Circulating Zen posts about dealing with a staffing issue on a holiday weekend. She is faced with a student worker scheduled to cover several shifts (allowing other students to travel home for the holiday weekend) who has come down with influenza.
Her solution is one that doesn’t fit the guidelines of her workplace. It does, however, fit the guidelines of her work ethic : professionalism.
Read her post, and remember the instances where you, and others, have stepped beyond your working hours, your job classification, or some other guideline to solve a problem. Why is this done? Someone sees a need, determines a solution that fulfills the need in a way that best serves the principles of libraries and their own work ethic, and follows through.
Simple? Not really. It is easy to say “not my job” or “I’m simply following the rules”. Far more challenging is determining when and how to step beyond what you are supposed to do, and do what is truly called for in the situation. Especially since the person potentially exposes themself to criticism by doing so.
Circulating Zen sums it up well: “I shouldn’t pawn it off on anyone else. It’s not professional.”
