An email from a friend reminded me that I’d been Facebook status-ing (we need to come up with a verb for that) about job changes but never quite explained what was up.
So here’s what’s up:
Due to the budget cuts required by the city, the branch library hours changed pretty dramatically. In order to staff the new hours, there was some restructuring, or “management initiated transfers.”
My transfer was not to another neighborhood branch, but to the Central branch downtown. I’m going to be working in General Reference Services, on the 5th floor (the Mixing Chamber). It looks like I’ll spend a lot of my off-desk time online answering questions via QuestionPoint, txt, and chat reference. It’s going to be a big change, switching to 100% reference work.
When I first found out I was pretty upset – I’ve worked with the same coworkers and community of patrons for 3 years, and I’m very attached. In this new position I won’t be doing any outreach, programming, or work with teens and schools. I also won’t get the same interactions with patrons – no more reader’s advisory (unless I’m filling in on the Fiction Desk), no Rules of Conduct violation discussions (oh wait, I won’t miss those).
All in all, it’s been a big upheaval for myself and those I work with, but change isn’t always terrible and I’m staying positive.
2 Comments
that sounds very tough. i hope that the new position brings positive changes that might not be expected.
Thanks for this. I wanted to ask but didn’t want to pry.
Here’s hoping the great things about your big change outweigh the not-so-great!