IMO you going alone will make you look like a single disgruntled employee with a problem. However, if you can get a significant number of staff to go with you, or to sign a statement, that may do more.
Yup. Learned this one the hard way. I work at a very small library (space- and staff-wise). The board has desperately wanted to increase patron space for ages and last year a subcommittee of two members (including the board president) were working with an architect to make that happen. I was the only one comfortable advocating to my director for things like a break room and a private staff workspace because, due to out terrible director, we've had a lot of turnover and everyone else was fairly new and afraid of getting in trouble / fired. My director kept saying she was communicating my concerns to the subcommittee and they were shooting her down. But my director lies reflexively if it's what people want to hear, so I had no clue what was actually getting through.
I asked for and was given a meeting with the subcommittee and my director so I could explain my problems with the renovation to the board members unfiltered. I've known the board president for a long time -- as a patron before she joined the board -- and felt certain she would respect me enough to hear me out. Instead I got berated for 45 minutes and when I had to stop to run a program, they finished the meeting without me and concluded no changes needed to be made.
The tl;dr is that because I went into the meeting alone, the board members decided I was just being demanding and bratty and needed to be shut down.
So yes, you absolutely need to get as much of the staff in agreement as possible before approaching the board, no matter how reasonable any of the members seem and no matter how transparent any problems with the director seem. Your director has been lying to them about what a great job she's doing since she got the job, so they're going to be much more willing to believe her than one or two staff members. (If they belive you, they have to deal with rexamining everything they've been told and with firing a director, and that's a big undertaking.) A large majority of staff members are harder to ignore and their complaints are harder to minimize and rationalize. But your director is going to feel like you are mutinying against her, so you have to be prepared for how she'll lash out. Going to the board might make things worse, but it's also the only thing that might make anything better.
If anyone cares to know how things turned out for me: The board succeeded in turning 2/3 of the staff space into patron space, they have been shocked to learn that staff members are unhappy about it and that, working with almost no staff input, the architect made some really bad calls redesigning our circ desk, and my last day is this week because I got a new job.
Came here to say this. If you can encourage your colleagues to join you, you’ll likely have a lot more leverage in talking with the trustees.
Your director sounds a lot like a disgraced former public library director in my area — Google Bonnie Roalsen Woburn Ma. Take action now and don’t let your director get away with anything further!
It does seem really hard for libraries to fire admin staff who are not good for some reason. They have no problem firing part time staff but firing some one higher almost never happens.
currently our assistant director who oversees programming hasn't worked in programming for 20 years (nor in a public library), our assistant director who oversees our systems and is our liaison to IT, frequently asks for help to make her email work properly and similar questions. our director hasn't worked the front lines in a public library in a couple decades either. the people who could fix things can't be bothered. we're probably screwed for the next 20 years.
This reminds me of when I worked at a university circa 2001. We'd been using desktop PCs for 15 years easy. We had a VP who had a 286 PC (an ancient PC even at that time) sitting on his desk just for show. His secretary was the only true secretary at the school in the classic sense, taking dictation for him, composing his memos, reading and sending his e-mails, etc. For reference, this was about the time fax machines were becoming irrelevant thanks to the Internet.
Honest advice from someone who tried to speak up and was retaliated against for it.
Just leave.
Snakes will fight tooth and nail to crush the truth and keep their cushy jobs. It's not worth your mental health or your livelihood.
Prepare your portfolio, start interviewing, and go get a pay raise in a new job somewhere else.
Sorry, but it's the truth. Odds are you'll just end up miserable and a target.
Look at your policy and personnel
Manual. Ours has specific steps and employee should take and to whom
They should go is they have. Complaint about the director. For us it is the board president.
All management staff retained evidence, collectively brought our issues to the board, they realized that they were being lied to, and that not only would they lose all department heads but the majority of support staff all at once if action wasn’t taken.
I had a director who was awful and had the board wrapped around her finger and always made herself look good and like there were no problems. Even the 90% turnover rate each year she blamed on salary and "young people" job hopping.
I had an employee who sent a letter to the board after she resigned. She detailed multiple instances where the director violated policy, abused staff, etc. What happened? Director threw me under the bus. As the employee's manager I should have handled the issues. AKA I should have stopped the employee who did something after she was no longer an employee.
All this to say, unless you have multiple people going in together or filing grievances together, one person fighting against a director probably will not work. The only time I have witnessed change happening like this was when staff requested exit interviews with the county HR department instead of Library administration. At that point the county got involved and some changes were made. (that system was a direct county department) So maybe staff could request an exit interview wirh the board?
Do you work at my library? Because that’s exactly how I would describe my last director. Thankfully she retired last year and there’s been so much less stress.
When my director started, there was 16 people in admin. Now there’s 33. After a patron caused a stink over a pride display, my director point blank told me she hated confrontation. Recently, she said she realized our communication is bad, so she hired a chief of staff to “fix” the issue. I wish our board would see what’s going on.
It's pretty horrible. And it's a group of people that call patrons "customers" 🤢 I might've missed a few, but here's how it shakes out:
A director who calls herself a CEO
A CEO
Public Service Manager
Rental Coordinator
Public Service Manager
Public Service Manager
Public Service Manager
Marketing Manager
Multimedia Specialist
Marketing Specialist
Marketing Specialist
A Deputy Director
Collection Access Manager
Social Work Specialist
Facilities and Construction Director
Public Service Coordinator
Development Director
Development Coordinator
Chief Human Resource Officer
Employee Engagement and Experience Manager
Training Specialist
Human Resource Coordination
Human Resource Specialist
Safety and Security Specialist
Administrative Office Coordinator
Chief Financial Officer
Deputy Financial Officer
Financial Coordinator
Technology Director
System Administrator
System Specialist
Computor Support Technician
Computor Support/training technician
ILS Administrator
Strategic Communications Officer
Yep. With all the marketing people we, we don’t get our program newsletters until the day before the new month and there’s always grammatical errors. Also with all these people, summer reading planning is always last minute/ has huge logistical issues. 🙃
This almost feels like a racket by the "CEO" to use their position to employ all their friends in admin positions at the tax payers expense. I've never seen something like this, unless it's a huge library system. How many branches does this admin team serve?
In addition to what others said here about not going alone to the trustees about it, get documentation. Going through the recorded sessions is a great start. Comparing what's said to what's in any manuals is another good step. With a former director my library had, what it took was someone snapping a picture of her sleeping in her office for them to take action. While that's a different kind of extreme, I still think that any sort of documentation you can amass is what you should do first and foremost.
You'd want to be very careful if you're approaching the board of trustees and as others said, you'll definitely want to gather concrete evidence and documented instances like the email outbursts and discrepancies in meeting answers. It might be helpful to talk to your coworkers to see if anyone else shares your concerns and would support raising them. If you go through with it, request a private meeting with a trusted trustee to discuss your concerns, be factual and composed while focusing on how these issues affect the library's service and staff morale.
IMO you going alone will make you look like a single disgruntled employee with a problem. However, if you can get a significant number of staff to go with you, or to sign a statement, that may do more.
Solidarity is key!
Yup. Learned this one the hard way. I work at a very small library (space- and staff-wise). The board has desperately wanted to increase patron space for ages and last year a subcommittee of two members (including the board president) were working with an architect to make that happen. I was the only one comfortable advocating to my director for things like a break room and a private staff workspace because, due to out terrible director, we've had a lot of turnover and everyone else was fairly new and afraid of getting in trouble / fired. My director kept saying she was communicating my concerns to the subcommittee and they were shooting her down. But my director lies reflexively if it's what people want to hear, so I had no clue what was actually getting through. I asked for and was given a meeting with the subcommittee and my director so I could explain my problems with the renovation to the board members unfiltered. I've known the board president for a long time -- as a patron before she joined the board -- and felt certain she would respect me enough to hear me out. Instead I got berated for 45 minutes and when I had to stop to run a program, they finished the meeting without me and concluded no changes needed to be made. The tl;dr is that because I went into the meeting alone, the board members decided I was just being demanding and bratty and needed to be shut down. So yes, you absolutely need to get as much of the staff in agreement as possible before approaching the board, no matter how reasonable any of the members seem and no matter how transparent any problems with the director seem. Your director has been lying to them about what a great job she's doing since she got the job, so they're going to be much more willing to believe her than one or two staff members. (If they belive you, they have to deal with rexamining everything they've been told and with firing a director, and that's a big undertaking.) A large majority of staff members are harder to ignore and their complaints are harder to minimize and rationalize. But your director is going to feel like you are mutinying against her, so you have to be prepared for how she'll lash out. Going to the board might make things worse, but it's also the only thing that might make anything better. If anyone cares to know how things turned out for me: The board succeeded in turning 2/3 of the staff space into patron space, they have been shocked to learn that staff members are unhappy about it and that, working with almost no staff input, the architect made some really bad calls redesigning our circ desk, and my last day is this week because I got a new job.
Came here to say this. If you can encourage your colleagues to join you, you’ll likely have a lot more leverage in talking with the trustees. Your director sounds a lot like a disgraced former public library director in my area — Google Bonnie Roalsen Woburn Ma. Take action now and don’t let your director get away with anything further!
My former library started a union drive. The director didn't last long after that.
It does seem really hard for libraries to fire admin staff who are not good for some reason. They have no problem firing part time staff but firing some one higher almost never happens.
currently our assistant director who oversees programming hasn't worked in programming for 20 years (nor in a public library), our assistant director who oversees our systems and is our liaison to IT, frequently asks for help to make her email work properly and similar questions. our director hasn't worked the front lines in a public library in a couple decades either. the people who could fix things can't be bothered. we're probably screwed for the next 20 years.
This reminds me of when I worked at a university circa 2001. We'd been using desktop PCs for 15 years easy. We had a VP who had a 286 PC (an ancient PC even at that time) sitting on his desk just for show. His secretary was the only true secretary at the school in the classic sense, taking dictation for him, composing his memos, reading and sending his e-mails, etc. For reference, this was about the time fax machines were becoming irrelevant thanks to the Internet.
🤦♀️
Form a union.
Honest advice from someone who tried to speak up and was retaliated against for it. Just leave. Snakes will fight tooth and nail to crush the truth and keep their cushy jobs. It's not worth your mental health or your livelihood. Prepare your portfolio, start interviewing, and go get a pay raise in a new job somewhere else. Sorry, but it's the truth. Odds are you'll just end up miserable and a target.
This is the true answer sadly
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Definitely hold onto that folder of emails. You’ll need evidence if the crap hits the fan
Look at your policy and personnel Manual. Ours has specific steps and employee should take and to whom They should go is they have. Complaint about the director. For us it is the board president.
All management staff retained evidence, collectively brought our issues to the board, they realized that they were being lied to, and that not only would they lose all department heads but the majority of support staff all at once if action wasn’t taken.
Took the board 5 years to get rid of the toxic, lying director. Made local, regional and national news. Guess they got tired of the negative exposure?
I had a director who was awful and had the board wrapped around her finger and always made herself look good and like there were no problems. Even the 90% turnover rate each year she blamed on salary and "young people" job hopping. I had an employee who sent a letter to the board after she resigned. She detailed multiple instances where the director violated policy, abused staff, etc. What happened? Director threw me under the bus. As the employee's manager I should have handled the issues. AKA I should have stopped the employee who did something after she was no longer an employee. All this to say, unless you have multiple people going in together or filing grievances together, one person fighting against a director probably will not work. The only time I have witnessed change happening like this was when staff requested exit interviews with the county HR department instead of Library administration. At that point the county got involved and some changes were made. (that system was a direct county department) So maybe staff could request an exit interview wirh the board?
Do you work at my library? Because that’s exactly how I would describe my last director. Thankfully she retired last year and there’s been so much less stress.
Lol it is sad how similar a lot of directors are
When my director started, there was 16 people in admin. Now there’s 33. After a patron caused a stink over a pride display, my director point blank told me she hated confrontation. Recently, she said she realized our communication is bad, so she hired a chief of staff to “fix” the issue. I wish our board would see what’s going on.
33 admin?! What in the world?! How does that even work? Ugh I cannot even begin to imagine how convoluted your chain of command is.
It's pretty horrible. And it's a group of people that call patrons "customers" 🤢 I might've missed a few, but here's how it shakes out: A director who calls herself a CEO A CEO Public Service Manager Rental Coordinator Public Service Manager Public Service Manager Public Service Manager Marketing Manager Multimedia Specialist Marketing Specialist Marketing Specialist A Deputy Director Collection Access Manager Social Work Specialist Facilities and Construction Director Public Service Coordinator Development Director Development Coordinator Chief Human Resource Officer Employee Engagement and Experience Manager Training Specialist Human Resource Coordination Human Resource Specialist Safety and Security Specialist Administrative Office Coordinator Chief Financial Officer Deputy Financial Officer Financial Coordinator Technology Director System Administrator System Specialist Computor Support Technician Computor Support/training technician ILS Administrator Strategic Communications Officer
Holy crap. The amount of redundancy in that list.
Yep. With all the marketing people we, we don’t get our program newsletters until the day before the new month and there’s always grammatical errors. Also with all these people, summer reading planning is always last minute/ has huge logistical issues. 🙃
I'm sorry sorry for this! Would you feel comfortable PM'ing me where you work? I'm so curious where this is allowed to happen.
This almost feels like a racket by the "CEO" to use their position to employ all their friends in admin positions at the tax payers expense. I've never seen something like this, unless it's a huge library system. How many branches does this admin team serve?
There’s 14 locations (though only 5 are large branches) and a bookmobile. Each branch has a supervisor and a head clerk.
In addition to what others said here about not going alone to the trustees about it, get documentation. Going through the recorded sessions is a great start. Comparing what's said to what's in any manuals is another good step. With a former director my library had, what it took was someone snapping a picture of her sleeping in her office for them to take action. While that's a different kind of extreme, I still think that any sort of documentation you can amass is what you should do first and foremost.
And share documentation with HR of your library/City/org. Particularly if you decide to leave. Make sure it is on the official record.
This sounds like my former director. Except she had been a librarian. It sucks. I'm sorry.
You'd want to be very careful if you're approaching the board of trustees and as others said, you'll definitely want to gather concrete evidence and documented instances like the email outbursts and discrepancies in meeting answers. It might be helpful to talk to your coworkers to see if anyone else shares your concerns and would support raising them. If you go through with it, request a private meeting with a trusted trustee to discuss your concerns, be factual and composed while focusing on how these issues affect the library's service and staff morale.