Now let's work!

So here we stand. I've made it through the fog of the union nominations. I was voted in as a steward to represent my Manager and Coordinator peeps and I am thrilled. No position that I have held within the UAW gave me as much pleasure is the time in which I served as the steward previously for the Librarian I-IIIs.

I have missed the grievances and the negotiation process. So now I will be back in the fray. There is no time like the present because the library is in a state of peril.

Peril? Did someone say peril?

Otherwise, my life seems to be righting itself. The drama seems to be slowing and my tolerance for it is building back up I suppose. I feel like I have something that looks like a plan in place after my mom's passing and the pillaging of my home space.

I feel like I am done. I have stuck it out in this place through the good, the bad, and the ugly. I don't owe anyone else anything else. I gave it the college try. I can no longer afford to suffer and make my daughter suffer as I see the community crumbling around me.

The schools here suck to say the least. I cannot even tell you what I pay for my daughter's tuition. They want to pare down library services to the bone. Not to mention that there aren't even adequate street lights on my block. So I have some decisions ahead of me.

In the words of Diddy... Now let's work.

the fall of the public library

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

if we listen closely, we can hear the sound of yet another public institution crumbling. sadly, i work at a place that i have pretty accurately nicknamed The Titanic. i love working here. i love my customers. i love the library.

i've been in love with the library for a lifetime. i was a little girl checking out books with my mother in the 80s. we went to every program that the branch by our modest two-family flat offered. i celebrated halloween there making paiper-mache pumpkins and seeing the headless horseman for myself. the library was a wondrous place.

that wondrous place hired me to shelve the books. those books that i shelved led me to find buddhism, which offers me a place of solace. those same shelves called out to me one fall afternoon to try my hand at a Master's in librarianship. so i listened.

i found that librarianship merged my need for community service with my desire for a regular paycheck. nothing lavish, but a paycheck nonetheless. years have passed since that time. i've moved up the food chain to manage my own little corner of the library world and now the ass has fallen out of even that.

allegations of administrative corruption and misspent funding abound and staff members are faced with layoffs. what happened to that community hub that was so beloved to me? i feel like i am on the outside looking in as i see newspaper articles surface about my employer by the day. all i can do is wait and hope that enough people create enough fuss to say that we refuse to be asleep at the wheel when the library comes to a grinding halt.