotten a good chuckle), I'll be bringing them home to my four-year-old to see how he reacts. I'm thinking he'll like the fart joke, but he'll also probably ask me, "Mommy, why are they talking funny?" Four-year-olds are big on rules. And my son is the king of rules. He told me last week that sometimes he tells his friends at school the rules just in case they forget. I asked him, "And do your friends get mad when you do that?" He says, "No, Mommy, rules are GOOD!"

So will he like a book that breaks all the rules? I'll let you know.

Early Literacy Tips for Every Occasion

I do have a long post I want to write about the past week, but I'm not up to it tonight. Instead, I want to share something that I did with my four-year-old last night after Trick-or-Treating.

I'm a sorter. I think that's part of being a librarian. So, in my regular check through my son's candy, I naturally divided them into piles. Candy bar minis here, suckers there, Marshmallow Brains in a pile by themselves (yes, he DID get these and he loves them). Naturally, my son wanted to count how many of each thing he had, and I thought, "What a great Early Literacy moment!"

So, after we counted the Brains (5), the Butterfingers (3), and the suckers (6), we took some time to look at the packages. I recently attended a training session with a presenter from PBS, who talks about how kids recognize the letters on brand name packaging and commercial products better than the regular alphabet. It's true--my son knew Dodge and Chevrolet before he knew how to recognize his own last name. When it comes to Halloween candy, I bet most kids can pick out the M&M's immediately. My son also knew Air Heads, Nerds, and Tootsie Rolls right off the bat. Considering I don't eat any of these things and we've never had them in the house, this makes me wonder what's going on at his dad's place...

Anyway, we talked quite a bit about the first letters of some of the candies, and then he wanted to know the full names. I know he will remember each one because at this stage, letters and logos are equivalent to him--they are both just symbols. He can't quite decode the individual parts of words on their own yet, but we're working on it. Once he actually understands that you can use each letter's sound to read a word, we'll be reading. For now, I'm content to give him as many sight words as possible.

For even younger kids, parents can just go over the letters. Any letter on any package, any sign, any ad, can be helpful for kids learning their ABC's. You don't need flash cards or fancy letter toys, and you certainly don't need those "educational games" that are all the rage for the upcoming holiday season. In fact, my mom asked me if I wanted her to get my son the "educational" version of a game or the one that was more movement and entertainment. I told her to get the entertainment--we do plenty of "educational" stuff in our everyday life. Let the kid have some FUN with his games!

So, if you are doing Storytime and you want to pass along the candy games to your parents, you should go for it. Because what holds a child's attention more? A flash card? Or a Marshmallow Brain?

On Being Born Digital

I'm currently reading Born Digital by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, as my Goodreads friends will know, and the authors claim that everyone born 1980 forward is a "Digital Native," meaning they've grown up in the world of the internet. Having been born in the second-to-last month of 1979, I consider myself to be "On the cusp" of being a Digital Native. Which, as it turns out, is a lot like being on the cusp of a certain zodiac sign. You get some of the attributes of each sign.

For instance, circa 1999 you could find me in my college dorm room downloading music like crazy from Napster like every other digital native of the era. And, like most of the students around me, I thought that if this thing was available on the internet for free, it must be okay. Now that I know it is NOT okay, I don't subscribe to any of the newer file-sharing services out there. But that doesn't mean I'm cool with the music industry's reaction to Napster or iTunes and its annoying DRM policies. Instead, I buy songs one at a time on Amazon that I can turn into mp3's for mix CD's or play on my iPod, and I rarely even listen to a whole album anymore. In this respect, I am very much the Digital Native.

On the other hand, I am NOT one of those "early adopters" everyone talks about who needs to have the latest gadget or get on the latest social networking sites. I was forcibly dragged onto MySpace and Facebook by my friends, and though I now enjoy my time and the capabilities of Facebook, I'm not there 24/7 like many of my friends.

Now, Twitter I willingly jumped into with both feet, but as you can see from the gadget on this blog, I'm not on much anymore. It's not that I don't like Twitter or that I don't see the usefulness of it. Quite the contrary, I miss my Twitter time and watching people tweet their reactions to last year's election is an experience I will never forget. I've met some great people there, including someone that I now consider a friend. However, my lifestyle has changed since I started my account there and I no longer have the time and energy to devote to one more site.

When I started on Twitter, I was living in a small, two-bedroom apartment with my parents and my son. When my son went to sleep in his bedroom at night and I waited for my parents to go to their room so I could pull out my sofa bed and relax, I would escape to Twitter and the lives of everyone I found there. Now that my son and I are out on our own, I get him to bed, I do my "chores" for the night like washing dishes and ironing, and I sit down for five minutes to read email and/or update my Facebook status. Then I'm off to bed.

For a brief period, I considered getting Twitter for my mobile phone. Then I remembered that I hate my phone. Again, this is the 1970's version of me who has the oldest, cheapest mobile phone that I can find and looks at people who have iPhones not in jealousy but in "Dear God, that thing has WAY too many things that I would never use!" I was married to a man who worked for one of the national mobile companies (hence why I am as likely to use MOBILE PHONE as CELL PHONE in a conversation) and I always took his hand-me-downs when he got the latest and greatest device for free to try out from Nokia. I must say, many of these hand-me-downs were even too much for me. So, no Mobile Twitter App for me!

And I have to say, it is not just my cell phone that I hate. I hate ALL phones. I would rather talk to someone in person. And, boy was I excited when pizza places started letting you place orders online! Which once again shows how I AM a digital native because I would rather send an email/text/order something online than make a phone call or go to the store or restaurant.

I'm starting to sound like I have multiple personality disorder, aren't I?

Anyway, one of the other points that Palfrey and Gasser make in their book is that Digital Natives start off not knowing how to navigate the dangers of the web, but they learn really quickly and then become better navigators than older people who should know better. I have to say, growing up with the internet you learn really quick who and what to trust on the internet and what to worry about. By nature, I am a cautious person, which I think has helped me. I am a huge fan of Snopes and I don't know what I did before I knew where to look up hoaxes. I have always thought Wikipedia was a great place to start, but I'd never use it to write a paper. But then, I never quite trust what I read in print, either.

But trusting sources isn't the only peril online. Two incidents illustrate the perils that teenagers face when they're learning the ropes. Way back in 1997 I was a junior in high school and, to me, AOL was the internet. It was the only service my friends had, and all of them were online chatting every night. Particularly in chat rooms. I would go to my friend Sarah's house, and we would take turns with the limited minutes we had (usually pulled from those "free minute" discs they sent in the mail) to get in a chat room and have some fun. During one of these group chat sessions, we encountered a predator. He didn't know there were three of us, and we didn't know he was an adult until the conversation took a very mature turn. Being 16, we really didn't know how to handle this situation, and just talked long enough to where the guy probably took care of his business and logged off without us saying much of anything. We were all sort of shell-shocked, but we didn't feel "violated" in the way that you would expect. We just sort of let it go and moved on, but we were much more careful about screening people to chat with individually after that.

Some time later, my friend Sarah started chatting with a more appropriate friend. This was a kid who lived in our town but was homeschooled. By this time, we knew how to screen "real" people from those who were up to no good. Of course, none of us ever gave out our address, phone number, or any other identifying information. But my friend started to really like the guy, and she wanted to meet him. How do we do this safely? No one knew. We ended up going for a walk to meet him, since he lived only a few streets away from my friend. This way, he wouldn't know where she lived if he turned out to be a creep, and she had backup with her. We ended up having a very short, uneventful meeting. He wasn't all that interesting in person, my friend thought, and he didn't seem interested in her at all. We returned home and figured that would be the end of it. Except, the guy kept sending messages to my friend asking for MY number and IM name. And when she wouldn't give it to him, he turned nasty and abusive. He knew her email and IM, and he spent many hours of his day filling her inbox with his ire. She had to change all of her online identities, and we made up a new category on the buddy list called "Stalkers" so we could monitor when he was online. Scary stuff.

But we live and learn, and all of us are a lot more careful about the people we meet online. When I first started with my Facebook account, I only accepted people I knew personally. Then, I wanted to network with library people, but I was cautious. I did a lot of investigating people's pages before I would send a friend request or accept one that was forwarded to me. I still worry about having my identity linked in so many places online, and how that can come back to bite me if someone wants to go after me.

At the same time, I really want to reach out through my social sites. I've been blogging since 2003 in various forms, starting with LiveJournal and migrating to various places before stopping here. They have all been public blogs because I want people to read my thoughts and maybe learn from my experiences. But I don't publicize my blog really because I'm afraid of exposing myself to unwanted attention. Last summer when I went off to ALA and had a "negative" commentor in the form of a conservative site manager, I nearly had a panic attack. What would happen if I got into a national debate that became public? Would my job be at risk because of my opinions on this blog? Luckily, it blew over. But I know it could happen again, and I will just prepare as best I can.

So, as a Digital Native I am virtually attached to my computer. When I am without internet access for more than a few days, I get itchy. But at the same time I'm not sitting for hours at night in front of my screen. When I post something on this blog, that's the most time I spend at any one task on my home computer. Being a Digital Native on the Cusp gives me the best of both worlds, I think.

It's Tough All Over

I should be sleeping. I've got a horrible cold, and I forced myself to work through it this week in order to get the grant proposal written and walked over to the foundation's office. With that task accomplished this afternoon, I am taking tomorrow off to rest and recouperate. But can I sleep? Of course not. I'm coughing up my lungs and my throat is swollen and sore. So, instead I'm catching up on a post that should have been written last week but got interrupted due to the "Great Sickness."

A coworker of mine was asked to write a piece for the NPR blog about a Recession Resources Fair held at our library. It's a great piece, and it really highlights what it's like to work on the front lines in a rust belt city. There are so many people wandering around that once had "good jobs" (their term) in some factory, some warehouse, some part of the manufacturing industries that once dominated the Great Lakes economy. They hold out hope that those jobs will come back someday, and they seem at a loss when it comes to finding work in the internet age.

Most of our computer room staff spend their time showing people how to fill out online applications for jobs that may actually be beneath the person's years of experience. They are constantly helping patrons navigate the difficult unemployment forms that can no longer be filed in paper form. We're the liason to social services, providing phone numbers, contacts, and even legal forms for the life events of our patrons.

As my director and I were walking the grant proposal over, she peered into a darkened bank window and wondered out loud, "Did they CLOSE and we didn't know about it?" Unfortunately, this wouldn't be a surprise. It seems like every day you see another empty store front or hear of a local small business closing its doors. Don't worry--there are plenty of patrons attending our "Small Business Seminars" that are just lining up to take their place.

We've been talking about levy campaigns we have coming up. Our smallest branch is almost the complete opposite demographic from our Main Library. We are urban, they're more rural. We have a pretty large population, they're a small community. But what we both have in common is poverty. When asked if she thought her community could support a request for more money, our small branch manager told stories of patrons who had lost jobs, whose spouses had lost jobs, who were going to lose their houses. A familiar, sad tale.

Yet these patrons love their library. They need their library. They are begging for more hours and programs. How do we deliver this with all the budget cuts and dropping revenues? In some ways, it's a lot easier to take care of the big, downtown library. The neighborhood may be poor, but there are a lot of people around to help shoulder the burden. And getting money to help inner city kids is an easy sell these days. When I was writing our grant proposal, I made sure to highlight the fact that at least 1/4 of the kids who register for summer reading come from the city. Don't get me wrong, these kids DO need the programs because they're at a huge disadvantage because of the cultural barriers that exist in that environment. But the troubles of the kids out in the far-flung suburbs are often overlooked, and they're worthy, too.

"It's tough all over." Boy, is that true. And nobody knows it better than your local librarian.

Training

One of my favorite parts of my job is developing training. Mostly, I've been doing Every Child Ready to Read training as part of my role as a Regional Coordinator. I've trained my coworkers and I've talked to countless parents and care providers about early literacy. I will be talking to two PTA groups at our outlying branch in October and November, and I will soon be training librarians at another library in my region.

There is just something very satisfying about creating a "class," or session where you organize all sorts of information into a package that enlightens and educates your audience. I get such a kick out of getting people fired up about a subject just because I've talked to them and transferred my enthusiasm.

Funny, though, I've never wanted to be a TEACHER. You would think they would go hand in hand, teaching and training, but they are different. At least in my mind.

A teacher imparts new knowledge. Their job is to explain foreign concepts to an audience that may or may not have any background in the subject they are being taught. A trainer, on the other hand, is presenting information to an audience that already has some knowledge of the subject but is looking for a new way of doing things or new insight into their work. In teaching, the most important part of the presentation is the actual information--you can present it in any way to make your student understand. In fact, you will probably explain it in several ways purposely to make sure everyone's learning styles are covered. In training, the material being covered may already be familiar to the participants. Instead, the focus is on how you present this information to seem new and fresh. It is more about the feeling of renewal and regeneration in old passions about what you do for a living. It's about getting you ready to go out and do your job better.

When I worked for Sears Credit, they had a department that they called "Training," but it was more properly called "Teaching." They focused on new procedures and new policies. This is important, of course, but it is not professional training. Trainers are people who get you excited about your job by imparting information in new ways.

I'm thinking of the astronauts of the Apollo project who did the same scenarios day after day for a year for one flight in space. It wasn't new information they were getting, it was practicing new maneuvers within the given conditions of space to prepare them for whatever might happen on a real mission. Each training session caused the astronauts to reevaluate their actions and attempt to make every flight better. They were constantly failing in training, but it made them confident that they could handle anything in space. They'd covered all the bases.

So, I get to look at my training sessions in this light. I am speaking to parents, teachers, and librarians who all know about kids. The teachers and librarians already know about reading, and the parents already know about their children. My job is to make them look at reading and children in a new way. To get them excited about playing with their children in ways that will prepare them for reading. It may not be rocket science, but you can't make it to the moon if you can't read the flight plan.

Strange Days

When you work with the public, you get used to having strange days. Strange questions, strange events, strange people. My library has even been experiencing strange weather lately--two tornado warnings in two weeks (one of which accompanied a day where the A/C broke and they had to push everyone down into the stifling basement in pitch black when the electricity also went out)!

You get used to these strange days where "ordinary oddness" happens. After a while, it's just part of your normal day. So, when a coworker comes up to you and says, "It's been a strange day," you take notice. And everyone checks the calendar to see if it's a full moon.

A few weeks ago, my library experienced one of these days. The first sign that something was amiss came when a patron complained to a staff member (who complained to me) that there was a bike sitting at the front door. I went and took a look at it, and decided I could move the bike to our bike rack, which was about 6 feet away from the door and completely out of sight from inside the library. Just as I was moving it, the owner came charging down the stairs from the computer room saying, "I need to keep an eye on my bike! If it gets stolen, I'm gonna be pissed." I calmly told him, "Sir, we can't block the door. If you're concerned about your bike being stolen, you need to lock it up." After going back and forth a bit, the guy decided to give up his computer time rather than losing his bike. Good call, because we have a LOT of stolen bikes even WITH locks. Best bet is actually to remove your front wheel, or so I've heard from some cyclists.

Soon after the gentlemen with the bike, I had a guy come in asking for "a book with 1,000 lily varieties." He had no idea the name of the book, what it looked like, or anything else. He just knew someone had told him our library had a book with this many lilies in it. I told him, "Well, the best we can do is go look at the shelf and see if something like that is available. Then we can check the catalog for something with a title that sounds like it might be that book." Luckily, we found a book on the shelf that seemed to satisfy him. Thank goodness no one had checked it out!

We also had a gentlemen come in who apparently deals with the reference desk frequently and is notorious for making extravagant demands. This particular day, it was a list of the editors and contact information for a long list of Spanish language magazines printed in the U.S. Now, most of the sites were in Spanish and did not have contact information for their editors. Plus, he wanted us to compile a list of ALL of the Spanish language magazines printed in the U.S. with THEIR information as well. I told him we would do what we could, but that I was not promising anything. I handed it off to our Spanish-speaking reference librarian who confirmed my suspicion that this was above and beyond the call of duty. She prepared what she could during her spare time.

It was almost time for me to leave the desk when I noticed a guy hanging around my children's librarian. As in, he was just standing in front of her not asking questions and just staring at her. He finally said, "How's my hardworking girl?" UGH. I hate when the stalkers get patronizing. He eventually left her alone, but I talked to her afterwards to let her know that she can make up an excuse to get away when someone is making her uncomfortable and not moving away from the desk.

Now I had to head upstairs to the computer room, leaving behind my coworker who had been warned, "It's been a strange day..." I immediately encounter a mother and daughter trying to use a computer together. I go over to tell them it's only one person per computer (space constraints--they were sitting in the same chair!) and find out that the daughter doesn't have an ID and she needs to help the mom print out directions. I tell them they can print out the directions but they must move quickly so they don't disturb other patrons. No sooner have I gotten to the desk than they're arguing. Loudly. A "helpful" patron at the reference computers next to me says, "You want me to throw them out? I know the rules! You told them to do it. I'll kick them out for you!" I politely tell the patron I have it under control and tell the mother/daughter pair that they have to quiet down and print the directions out NOW. By this time, break is over and the regular staff person is back. I explain the situation to him and tell them to give them three more minutes and then call me if they refuse to leave. Before I even got downstairs, they were storming out the front door yelling at one another. With no directions.

Back downstairs, I'm hearing the latest weird question. It turns out the book we're using for a county-wide read has a different subtitle on the cover than on the title page and in the catalog record. Book discussion members who had received the book were calling in thinking they'd gotten the wrong copy! When someone finally discovered the correct subtitle inside the book, everyone felt stupid and wanted to call the publisher to complain.

And just as I was hearing this story, a guy came up and asked for "paperbacks with interesting covers." We pointed him in the right direction and let him browse.

I do have to say that there was one non-weird request during the day that really made me glad to be a librarian. I had a woman come in and ask for a list of books on hold. As it turned out, most of the books were on our shelves. I offered to go to the stacks and get them for her, since she was very elderly and I wasn't sure she could carry all of the books. She declined and headed out on her own. Twenty minutes later, she was back and wanting to put the books on hold because she couldn't find them on the shelf. Now, I knew there was no way we had 8 books missing from the shelf while saying "available" in the catalog. One? Maybe. 8? I was betting she was looking at the wrong shelves. I told her I'd go and look for her, explaining that sometimes all you need is "another set of eyes." Sure enough, all of the titles were in the correct places. I believe the woman was looking in "Fiction" instead of "Mystery." When I brought them back to her, she was so grateful and a little embarassed that she couldn't find them on her own. When I explained about the two sections, and she felt better. But to see that gratitude on her face was priceless.

Sometimes it takes an "odd" day to make you remember why you do this in the first place.