Welcome to My Nightmare

Pissed, Bothered, and Angry. All of the mentioned words describe emotions felt during this week. This week marked the beginning of fall semester at WSU. My blog/thoughts leading up to the implementation of a combined service desk at the UGL beginning fall semester couldn’t have been more accurate.

Pissed: Let me elaborate as to why I was pissed. I worked Thursday morning and was busy from the time I got there until the time my shift at the desk ended. It’s the beginning of fall semester, which happens to be Wayne’s busiest semester so being busy was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was to run around like a chicken with my head cut-off trying to learn circulation terminology. I lost count of the number of times I went to find a circ supervisor to have he/she educate me on issues relating to circ. To me, all of this could have been avoided had there been some type of training and/or preparation prior to the start of fall semester. While you cannot plan for everything, you can at least prepare.

Bothered: I became bothered a few hours into my shift when I noticed a circ student assistant sitting on a computer browsing the latest fall fashions! Mind you, the desk would slow down periodically, but for the most part was busy throughout the morning. As she did this, two supervisors sat in cubicles behind her preoccupied with perhaps their own work-related interests? Anyway, she would take time between surfing the net for clothes to make her way to work the circ desk if she noticed a line. Later, I had to go upstairs and found this same staff person “shelving” books with a bag of potato chips in her hands!! I thought to myself, shouldn’t you be down at the desk working the long lines? I was also bothered by the fact that I never knew where my new supervisor was for most of my shift. There were times, he just happened to pop back up and then he’d pop right back out…

Angry: Towards the end of my shift I became very angry. A little back-story is necessary. Earlier this week, a circ employee felt it important to share with me that the Librarians were never going to come over to the desk to relieve us for breaks. Why? Some Librarians, specifically those employed at the UGL, are not for the whole “combined service desk,” and have no desire to support it. I embellished the last sentence from a personal belief, which I believe was later confirmed.

On Thursday, one of the Librarians came over to the desk. Of course, she asked how things were going, to which I responded, “There going.” Translation, she came to be nosey and get an update so she could go back laugh and/or gossip about things with her colleagues. Next, she asked if I had gotten a break and I said no. I should’ve kept my mouth shut because she went on this tangent about unions and them having to give us our breaks. Since she appeared to care so much about the travesty of my not getting a break, it appeared to be the perfect time to interject what I had been told by the circ employee. The Librarian had the nerve to act appalled in hearing this which prompted her to admit that the Librarians didn’t want to come over to the desk.

Before this whole combined service desk was implemented, a few Librarians at the UGL were responsible for relieving the Graduate Student Assistants for breaks. The minute we moved over to the circulation desk, they stopped relieving us. My guess is that they want to be exempt from doing circulation-related work because of their Master degrees in librarianship.

Excuse me, but aren’t the four GSA’s employed at the UGL working towards completing their Master’s degree in the same field? We may not have the actual degree yet, but it is hoped that after we earn those degrees we don’t become foolish enough to believe that a piece of paper eliminates us to participate and adapt to change. I can personally say, I didn’t do cartwheels up and down the halls at the announcement of a combined service desk, but the decision was made regardless of how I or any of the other GSA’s felt about it. Not coming over to the desk and not relieving us for breaks isn’t going to take away from the fact that there is a combined service desk at the UGL. I don’t understand how two groups of people, Librarians and Circulation/Access staff, at an academic institution can both refuse to work together and adjust to change. Until that’s understood, welcome to my nightmare…