Sunday
reflections – Ch ch ch changes…
I have had
a huge year and not much blogging as have from last June/July, completed a big
year (for me) which included an overseas trip – Paris, London, Scarborough,
Bath and stops between and as much change on the work front as is possible in
the same position.
Though the
trip overseas is now a pleasant memory, it is one I will have forever of a
summer in Europe that was hot and full of wonderful things. Many small and
interesting and other big ticket, ‘must sees’; The Musee’ d’Orsay, lunch at the
Eiffel Tower, the Eurostar, the quiet lap of the waves on a still day in
Scarborough, the quite hysterically lame ‘Dracula Experience’ in Whitby. The
smell and feel of the life in London, the way the rubbish is stowed and
collected with a strange lack of bins. Rounding a corner and entering the
fabulous Green Park with Londoners cooking in the midday sun. Many great
memories of the Underground, Baker Street, Big Ben, the Tower and Shakespeare
at the Globe, a musical play in the west end “Matilda”. The ‘NORTH’, and the
many, many roundabouts on the journey to get there and driving through the
English countryside ‘b’ roads in summer. The road signs of the many places we
recognized from reading and images and deliberately not visiting ‘Midsommer’ as
everyone dies there, especially visitors. :-)
The lack of air conditioning/ventilation or the ability to open windows
in various hotels, but happily never a bad bed. The food good and hysterically
bad (don’t get me started on the ‘Famous fish and chips’ in The NORTH). I think
it rained once and there was ‘a fly’, at least I think it was a fly.
What did I
learn from this, I learnt people are the same everywhere, individual in their
approach to tasks and most quite helpful and respectful to stupid tourist
questions’. I tip my hat to the disdainful waiter in France, I loved him, and
his service was impeccable. I love that the tour guides were multilingual and
wish we were more so here. (The guide on the ‘Bato Bus’ ferry on the Seine had
four languages.) I love ‘skip the line’ tours, we learnt about this in
Singapore in 2010 and it saved amazing time, when you only have a short time to
spend.
Came back
to complete semester two with a relatively new (from the start of 2013),
inclusive and evenhanded manager who ‘consistently’ considered us part of the
team, even from a distance. I learnt so much about various things the main one
being how to let the bad shrug off and move on with the job, great skill and
hard to learn. I also survived “change management”
and was not made redundant. (Clear communication is the key.)
By far the
largest change for me was, during the first 5 months of 2014, we had the
Library moved into storage, while a “new home” has been constructed in a
heritage Building constructed in the early 1900’s. I will not go into the reasons
for the move as that is not my area, suffice it to say, we waved goodbye to our
High School and TAFE clients for whom we will no longer deliver services.
We also
waved good bye to our staff member who was made redundant because of these
reduced services and the change management process. She was a good, consistent
worker who turned up with a bright smile and sank her teeth 100% into any task
she was given. I wish her well.
With the decision
to move we delivered services, as best we could, (Using phones, courtesy phones
and email from a Reference point of view and unpacked various collection boxes
- if urgent) from an office in the middle of the “Academics office building”. I
learnt so much from this about our clients and it deserves a whole post on its
own.
When the
building was nearly complete, we oversaw the move of the library stock and our
office in to the new space, with all the inherent problems of non- library
staff completing the move. We are now working out how best to put to practical
use the space planners and architects vision, dodging builders for two weeks
and then some more… We have also survived tourists, the official opening, more
builders, security establishment issues and just basically how to score a cup
of tea/coffee on the run. (Yay! to the admin staff from Mining, who are
wonderful.)
We have now
opened in the new space. It is very nice, bright, colourful a good mix of the
old and the new and seems to contain all a small library needs. With longer
hours, at client request and a resounding “if you build it where they need it,
they will come”, the attendances are good so far…Yay!
Professional
positions in the country of Western Australia for Librarians are few and hard
to get, without moving hearth and home often. I have to share that it is not
often you can get a new job, by just changing the crap out of the old one, but
this is my story. Change managed. *waves wand*
@kalgrl
And now a
small musical interlude…
This month
is #blogjune – Join us.
@flexnib for an explanation of Blog June.
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