It never fails to amaze me that people don't believe people lie. You can call it whatever you want, but when person #1 is looking for information and person #2 does not give the information that is being sought, it is a lie.
We elect a lot of very bad politicians because we voters don't believe they are lying to us when they tell us what we want to hear, and then go on and do something else entirely.
But, honestly, if you have ever watched a commercial or held a job, you must know that you are being lied to with alarming frequency.
When a company has a board meeting, and the next time they meet they review the minutes, it is not entirely for accuracy's sake.
People who lie have all kinds of rationalizations for their lies. Mostly, they don't think that the person they are lying to can handle the lie. Bad things would happen if the truth were told.
Let's say, for example, that libraries need to get rid of some books when there are too many on the shelf. This is a fact of life. We are fortunate to be living in a country where, at least until now, libraries have been so valued that new books continue to get purchased until there is no longer room on the shelves for them.
Now, if libraries told the truth about this, the fear is that it would open up a huge can of worms. Taxpayers would be furious. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, more than likely true, of a judge who ordered a library in some town to put books in storage rather than destroy them. There are definitely people who go through library dumpsters looking for those suspiciously marked boxes of trash. The volume is so great, however, that (and I know this for a fact) that sometimes when that has happened those boxes end up being put on the curb for garbage, or maybe in the hopes that someone wanting a ready made library will take them all home.
But taxpayers mostly know that you can't just keep adding space to a library rather than get rid of books. In a library system where very generous patrons donate tons of lovely books to be sold by the Friends of the Library, there just isn't the means to offer all the used library books for sale as well.
So, instead of the skulking around, taping up boxes of books and running them out to the dumpster in the dark of night, or however your library system handles this problem, wouldn't a little transparency offer up a world of possible solutions?
Now, this wasn't at all what I was planning on talking about here today.
In a related matter, when somebody at work makes a BIG mistake, what do they do? Really? Suppose, all of a sudden, many many items are erased from inventory -- something very likely with the ease of the keystroke.
Do they immediately go to whoever is in charge and own up? And then, they immediately figure out who will be affected, and then they decide how to let everyone involved know in a timely manner. And then they all brainstorm what is the best way to handle this error. And they of course appreciate input from anyone who has an idea....
Naw. They pretend it didn't happen. Ask a direct question and it will get ignored. Change of subject. In some cases, transfer of blame. Most definitely cover up of the extent of the problem.
So, when you can't understand why the world around you, from Congress to the toothpaste you bought, isn't working out the way you were sure it was supposed to, just remember, people lie.
I told you I would let you know. Two days ago, the staff restroom was available by flashlight.
For the record, today, at work, one of the two lightbulbs in the staff bathroom burned out. I will let you know when we are taking care of business by flashlight.
Tomorrow is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. My son, who I am seeing for the first time since August, came into town on Wednesday, and is leaving very early Sunday. Tomorrow I will be at work.
Libraries, supermarkets, hospitals, think about all the places that aren't closed for holidays, that are open for business on weekends.
There was a time when, if you had to work on Sunday, you at least got paid time and a half or even double time, but now, we clerks are "lucky to have a job" and told to report for duty at the pleasure of management.
Here at the library we are at least closed on holidays. That is, since a minor protest resulted in the Board approving that we be closed on Memorial Day, just like the rest of the libraries in the country.
We have a generous four days off for Christmas, but excuse me for complaining, we are open on New Year's Eve, which, to my mind, is the actually holiday, New Year's Day just being the sick day afterwards.
And then there are rules prohibiting an employee who deals "with the public" from trying to get away with an extra day off on either side of a holiday. So you wouldn't try to sneak out of town to visit family, or just hang out for an extra day.
Most people who have 9-5 jobs are totally out of touch with the day to day sacrifices people who work with the public have to make, adjustments to their daily lives that mean less special time with family, less time to prepare for, or recuperate from, a hectic holiday. Days off that just add sanity to life, and even quality.
Sundays and holidays are especially ugly. "Family values" crap comes out of one side of the power brokers' mouths while patriotic garbage about making sacrifices and not whining comes diarrhea-like out of the other side.
I too, am a hypocrite, and I realize that most of the time I am going to a restaurant it is a time when other people are reliably not working. I make excuses and do it anyway. We all draw the line somewhere.
But I never NEVER shop on a holiday, not even on President's Day, which we commemorate by having sales, and Labor Day, which used to be about celebrating the work force and now just forces workers to work the holiday in order to make more profit for the corporation. If Wal-Mart, on "Black Friday" (an expression abounding with irony) was offering to pay up the mortgages on the first ten people in line, I would curse their black hearts and not even consider being a part of the line-up. I am very aware that, where I am being served, others are being forced to work, more often than not for not enough pay.
So tomorrow, when I am standing at the desk in the library, if you come in and ask how my Thanksgiving was, which you will, I will say "Fine", but I will be thinking, "My son is home for one more day and I'm checking out your stinking DVD's; and how are YOU?"
Happy Thanksgiving. Really.
I spend most of my time griping, but I want to take a few minutes to name a few things I am thankful for this year.
I am thankful that I leave work at 2:00 instead of 5:30.
I am thankful that, when I am told to do something dumb, I have finally learned that no one will notice if you ignore it.
I am thankful that my break time got cut from 30 minutes to 15 minutes as it does make it easier to maintain my diet.
I am thankful that I have truly learned to act ironically; for instance when I am not included in a decision, or even informed that a decision has been made, I now just say nothing and watch the chaos and incompetence. This needs work, but it is worth the effort.
I am thankful that I still have savings, although I am running through it rapidly, I believe I just might make it to retirement age.
I am thankful that, now that I work part-time, I work in a library so I have tons of books to bring home, and time to read them.
I am thankful that I have found some intelligent friends, and I can once again be sarcastic and occasionally "cuss" in conversation that warrants "cussing".
I am thankful that I have a boss who would rather not ask me to do crummy jobs; he asks people he likes more than me, which once made me feel excluded in a bad way, but now fills me with relief.
I am thankful that I have been excluded from tasks that I once did to the point where I was putting in extra hours, and sometimes experiencing renewed pain in my shoulder.
I am thankful that my work review once again gave me low scores for attitude, and additionally, low scores for initiative. After five years of being angry about this, and continuing to work hard to prove my supervisors wrong, this year I felt relieved, a burden lifted. Fuck 'em.
And I am thankful that I am here and not there, and when I am there it's not the worst job in the world, and when I leave there I don't have to take it with me, even though sometimes I do. I can let this job be as much a part of me as I want. I may not be earning a living, but I have gotten my life back to some extent.
Happy Thanksgiving!
When you have a fairly cohesive group of employees, who have been squeezed financially, with pay and benefit cuts, and have suffered the insult of "increased productivity", what does upper management do to improve morale?
Well, you could give bonuses, but for the real working class, bonuses went out with the air traffic comptroller union. Remember office parties, turkeys for the holidays, those few hours when the office was unofficially closed early so you could get home to your family?
You don't need to punch a time clock to know that that doesn't happen anymore.
And there was a time when an employee, forced to work on a Sunday, would get time-and-a-half, or the hallowed double-time. When business was bad, you lost that too, and when business got better, those extra bucks went to the shareholders or pay increases for management.
These days on Sunday you either get "comp time" or Sunday becomes just another work day, instead of Wednesday, so you can spend your day off alone while your family does their work/school routine, and on Sunday they can sit by the TV while you're at work.
Layers of management mean that no one has to look you in the eye and say, "I've decided that you have to work on Christmas Eve," or, "I can't give you that cost of living raise this year." The people that decide whether your actually living wage goes up or down, or whether you can have that holiday with your family, are pretty far up the chain, with lots of rules buffering your immediate supervisor from the effects of his or her financial pronouncements or scheduling decisions.
What cracks me up, then, is the awards that management come up with to motivate employees. The "employee of the month", "quarter", or whatever period of time management can pat itself on the back for acknowledging. Awards come with framed photos in the front of the store, placques, and occasionally a day off or even a gift certificate.
Here's a news flash. When employees are spread too thin between work and family, when incomes don't stretch to cover dental bills AND groceries, when necessary errands can't get run during work/business hours and sleepless nights ensue, I really don't give a damn about your placque.
And when the award is a day off, and you aren't even giving us a living wage, I just want to know why you think it's important to select one employee, to single out a single individual, to say to everyone that works for you, "This person deserves an extra day off... and you don't."
It's really quite the symbol of power when management can say, "You all have to work a bit harder today, because your fellow employee just got an extra day off... and you didn't." It's a symbol of the heavy handed compliment that management is going to give one of us something that everyone but management has to pay for.
And the poor cowed employees who are just happy to have a job just keep working, some of us hoping that next year maybe we'll get that extra day off.
Apparently, even someone who was hired for being controversial has to tow the line with the boss these days.
Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC, was suspended for making political contributions. Not secret contributions, mind you, like those which the Supreme Court has approved for big corporate interests. Contributions that he made openly.
The crime Olbermann committed was that he did not get APPROVAL from MSNBC President, Phil Griffin, prior to making the contribution.
MSNBC claims that the issue is journalistic independence. On Countdown??? I believe the issue should be transparency, and not prior approval. Had Griffin granted approval, would that have made the contributions less likely to affect Olbermann's "journalistic independence"? Would Griffin have approved contributions made to Nazi reenactor Rich Iott?
With all the dirty money that funded the 2010 elections, Olbermann's suspension is the ironic cherry on the icky campaign sundae.
Can we please focus on the important issue here? Let's get the political leaders and the capitalist bosses to make transparency the rule, and not freedom to donate to a person or party.
I would like to congratulate the Piggly Wiggly for coming up with the most hard to collect promotional offer ever.
When I heard that it was a Cuisinart promotion, I figured it was going to be a big one, in the sense of it would be easier in the long run to just go on out and buy a Cuisinart. When the prizes are that big, I pretty much tune out the spiel.
But needing a distraction from the everyday horrors of work and the biennial horror of the elections, I decided I would investigate.
Now, I am an older woman who lives alone, on a limited income, so I don't spend a lot at the Pig. When the cashier asked me if I was collecting coupons, she looked suprised when I said yes. She handed me two teensy-eensy little rectangles with a teensy-eensy little picture of the Pig on each.
"Is there a book or something to put them in?" I asked, wondering why she wouldn't have offered that too. I think she was skeptical, given I had just spent under $30. But she gave me a folded 8 1/2 by 11" "Sticker Saver" to save my two stickers into.
I careful tucked the teensy-eensy little coupons into the folded over "Sticker Saver" and place it carefully in my purse, in a separate compartment.
But when I got home and attempted to retrieve the items, I could only find one of the teensy-eensy coupons. I'll have you know that was worth $10 of groceries. A bit like a gem, tiny but dear.
Nonetheless, I attempted to put the one remaining teensy-eensy coupon into the little spot in the "Sticker Saver". Gone are the days when you can just lick a stamp and slap it on. So with slightly arthritic fingers, I had to find the plastic that was covering the sticky part of the stamp and peel it off. I could hardly believe that it split down the middle, requiring me to find and peel both halves!
Once I had successfully installed the stamp, I checked out the prizes.
Remember the Corning Ware promotion a few years ago? There was a kind of a booby prize for us small shoppers: it was a two-cup measuring cup, which I was fairly happy to get.
The low budget items on the current promotion are the 1 qt. Open Pour Pan, and the 7" Open Non-Stick Skillet.
Don't get excited, though, because they aren't free. With 15 stickers, it'll cost you another $9.99. So, if you're following this carefully, you will note that 15 stickers means you have spent a whole lot more than $150 at the Pig, because if you spend $19.99, you still only get 1 sticker. Even if you spend $20.01 next time (2 stickers), you can't apply that $.01 to the $9.99.
The grand prize, the Blender or Processor, is actually free with 160 stickers. So let me do the math... you would have to spend more than $1,600 to get a "free" Cuisinart. But if you only have 80 stickers, fear not -- you can get it for $44.99.
And here is the best part. For $44.99 you can get a $90.00 Cuisinart from Amazon without having to save all those silly little coupons. OR spend $1,600.
So, smart shoppers, next time you're at the Pig, congratulate them on their Just Try to Collect Your Prize Award. And, while you're there, tell them thanks for discontinuing the AARP double greenbax during these tough times.
I've been accused of being rigid. But let me tell you how flexible the years have made me.
Today I was handed a memo saying that fiction books that are being "weeded" from the shelves are to be thrown out.
Now, I understand that it is essential to remove items that don't circulate, to make room for newer items that keep a library up-to-date. It is the most necessary, and the most hated, reference job in a library. Over the years I have come to see it as a necessary task. However, for the past two or more years, I have been oh-so-carefully taking the identifying marks and stamps off the books and sending them to our Friends of the Library, to be sold at our book sales.
Oh, that made me feel so much better. The books would be going to people who want them, for very little money, the library would be making some much-needed money, and I would not have to throw away weeded books.
Today, I was handed a memo, from the person in administration that, as far as I can tell, is in charge of maintenance and supplies. She conveyed -- not to me, of course, but to the branch manager -- that weeded fiction was to no longer be "recycled" to the book sales, but was to be boxed and sealed, marked "trash" and put in the dumpster. As we used to do. With no acknowledgement that Friends of the Library had been accepting these, the word comes down that it is not acceptable.
My supervisor wisely handed me the memo and left me alone without comment. Because she knew this would hit me hard. I did in fact sit, barely functioning, for about 1/2 hour, trying to process this news.
Then we talked about the details of who would do the heavy work, the boxing and dumping, after I weeded.
Now, as far I as can see, and I say this with some tears in my eyes, that is about as flexible as a human can be expected to be. What it took for me to do that, was to say to myself, not so important. Just do it.
I've learned to do that a lot over the years, when I finally learned the lesson that fighting does not work. Your workplace gets really unpleasant, you maybe get fired, and nothing changes.
So whenever I get the word that I must do something I think is wrong, I mull it over for awhile, and then say to myself, not so important. Just do it.
So I care less, and I die a little more each time. And at some point I will no longer be there, and it won't make any difference at all.
Today was Annual Performance Evaluation Day. For the 4th time in five years, people who know less about my job than I do get to put me in my place.
My place is at the very bottom rung of the library ladder, here known as "Library Assistant I". This year, due to a whole slew of injuries related to age, staff cutbacks resulting in way too much repetitive motion stress, my own inclination to do too much of what needs to be done, and a surgery that wasn't healing with a 37.5 hour work week, add Part Time to the LA I label. In fact, I was urged by my manager to cut to part time, who wanted to promote a far more agreeable employee into my full time position. Afraid for my injuries, but also wanting to do the right thing, I did move down to this lowest salaried position.
Since that time, it's been a tough adjustment, not just financially, which it certainly has been, but because I no longer have time to do the tasks I had done at full time. Add to that the fact that I was bumped from a task that I had been doing for five years, and enjoyed. No one had wanted to do that job when I took the position, but when a friend of the manager became a library volunteer and said he was interested, it went to him. Coming back from my surgery leave I protested, and retrospectively wish I had not.
But to make up for no longer feeling like an essential cog in this workplace that I do love, I get to work early, start the coffee, print the "holds" list for the day, and then box up donations, which I would not have time for during the course of my shortened day. I can't do it all, but it feels good to still have a hand in it.
My customer service hours were reduced after the surgery when the injury began to flare up again. A doctor's note limited the amount of time I was to do the standing, repetitive lifting and sliding movements required at the service desk. But I've been able, when it's not too busy at the desk, to continue to do the "weeding" of the adult book collection. I am the only person there with an advanced degree, 2 1/2 years of training in reference, and immersed and self-educated in all areas of fiction and non-fiction, and in libraries and the flow of circulation. It has always made sense that I would take on this never-ending and difficult task. I muscled my way into it, because no one ever said, "Hey, with all your knowledge and experience, you should be doing this." That is not the way management rolls here. So I do this task, unofficially, which at other branches people with comparable experience get paid twice my wages to do. And I love to do it, so I do it quietly.
So, when evaluation time came around, I knew I was going to get slammed for attitude. It's an annual event. I used to get an attitude about the evaluation, but I've learned that it's just a seasonal spreading of horse manure that I can get through quickly if I just let it happen. It's a four-point scale, top score of four. These days I can even laugh at getting 3.5 for "attendance".
Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw that I received 2.5 for both "Initiative" and "Quantity". Should I come in even earlier? I asked sarcastically. My surpervisor, who tends to feel a little smug about being able to explain my short-comings, said that she had to be brutally honest in analyzing my performance. I am "too rigid" about what tasks I do. Not rigid in the sense of refusing to do tasks I don't like, but rigid in the sense of not liking it when other people do my job.
Oh, and also, I don't work as many desk hours. Now wait a minute: I don't work as many desk hours because I have a disability, and doctor's restrictions to that effect. I cut my hours, income and benefits, because of the disability, you can't be penalizing me on my performance evaluation because of disability related limitations?
No, she said, she wasn't doing that.
And then, being the flexible employee that I am, I let it drop.
Her next comment was, "You completed your annual goals, and I have to say, you are the only one that did."
What could I possibly say? I signed the damned thing and got it over with for another year.
Except here I am, scribbling in the middle of the night, because it hurts my heart to love a job and work so hard at it, and be formally and officially criticized because I don't just do what I am told, and with a smile.
And that's what it comes down to. A server should be servile. If I worked less hard, but had never contradicted or questioned, I'd have that glowing review. But I would be spending a lot more nights awake at 2:00 a.m.
