Thursday, March 31, 2005

Promotion, The Catch 22 of Librarians and

The better you get at being a librarian, the more you get promoted. The more you get promoted, the less real library work you get to do.

Are you good with the public? We'll stick you in an office and let you crunch numbers.

Are you good at cataloging? We'll let you manage people with difficult personalities.

Are you a good researcher? We'll let you draft strategic goals and other management rubbish.

Lesson: don't let anyone know you're good at what you do.

J

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I graduated from Library School, having been a trainee, it seemed that the State Library for which I worked usually invited people to work in the Department for which they were least suited. Perhaps they were smarter than I thought,knew about the Catch 22, and expected people to promote to a level of competancy & joy!!!!!!!!!!!