Cafe Hitch-hike

2004-03-08

The Librarian's Manifesto

I was given the lovely task of starting my undergraduate assistants on a new project. Ah, fun. The thing about it is, they'd rather:

It is a challenge getting them to do much of anything, especially the simple things like getting a number out of the security gate (one of those gray or metal things you see at store or library entrances... Yeah, it also keeps track of how many people pass through it). Doing this takes less than one minute: they have to walk over to gate, look for a minute until the number blinks on, and then write it down on a paper. Walk back to desk, and voila! It's as simple as that!

For some reason, when I ask them to do something, they moan, roll their eyes, or sigh. It isn't only me, they give that to the graduate assistants who give them things to do. Gosh, I'm SO sorry I'm taking them away from viewing their precious Incubus or anime websites, so sorry that I'm asking them to do something that has to do with the job they were hired to do!

I don't get alot of support from Lady Jane, who is the hire-er and fire-er. She's so busy with her other things that supervising the undergrads is low on her priority. She steps in only when something like the cartoon incident occurs.

So, to build my sense of supervisor-self, I thought of writing out my own manifesto. In teacher's college (aka the Left Bank of Hell), we had to write value statements of our teaching. We had to summarize our guiding principles and philosophies in various area of teaching, such as our approach to our content area, discipline, relating with kids, etc...

I was thinking, maybe I should do the same thing for my librarian stuff. Yeah, create my own manifesto (SNORRRRE, say my readers).

I do not have to say I'm sorry for telling these students to do anything. I don't have the authority to hire or fire, but it's clear I have the authority to assign things. I'd like to think I'm fair. I don't make the undergrads do more than what they were hired to do. God knows they are not working some dangerous job where they can lose limbs and life, like at Rouge Steel, or some dirty job in a restaurant. The work isn't fast-paced, it's in a clean environment, and Lady Jane bends over backwards to accomodate their schedule. The job is an assistantship, they are hired to assist!

I don't bark orders because I don't like it when people approach me that way. I tell them what they need to do. I don't try to make it funny because I don't want to minimize the task at hand. I don't apologize for them having to do something because it needs to be done and I need them to do it! I know the tasks aren't the most fun thing, but I don't pay attention to that. They just need to be done, they need to be done for this reason, here's how to do it, any questions? Thank you very much!

Yeah, one thing I've learned is to show my better behavior around people I supervise. When I was a grad. assistant, I'd spend my nights chatting online and talking to Singh because we were terribly slow. One of the undergrads wasn't able to see the difference between finishing stuff that needed to be done, and then talking when I was finished and when time was slow. She thought what I did meant that was what she could do whenever she wanted to on the job. Ugh, it was bad of me and I now know to not do it again...

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