Obnoxious Librarian from Hades (8 page)

It is 2 PM in the small public library of Holidayville (name changed to protect the innocent) and I am silently humming Van Halen's "Top of the world" while wearing my "Solo librarians rock!" t-shirt. I never like taking holidays, as I never know what happens in my library when I am not there. Heaven forbid a non-library certified bozo puts a monograph in the serials section or classifies a confidential document with public access. But according to Hades' corporate policy, I have to take my vacation days.

So I have taken my precautions before going on holiday. My passive aggressive assistant Sue guards the physical library. Her favorite word is "no" and she hates lending out things or doing l-users (library users) favors. Last year Sue took a course in customer service from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) University, the same fine university that teaches the security agents on airports how to be customer focused. Sue especially enjoyed the courses "Humor - why it should be avoided at all times", "How to stare down customers" and "Showing your commitment by stamping forms aggressively".

So the physical library should be safe. I have also revoked every one's permissions on both the intranet and the records management system. Sure, things will pile up in my absence, but I am not taking my chances by having stuff submitted or changed unsupervised. We all know these l-users will go completely nuts without proper librarian supervision. My manager asked me: how will we handle problems that arise in your absence? Well, I am of the conviction that most problems will go away when ignored long enough. So during my holiday, I told my boss to either ignore the problem or ask people to submit a complaint form via the intranet (which will go straight to bit-heaven). If problems are still around when I get back, I will take over and ignore them.

As hardcore librarian, I cannot imagine a life without books, information or shushing people. Therefore I have chosen my holiday very carefully. I was lucky to find a very small holiday resort that offers peace, nature and yes, a public library run by a solo librarian. I made a deal with the librarian there that I will fill in while she goes on a "monographs and serials claiming master class" cruise in the Caribbean.

The public library is small, cozy and offers many services for the different groups in Holidayville. On my first day, the library was closed so I had time to review all the collections, services and policy documents. It was clear to me that this library needed to be run more like a bureaucratic, complex and power hungry organization in order to compete in today's economy. Luckily I have experience in that area.

So I started by putting up inspirational posters around the library. Some of my favorites are "Blame - the secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures", "Apathy - if we don't take care of the customer, maybe they will stop bugging us" and "Respect - let's agree to respect each others views, no matter how wrong or stupid yours may be".

I also reviewed the services and cut over half of them that did not score as stars or cash cows on the Boston Consultancy Group Matrix.

Then I started to rewrite the remaining services, starting with the children's story hour, which had potential to be just more than me reading a story to the kids. I clearly believe children are our future, so they should learn at an early age that life is not about fun & playing, it's about targets, skills and using your elbows.

So as of now, the story hour will start by a clear overview of the learning objectives of the story hour that are clearly linked to the mission statement of the library. Every selected story will start with a motivational video about the topic, after which I will go around the group asking everyone to make a pledge to contribute towards the story hour’s objectives. After the story has been told, the group of kids will be split into focus groups, each with clear deliverables to submit after an hour. The deliverables will be linked to the size of ice cream as a bonus.

At the end of the day, the story hour will be evaluated by performing an after action review, which enables me to update the story hour best practice database.

(The story hour improvement ideas was inspired by a story during Dave Snowden's presentation at the SLA 2008 conference)

It is Friday afternoon, 2 PM in the library. The “All Elvis, All the time” Internet radio channel is playing and I am wearing my Elvis ’68 comeback special suit. Yes, I have a different interpretation of the Hades’ casual dress code… but I rock in this outfit!

Earlier this month my boss went on a management retreat with other mid level managers. As usual, every time he goes away to meet with other managers, he comes back all energized and wants to start all kinds of initiatives. I have learned how to deal with them – give my boss what he wants, but with the minimum amount of work involved and get something out of it for the library.

So this week we had the following conversation:

How do we measure customer satisfaction now?

Well, we have the library steering committee. We invite them once a year to the VIP meeting room, offer them the best lunch available, smuggle in some beers, overload them with free candy, and show them the available blackmail information we have on each of them. Then usually they give us very high ratings.

Besides that we have made up raving testimonials from senior managers. We pick random names and titles from exotic locations, and this organization is so large and dynamic that nobody knows these managers don’t exist.

But do we ask our real end users how they value our services?

Of course not. Why would we? In general they are a bunch of whiny, spoiled and pushy bunch. Either they don’t know what they want or they want something they shouldn’t want.

And they wouldn’t recognize a high quality library service if it smacked them on the head, bit in their ears and danced the Macarena on their desks. I have won several awards for my flawless implementation of the ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description) rules in our catalogue – but do you think someone even notices this?

Can you explain to me how we handle complaints?

Well, Sue has been appointed our designated complaint handler. So far she has been able to convince all complaining customers that in the end it was their own problem to begin with. Since she was appointed in this role, we haven’t had a lot of complaints. So we must be doing really well.

When was the last time we did a user satisfaction survey?

That was several years ago as the main feedback was “stop bugging us with your endless surveys, we’re trying to work here!”

But those answers were not enough. A manager isn’t happy until a new system, process or project has been started. So I suggested the following to him:

“We will measure customer satisfaction by the results of customer satisfaction scorecards (CSS, as nothing exists in Hades if it doesn’t have an acronym). After every service provided, the CSS will prompt the requester with a short, web based pop up window asking for feedback on the quality and value of the service. Filling out the form is mandatory. All results will be anonymized, to ensure our customers can be frank about their opinion. We have also convinced other internal services departments to implement this system.

The library staff is so committed to customer satisfaction, that we will link fifty percent of our bonus to the results of the customer satisfaction survey scorecards results.”

My manager was delighted. I gave him a nice PowerPoint about this, so he could show it to his management buddies.

Of course we have tweaked the system to our best interest. Yes, the system triggers a scorecard – but only to internal services staff. So I give high grades to my buddies in catering, the mail room and meeting services and they are equally full of praise for the library.

“I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exception

I planned each charted course

Each careful step along the byway

Oh, and more, much more than this

I did it my way” 
© Paul Anka

It's Tuesday afternoon, slightly after lunch and I am humming along to “Good vibrations”. By looping this song endlessly through the day I not only get into a peaceful trance, I also scare away most of the users. Either they don't like the song or it might be my off key voice.

As you know by now, I don't like users that much. But in a weird way, I do care about them… I even have a pet name for them: l-users (library users). It's like having in-laws: I didn't choose them, they just came with the job and somehow we need to get along. And as long as they don't get in my way and I can tease them once in a while, things are just okay.

But others should not mess with my users. That's my prerogative. So recently I had to stand up for my users…

Several months ago the powers that be decided that our records management system needed an update. As I am the application manager, I was pleased with this and looked forward to getting my hands on the newest release full of eye candy and more features to make the life of end users even more unpleasant. But then… silence… no signs of an update… no meetings… no project plan… I became nervous, so I put out some feelers in my network.

I found out that management had hired an external project manager to lead this project. Not only was it an outsider, he had also persuaded the Hades Corp top managers to label this project top secret. This meant he could run this project as he pleased and in the end hand it over to me, without involving me at all during the planning or implementation (onzichtbare tekst in pagina overgang). Well, that's not how it works around here… I just know that mister hot-shot project manager will run the project very poorly, implement the system backwards, riddled with bugs and then the poor application manager (me!) gets all the problems. And not the huge implementation bonus.

I finally found that a secret meeting about the project was held with all the stakeholders. I persuaded my manager to send me as his delegate to the meeting.

When I entered the meeting room, the project manager immediately came up to me: “Sorry, I don't think you have the right meeting, buddy, this is for the strategic steering board only.” I smirked back at him: “You know very well who I am and I am here to represent the ITMPVVP – the Information Technology Major Project Visionary Vice President.” The project manager flinched just barely and hissed: “Then you may attend the meeting – but you may not speak!”

I sat through the whole meeting watching all the managers around the table being hypnotized by an overload of buzz words, fascinating looking slides filled with flow charts, claims of cost savings, pictures of cheering end users and world peace. Well, maybe the latter wasn't actually mentioned, but it certainly was implied. But it was clear to me this project would lead to a full-fledged disaster. The system would throw us back to the dark ages, and even though I am not that concerned about my users, this was even far beyond what I would do to them.

At the end of the meeting, I was the last to leave the room. The project manager approached me with a sly smile: “So, what do you think? Not that it matters… I will deliver this baby on time, under budget – after that it's yours to take care of while I enjoy my huge bonus.” Was I mistaken, or did I see a small devil's tail poking out of his Armani jacket?

I sent a quick prayer to Saint Lawrence, the saint of librarians and archivists. As always I am inspired by his courage and dignity when he stood up for his users. Poor Saint Lawrence was slowly roasted on a fire, in the hope he would renounce his religion and reveal a list of his users (wealthy Christians). Did he give in? Nope. He grinded his teeth and told his executioners: “Turn me over. I am done on this side.”

And my prayers are heard. Due to a divine miracle, the project manager had a freak accident in his hotel room. Apparently he decided to dry his hair while standing under the shower. This could have resulted in a deathly accident, but luckily a dark figure with a bun and thick glasses quickly shushed him out of the shower. To pay his savior for saving him, the project manager gave up his evil practices and now preaches the gospel of Dewey in far away libraries that have not adapted to the one and only classification system.

And me? I'm just happy that my flock has been saved from the evil that was upon us. Now, back to our regular scheduled plan for world domination and end user harassment.

It is Tuesday afternoon, slightly after 4 PM and I am in the library listening to the fabulous, surround sound version of Jean Michel Jarre's classic "Oxygene" album. This always stimulates the theta waves in my brain and puts me into a special relaxing mood which is needed.

Once again it is time to fill out the yearly self appraisal forms for our dear friends in Human Resources and my direct boss. I've always thought it is not exactly fair that us humble worker bees have to fill out a self-appraisal form and send that to HR and our manager before we have the appraisal, but we never get their remarks up front.

I often have the feeling HR and management don't even do anything with our reviews, they just take our forms, have a good laugh at what we filled out, point out particularly funny answers, snort, go out for a few beers and then randomly throw all application forms in the air. The ones that come face down on the floor get bad reviews, unless your boss likes the way you bring him coffee and laugh at all his jokes.

But that's just me being cynical - the performance review process it surely is based on objective criteria, scientifically relevant methods and intended to bring out the best in us.

But you can't be honest in your self appraisal, you have to sugarcoat it. Like writing a business case, completing the self appraisal form requires a mixture of fantasy, word smithing and buzzwords. Let me show you an example.

"What do you think went well this year?"

(what I wanted to answer:) After a year where every project proposal I wrote was either forgotten, postponed or undermined I think I did very well not punching several managers in the face. Also, I showed clear self control not laughing out loud at all the ridiculous questions from the l-users (library users). I am extremely proud that you guys did not find out I squandered the whole training budget on a week in the Bahama's at a so-called web 2.0 masterclass in a 5 star all-inclusive resort where I learned to water-ski.

(what I did answer:) This year I learned a lot from the active challenging of my cross-business projects, this strengthened my skills in this area. I also challenged users in their information seeking behaviors, stimulating their level of self esteem whilst enhancing their skills in information literacy. Lastly, I have been able to acquire new skills at the web 2.0 masterclass I attended.

"Looking back, what would you have done differently?"

(what I wanted to answer:) Looking back, I should not have bothered asking for any improvement projects, but just do my thing and ignore everyone else. Also, I should have learned to sleep with my eyes open to make the best use of the endless, soul crushing and dreadfully boring departmental meetings.

(what I did answer:) Looking back, I should have asked for management input for new improvement projects, before proposing them to ensure the project ideas were aligned with company priorities and received buy-in. Also, I should have stepped back from several departmental meetings and trusted my peers to make the best decisions, giving them room to grow in their leadership roles.

"What are the most important wins of this year for you?"

(what I wanted to answer:) I finally beat Carl from meeting services in Mario Kart. My manager did not notice that the strategic library vision presentation was basically the same as last year with only the date changed. I won the stare down contest during the monthly "top quality process enhancement" meetings.

(what I did answer:) I was the winner in the company wide safe driving contest. I built the new library vision presentation on best practices. I used body language to stimulate interaction with my colleagues in the "top quality process enhancement" meetings.

If an individual performance bonus would be tied to your review, what should you be awarded?

(what I wanted to answer:) All I want is more money and less sh*t from you people.

(what I did answer:) I am not just motivated by monetary rewards, but also a stimulating work environment where I am constantly being pushed to get the best out of me.