Marian the Librarian (#18)
Do you have a question for Marian? Send it to the editor, Deanna Briggs, at deanna@ll.mit.edu to forward to Marian.

 
Dear Marian,

I could have written Relieved, But Cautious’ letter in the last issue of the Bulletin a few years ago. Marian, I think you needed to be more aggressive in your response. Sometimes, you’re too wishy-washy.

I worked for one of those legendary start-up companies that received some great venture capitalist money, then gradually lost a lot of it. At first, there were a few of us devoted to the library, corporate archives, intranet, and website. Then the layoffs began. The two of us who were left had to take on more duties. It wasn’t too much of a stretch for the librarian to take over the archives, but when they laid off some secretaries and expected the two of us left to manage the library, archives, intranet, and website, and also begin answering phones, taking lunch orders, getting coffee, and since librarians have such great internet searching skills, making travel arrangements, it got to be too much for us.

Like Relieved, But Cautious, we felt lucky to have kept our jobs, wanted to contribute what we could to the company, and thought things would improve when money would begin coming in— and surely that would happen any day now. Eventually money did begin to come in. My colleague and I waited patiently for them to hire people to take over the jobs we thought we were doing temporarily. After a few months of watching them hire people for other positions, my colleague and I confronted our manager. We learned that the company decided we were doing such a good job doing the work of six people, they were not going to hire replacements. She was shocked to learn that we were unable to keep up with all of our duties and often had to give up our main duties to make travel arrangements for the CEO. When she brought this to his attention, he told her there was no more money to hire new people and that we would be stuck with all of these extra duties as well as being responsible for everything else we were doing originally. As you might guess, my colleague and I were quite angry and disappointed. If we had complained to our manager and/or the CEO earlier in the game and fought against taking on some of the duties they wanted us to do, they would have known about our situation and hired someone sooner to help with the coffee, lunch, and travel arrangements.

Relieved, But Cautious, when you look at all of the new duties, you should fight from the start against anything you don’t want to do or think people in the library shouldn’t do. If you must take on new duties you don’t particularly want to do temporarily, get something in writing saying it’s temporary and spelling out what will happen if the task becomes permanent (i.e. you get a pay raise).

Should Have Stood Up for Myself

Dear Should Have Stood Up for Myself,

Thank you so much for adding to my response to Relieved, But Cautious. There is no voice like the voice of experience.

Best wishes,
Marian

Dear Marian,

When I began my job several years ago at this law firm library, it was with the understanding that I would only have to work on the weekends in urgent situations. In the last few years, the frequency with which I am contacted on a Saturday or Sunday has increased to a point of concern. There’s one partner in particular who is a repeat offender. Her requests began as just casual questions, but now it seems that she expects me to always be on e-mail during the weekend and be able to handle in-depth research during those times. I’ve told her many times I cannot help her when I’m not at work, but it just doesn’t sink in. A few times, she’s gone over my head and convinced my manager to call me to tell me to help her, even if it means going into the office. The situation makes me angry. According to some of my colleagues at other law firms, they don’t have this problem. My salary isn’t high enough to make working on the weekends regularly worth it. Otherwise, I really enjoy my job and don’t want to leave just because of this problem with weekend work, especially with the grim job market. What can I do?

Would Rather Be at the Beach

Dear Would Rather Be at the Beach,

You are not alone. Many librarians face issues about working on the weekend, especially those who work in environments where people work more than the typical 40-hour week and working on the weekend is common.

There are several options you can try. Have a very frank talk with your manager about your desire not to work on the weekend. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. If your manager does not realize the extent of the problem, make sure s/he knows how often people are contacting you for assistance outside of your normal work hours.

If many lawyers work on the weekend and need the services of a librarian, perhaps you should suggest that the firm evaluate whether having a weekend librarian would make sense. If weekend work is going to continue to be expected of you, ask for additional benefits to compensate for it, like a salary increase or comp time during the week.

It’s also possible that some of the problem is that the people in need of your services don’t think about your hours when they decide what to work on during the week. Maybe there are things they do during workdays that they know won’t require your assistance, tasks they could work on during the weekend. There could be a polite way for you to suggest to them that they focus on doing things requiring your assistance when you are available. If time management is a huge problem in the firm, maybe arranging a talk by someone about time management could be helpful.

If none of those things eliminate the expectation that you work on the weekends, maybe you should take a stand by not doing any work on the weekend. After all, the choice to work on the weekend is ultimately yours, is it not?

Good luck,
Marian

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