Director’s Thoughts #2

Meetings

As I’m getting more comfortable with my new position, I have come to learn one very important thing – meetings.  I have literally never been in so many meetings in my life.  If my day doesn’t consist of at least three meetings, I don’t know what to do with myself!  Most of these meetings have been very important and have been valuable to me as someone in a new position. But I rarely have time to sit at my desk and actually get any work done!

But, as I learned (in a meeting on Friday) different generations behave differently at work. Typically, Baby Boomers enjoy collaborative decision-making and meetings, which could attribute to the number of meetings I’m in. Whereas I would simply shoot someone an email, we all sit down to meet.  It makes me laugh to myself and I’ve decided to embrace it. As long as I’m getting to all the meetings that are on my schedule, I’m doing a good job.

Emails

The other thing that has taken over my workday is responding to emails – I used to think I had a ton of emails, now I’m constantly checking email and responding to emails (usually about meetings) and generally making sure I’m dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s.

The most exciting thing that’s been happening is that we did some very late spring cleaning of our storage room/copier room – craft supplies, items to use on display, and a general host of “I don’t know where to put this, so I’ll put it in here” was cleaned out and organized.

My mad rush of cleaning also inspired some additional areas of the library to be spruced up a bit and I’m so excited to see the staff take ownership of the library. I think it often becomes a case of one of two things – one, the idea that “It’s not mine, I don’t want to throw anything way that someone might need” or two, it’s so overwhelming no one knows how to get started. Well, we definitely got started and I’m hoping that we can keep up the momentum and continue to recycle, toss, reuse and organize all the stuff we have!