11:42 p.m. - 2003-03-27
Management
C is demanding more and more of my time each day. This week it has been at least two hours per day, over the course of the day. It doesn't bother me because I enjoy passing on what I know, but the difficulty is the constant pressure by T2 to produce more than is physically possible, given all the other tasks I'm asked to take on. The paradox is contained in the initial job description she sent to the data management company at the beginning of this assignment " the candidate must process a high volume of documents per day.....the candidate must be capable of carrying out in-depth research on the records using a variety of software to verify the data". Well, the one "lost" property that I found yesterday has already consumed about 3 hours of research and discussion (e-mail) with other company employees to track down the details and we aren't done yet. Add in the time working with staff coming into the library (yes, the rules have changed again and I can assist, since B and D are too busy with other things). Today, 3 staff took about an hour and a half, plus the two hours helping C.
C's issue today was with a new property I had documented a few weeks ago. She couldn't accept that just because it wasn't in the official database, that it could still exist and be property of the company. It happens all the time in this industry. Trades, acquisitions, mergers, and takeovers - sometimes several happening at once - make it almost a given. Even with the best efforts of outgoing staff, the historical knowledge is lost, sometimes for decades. High staff turnover make detection in the short term difficult too.
C becomes quite frustrated and angry when she doesn't understand or like what I have to tell her. She demanded I prove this one to her. That meant digging out and going over the research I did several weeks ago with her. Fine but time consuming for both of us, again. I have to step back and not take the expression of her anger personally when I deal with her. I think today part of it was because she knews it meant a lot of work had to be done to split up material that has been grouped in a single record to adjust for the fact that there were actually more than one properties. She just wants to keep moving ahead quickly. So do I, but circumstances don't support that. Due diligence demands otherwise. She likes black and white straight forward rules and procedures. They just don't apply in this type of work.
I also have to keep reminding her we don't have the time, resources, or the mandate to go back and "correct" systemic practices that have been used for a long time, even if they are really creating problems for us now. I try to keep reminding her too, that it is a waste of energy to stew over things we can't control - like records going missing overnight. Again it is an industry wide problem. A couple of places I've worked jokes have been made about having rottweilers, security alarms or stun mechanisms at the doors to the room, so that people who don't sign out their choices are encouraged to comply. We are talking about staff with college and university degrees - it isn't as though they don't know how to use a library.
Other challenge right now? Sand is billowing out of the boxes containing the records arriving from overseas. My diskman is choked. Can't work without my music, so I'll have to figure out how to clean it and then protect it from more of the same. Priorities you know.
Anyway, hopefully I will remember all this angst when the Elections Canada event is underway. When there is a lot of pressure, not enough resources or support, with constantly changing rules and deadlines handed down by the government, it is easy to neglect explaining it to the office staff because of time constraints. I've been on their side of the fence in my data management assignments, so I know how important it is to keep them in the loop and to give them as much control over their work conditions as I can.
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