I don't know why human resources issues fascinate me so much, but they do. Especially library cases, of course. Modern society builds our lives around work. We choose to move away and live thousands of miles from family because of our job, often in geographic areas we wouldn't normally chose to live in. If we get married, then things become even more complicated as you balance each spouse's job and career with what the other one can do in that area. There is so much sacrifice involved, yet we could lose those jobs for any number of reasons. And losing a job is very, very difficult. A friend of mine lost her job recently, followed by two serious personal crises. So employees rights and what people do that deserves getting them fired fascinates me.
So here is an interesting story of a Michigan library director who allegedly uses a puppet in staff meetings, moves furniture wearing nothing on top but a bra, treating her employees atrociously, not following the city's budget rules, and otherwise acting "irrationally." This stuff seems too strange to make up, and her hr file seems to have been building up over time, not just when she got fired. She claims in her lawsuit that she was wrongly fired for questioning the city's authority over the library.
I keep mentioning these stories as I find them on LISNews, but haven't followed up on them. I don't know if it is just because law suits take so darn long (I'm still waiting for the J.K. Rowling verdict), or because newspapers cover stories when they first break and not when they are resolved... I suppose I need to look at all of the stories I have tagged with "worker's rights" and see if I can find any more information on the older stories I discussed. Of course, I will keep you updated on anything I dig up.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Cat Update
I got a urine sample from one of my two cats, the one I didn't suspect, and it came back positive for a urinary tract infection.
You know what they say about people who assume... that's really what I feel like since I yelled at the wrong cat and the "guilty" one wasn't being bad. The poor thing has been climbing in my bag, desperately looking for a place to pee that doesn't cause pain.
You know what they say about people who assume... that's really what I feel like since I yelled at the wrong cat and the "guilty" one wasn't being bad. The poor thing has been climbing in my bag, desperately looking for a place to pee that doesn't cause pain.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Advising Freshmen
It's my turn to be involved in advising the incoming freshmen during their summer orientation. I really like meeting the advisees and their parents, and getting to know them. I love being helpful and trying to assure them there are plenty of people here ready to help with most situations. This year, meeting the parents might be fun. Williamsport has had some significant crime in the past year, including a non-student being randomly murdered a block from campus and two students being held up at gunpoint outside of a local pizza parlour. At least I can say that many of the professors live within walking distance to the school, and that I am in the process of buying a house near campus.
Of course I never see or hear from any of my advisees except when they have to, though it seems like they were more willing to come see me at the end of the year. This makes me happy. I have been able to mediate a few problems, including a student who wanted to drop a class she thought she would fail, and she ended up getting a C or C- by the end of the semester. This was just a question of calling the professor and assuring the student she should go see him.
The only part of advising I don't look forward to is the chaos of registering the students for classes. I hope to instill the fear of God in them today that they need to have a schedule picked out and written down in the time table before coming to registration tomorrow morning.
Funny how most of what I try to do is take away their fear, except when it comes to being prepared for registration...
Oh, and I was very excited to see that one of my new advisees is Wiccan. I wonder if I could convince her to come to the library's Harry Potter Night in October.
Of course I never see or hear from any of my advisees except when they have to, though it seems like they were more willing to come see me at the end of the year. This makes me happy. I have been able to mediate a few problems, including a student who wanted to drop a class she thought she would fail, and she ended up getting a C or C- by the end of the semester. This was just a question of calling the professor and assuring the student she should go see him.
The only part of advising I don't look forward to is the chaos of registering the students for classes. I hope to instill the fear of God in them today that they need to have a schedule picked out and written down in the time table before coming to registration tomorrow morning.
Funny how most of what I try to do is take away their fear, except when it comes to being prepared for registration...
Oh, and I was very excited to see that one of my new advisees is Wiccan. I wonder if I could convince her to come to the library's Harry Potter Night in October.
Friday, June 13, 2008
The little stinker struck again
Okay, I will get back to library stuff soon. However, today's incident is more related to libraries than the first one.
I went to leave this morning and pulled a few things out of my bag, to find that once again my cat had peed on them. Once again, our house purchasing contract was in the bag. There were four or five copies, but somehow I ended up with the original, so I can't get rid of this copy. I'm hoping the bookstore has some plastic sleaves I can put the pages in. I can tape them at the top, and no one ever has to touch it.
On top of that, the pee got all over my wallet, cell phone, lots of disposible odds and ends in my bag, and most importantly, all over a library book I had checked out at the very end of the day yesterday. I put that in a plastic bag and took it to the head of circulation. I'll leave it up to her what to do with it and what to charge for it.
I went to leave this morning and pulled a few things out of my bag, to find that once again my cat had peed on them. Once again, our house purchasing contract was in the bag. There were four or five copies, but somehow I ended up with the original, so I can't get rid of this copy. I'm hoping the bookstore has some plastic sleaves I can put the pages in. I can tape them at the top, and no one ever has to touch it.
On top of that, the pee got all over my wallet, cell phone, lots of disposible odds and ends in my bag, and most importantly, all over a library book I had checked out at the very end of the day yesterday. I put that in a plastic bag and took it to the head of circulation. I'll leave it up to her what to do with it and what to charge for it.
My mom thinks it is time to get rid of the cat. I don't know what is wrong with her. She clearly climbs down into the bag before peeing, she's not just peeing on top of it. This is not a habit of hers, and she wasn't locked out of the bedroom last night. I don't know what she had to be angry about. I can't get rid of her, I have had her for too long, and then again I am only 85% sure which cat it was... I have learned the pattern now, though. Don't leave any bags on the floor, and lock all important papers in rooms they can't go into.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
What librarians are all about
It's summer and most of the librarian blogger celebrities have slowed their posts down. Probably a lot of them are off for the summer... oh wouldn't that be nice. Not that I can complain, my boss is being great about all of the personal stuff I have to take care of during work time, and trusts me to make up the hours as needed.
Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I stray from being strictly a professional activities blog. I've stretched a bit in the past to include novels I read that are particularly good, and after all, librarians are all about books, food, and cats. So I have a funny story that relates to what librarians are all about.
My fiance and I are in the process of buying a house that was for sale by owner. But we're trying to figure this process out, and the seller is too. He is very accommodating, but his lawyer isn't. My lawyers are my parents, who aren't licensed to practice in PA but can give me some advice. We gave him a contract last week but his lawyer flipped out, and on closer inspection yesterday, I understood why. I made corrections as far as taking on more responsibility of paying the closing costs, re-printed the contract, and my fiance and I signed the heck out of them. I also printed off a third copy where I highlighted who is responsible for what, and annotated it to help the seller understand the gist of the contract that is 16 pages of legalese. This took me a long time and we don't have good computer access at home, so it meant a 20-mile round trip to print it last night...
... then overnight one of my cats peed on the contracts that were neatly stacked in a Morningstar tote bag by the door. I have had my older cat (the one I suspect) for nearly 6 years and she has only done her business outside of the litter box once before. What are the chances? Fortunately, he's a pet owner, and he laughed when I told him what happened and I was able to get him the better-smelling contracts only an hour after we had originally intended.
If this is only the first disaster of a long process, I'm not sure I can handle the rest! Don't worry, no cats have been harmed as a result of this incident, as tempting as it was.
Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I stray from being strictly a professional activities blog. I've stretched a bit in the past to include novels I read that are particularly good, and after all, librarians are all about books, food, and cats. So I have a funny story that relates to what librarians are all about.
My fiance and I are in the process of buying a house that was for sale by owner. But we're trying to figure this process out, and the seller is too. He is very accommodating, but his lawyer isn't. My lawyers are my parents, who aren't licensed to practice in PA but can give me some advice. We gave him a contract last week but his lawyer flipped out, and on closer inspection yesterday, I understood why. I made corrections as far as taking on more responsibility of paying the closing costs, re-printed the contract, and my fiance and I signed the heck out of them. I also printed off a third copy where I highlighted who is responsible for what, and annotated it to help the seller understand the gist of the contract that is 16 pages of legalese. This took me a long time and we don't have good computer access at home, so it meant a 20-mile round trip to print it last night...
... then overnight one of my cats peed on the contracts that were neatly stacked in a Morningstar tote bag by the door. I have had my older cat (the one I suspect) for nearly 6 years and she has only done her business outside of the litter box once before. What are the chances? Fortunately, he's a pet owner, and he laughed when I told him what happened and I was able to get him the better-smelling contracts only an hour after we had originally intended.
If this is only the first disaster of a long process, I'm not sure I can handle the rest! Don't worry, no cats have been harmed as a result of this incident, as tempting as it was.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Libraries a waste of money
Ooooh, here's a great way to get a bunch of people all riled up. Complain that with the Internet, local governments are wasting their money by continuing to support libraries. I feel sorry for people whose "inquisitiveness and reading enjoyment are satisfied online." You obviously can't enjoy reading that much, or be to inquisitive if the questionable content you get online satisfies everything you need, and you must not read fiction.
No one who reads this blog needs my opinion on why libraries are important. I will grant that they're changing and we all need to work hard to keep them relevant in the eyes of at least the enlightened part of our population... and those who can't afford computers and Internet access at home.
No one who reads this blog needs my opinion on why libraries are important. I will grant that they're changing and we all need to work hard to keep them relevant in the eyes of at least the enlightened part of our population... and those who can't afford computers and Internet access at home.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Complaining
I need to complain. I don't know if this is Office 2007 or if the old version did this, too. I received a document through e-mail, opened it directly from the e-mail, made lots of changes to this 17-page document, clicked "Save" before closing, then closed it. Well, since I never clicked "Save As," it saved somewhere in limbo and seems to be permanently lost. Today I went under Recent Documents to try to open it, and it was nowhere to be found. I looked in the Temp folder on my C drive, and there wasn't anything in it. I haven't even turned my computer off since I did this. I know it's ultimately my fault and I should have known better, but I don't understand why it can't bring up the Save As menu when you click Save, just as it would if it was a brand new document.
The document was a contract to buy a house, so I think I made all of the changes again (I fortunately printed a copy yesterday), but I hope nothing got lost in all that legalese. Technology is frustrating when it can't make up for you being distracted.
The document was a contract to buy a house, so I think I made all of the changes again (I fortunately printed a copy yesterday), but I hope nothing got lost in all that legalese. Technology is frustrating when it can't make up for you being distracted.
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