Checked Out: A Librarian’s Reflections on Toxicity, Mismanagement, and Burnout in the Library Field
My final months at Gatherden passed in a blur, as all the wonderful things I’d come to associate with my time at the branch were now fully and thoroughly tainted.
The community and the volunteers, particularly Olivia, plus Peg, were all bright spots. But my interaction with Susie followed me around like a billowing thundercloud, raining on everything I did.
I felt like I didn’t have much in my personal life to balance things out. Chester quit his job at the library and disappeared from my life before the holidays. I met a man at a dog park and hung out with him a little bit, but that ultimately went no where.
So most of my personal time was dedicated to finding a new job. Around Christmas, I applied for a job in the Leagos library system, all the while continuing to tiptoe around at the library and doing my best to avoid my manager.
Two more months passed in a haze of stress and unhappiness until I was contacted in February for an interview. Two weeks after that, I was offered the job. I had my way out. And the last six months had made it perfectly clear that there was no way I would be able to reclaim the bliss I had originally found at Gatherden. That, combined with the significant pay increase for the position, clinched it. I was leaving.
Breaking the news at work was not as painful as I thought it would be, especially given the recent months. Everyone knew to expect that I wasn’t going to stick around forever.
Not long after that, HR sent me an exit survey. For anyone who has never quit a job, exit surveys are a popular way for organizations to understand why a person is leaving. Most people don’t have to put up with lying and manipulative bosses who say one thing and then do another, so their responses on these questionnaires are short and simple.
“I got a new job, it pays better, I really liked it here but I can’t afford to stay.”
My exit survey was not so simple.
In my mind, there were some severe deficiencies within management and I was certain these deficiencies had been hidden from administration for too long. I was as frank as I could be in my survey, which concluded with an open-ended question asking a generic “Is there anything else we should know about the work environment you are leaving?”
I wrote a page and a half.
After writing it, I shared my responses with Peg.
Peg was always a level head and I think she somewhat disapproved of my responses while also admiring my attempt at bringing to light everything we’d put up with. On some level I think she foresaw negative payback down the road and thought maybe I should be more cautious and diplomatic in my answers.
Susie’s supervisor, Kay, insisted on a farewell lunch. We met at a local Mexican restaurant and conversed amicably for most of the meal, but toward the end, Kay pushed aside her plate and brought up my exit survey.
“I try to do this with every librarian who leaves, because this is the best time to get a true picture of the system as they’re leaving. They tend to be more honest about their experiences here. Fred shared your survey with me, and I have to ask… what exactly has been going on at your branch?”
I sighed deeply and told her every single one of my experiences with Susie, from her false promises to share our request for more staff, to her lies to manipulate Peg and I, all the way to Susie’s unjust treatment of me in the fall. With each new tale, Kay’s concern grew.
At the end of the whole story, Kay could barely form the words.
“We… we had no idea it was this bad at your branch.”
“Of course you don’t,” I said, agreeing, “Susie has spent years training everyone there to come to her with problems instead of going above her head to you or Fred directly. So she’s able to control what information flows out of the branch. People think they’re following procedure when it comes to complaints when really they’re telling her, and she’s acting as gatekeeper and not passing the information along.”
“Well,” Kay said, retrieving her cloth napkin and dabbing at the corners of her mouth, “You can rest assured that I know all about it now. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
I stopped her before she could stand.
“I’m worried how Susie will react when she finds out about my responses. I won’t be here anymore, so I’m not worried for me. But I am worried for everyone staying here. What if Susie takes it out on them?”
“You let me take care of that.”
Fred also wanted to talk to me personally about my exit survey responses. He tried to convince me that he met with everyone individually when they left, but I wasn’t so sure, because when we got to the end of the survey, he paused.
“You know, normally on a survey like this, most people leave the last question blank or maybe write a sentence or two. You have written,” he broke off, laughing, “A page and a half.”
He continued to chuckle, the large championship rings on his knuckles glittering in the fluorescent light. I offered a forced smile while waiting for him to pause.
“Yeah, I know it was a lot to write. But there are issues at the branch that I don’t think anyone is aware of. I wanted to share those.”
He nodded. But I noticed an expression on his face that convinced me he was doubtful of what I said.
I shrugged it off. I was leaving, so it didn’t matter so much for me.
At the beginning of April in 2015, I loaded up my car with the essentials, sublet my old apartment, loaned my dog Tallulah to my parents for them to watch while I found a new home, and headed out of town.
I didn’t regret leaving the Gatherden library system. What I regretted was losing a great set of coworkers, especially Peg. And I definitely regretted losing some stellar volunteers, especially Olivia. But I had to move on for my finances’ sake, as well as for my own happiness. And Leagos was calling my name.
After leaving, Susie finally took the feedback she’d had about her lack of communication to heart, at least for a little bit. She started hosting five minute meetings with staff before opening to share brief snippets of information. I do not know how long that lasted.
Kay also started meeting individually with different staff members to get their take on the whole Susie situation. She met repeatedly with Peg and possibly a few others. But only two months after I left there was some restructuring in administration and Kay was transitioned into another role. In one fell swoop, progress addressing Susie’s manipulations ground to a halt while any supervision also disappeared. When I found out, my feedback suddenly felt futile.
Peg felt my departure and the effects of this change the worst (though I think Olivia might disagree with that if you asked her).
Further complicating her situation was the fact that details of my exit survey got back to Susie, despite Kay’s promises. Susie likely felt all sorts of emotions, chief among them being betrayal. With her manipulative tendencies, she was also vindictive and needed someone to blame for this blemish on her character. The most convenient target for this blame happened to be Peg.
During Peg’s annual review that year, which Susie always held over our heads as a way for us to leverage raises (though raises never worked this way in that system, nor any public library system in which I worked, for that matter), Susie gave her the worst review of her career. She gave her terrible scores in communication and teamwork and actually cited my exit survey, writing at length about how Peg collaborated with another employee on her exit interview to disparage the name of the branch manager.
Peg spent the next five months alone in her department. It took the branch all that time to find a replacement for me. The following few years were spent in a perpetual state of short-staffed-ness. Peg became pregnant about a year after I left, and by then they still had not hired the Youth Services Clerk we had begged and begged for.
Peg spent time applying for various promotions to assistant manager and branch manager positions. She was more than qualified for each of these promotions. Unfortunately, she never obtained a promotion, likely due to Susie still being a vindictive little cuss.
Eventually almost everyone I used to work with at that branch left. Ultimately a day came when Peg could take it no longer. She had two children by that point and her schedule was almost the opposite of theirs. It’s difficult to be a young mom and work a librarian’s schedule. Your kids are free at night and on the weekends, and when do you think librarians are expected to work? Furthermore, the one time of year children are free all the time is summer. This just happens to be the busiest season for public libraries and most staff work under the unspoken understanding that you just do not go on any extended vacations during the summer months.
Peg had hopes to start work as a school librarian in order to have a schedule that matched her children’s schedule. This never happened. No local schools would give her a chance. In the spring of 2017 Peg was offered a job at the local college in their development office. She accepted and left the library world behind. She had no regrets.
Tune in next time for the first installment of the Leagos library system.
Until then, I remain -
C. Quill
