As I stood on a creaky antique chair hanging an old picture frame that I'd had to glue together the night before, I realized for the first time in years that I was happy.
Last fall I began a job search for a new position as an academic librarian, and by December I had landed a fantastic job with better benefits, a higher salary, and nicer perks in a great new city. I had been looking for a stable work environment and a place where I could grow both professionally and personally. I believe I have found that place.
The offer came right before the Christmas holidays. I didn't resign right away though. I wanted some time to let it sink in: I had landed a position I really wanted, but it meant that I would be leaving my home state and a job that I'd put my heart and soul into for more than four years.
Mine would be the seventh resignation in four months. As I've mentioned in my previous columns, my old library at a medium-sized public university in the South is an emotionally unhealthy place. I was vocal about its problems, which earned me a reputation as a troublemaker. Administrators there called me a liar, hostile, aggressive, intimidating, and negative. My favorite of all time: My supervisor was told I was "infecting new employees with my terrible attitude" because I sent an e-mail message complaining that the only door accessible to the disabled was broken again.
I decided I was unwilling to spend any more time fighting issues and problems that were usually allowed to continue until the emotions reached such a fevered pitch that they resulted in a battle of epic proportions. I was tired.
I know it sounds like I am exaggerating, but the issues are incredibly emotional and personal, and people get really invested in them, myself included. Issues like the role of the librarians in the university, the research and service expectations of librarians, the redistribution of jobs and people.
No matter how hard you try to remain unbiased and objective, you can't. And since I was so outspoken in the past, it was clear that people expected me to take up that mantle again.
Once I had a job offer in hand, however, I began to feel less and less invested. The library was still in turmoil, but I was working toward a nice warm feeling of peace. I gave notice and began to clear out my office. All the memoranda and documentation that I'd been encouraged to keep for "legal reasons" went into the shredder. I refused to take any of that negative energy with me. I literally felt lighter once I pitched the bag of shredded paper into the waste bin.
A few months ago, I started work at my new library, still in the South but at a major public research university. I have been adjusting to my new library and locale since then, but I am sure I did the right thing.
For the first time in a long time I look forward to going to work. My new library isn't perfect, but the folks here tackle issues openly and honestly, and things get resolved. I've asked difficult questions since I got here and gotten sincere answers. People seem to really get along, and if there is a squabble, it is short-lived.
Getting used to a new place is never easy, though, and coming from such a toxic workplace, I was anxious and nervous. What if it was me? What had I done to get myself in the center of the storm? I sure didn't want to end up there again.
After accepting the new job, I talked to friends, co-workers, and former co-workers who understood the situation, who knew me, and who knew my emotional attachment to the state, the university, and the library. Not all of their comments were easy to hear, but they essentially told me the same thing: that I am a good person and a good librarian, and that my university had just brought out the worst and, ironically, the best in me. Things would balance out, they said, once I got to a place where there weren't such extreme highs and lows on a daily basis.
It was especially helpful to talk to former colleagues who had moved on to bigger and better things and were all doing well. One in particular, who had been labeled a troublemaker too, was really supportive. "Prepare to be amazed," he said, at how much better things would be "on the outside."
Today I feel like a different person, and friends tell me I act like one too. I am learning how to react more appropriately and how to not react at all. I sleep better at night, I feel better when I wake up, I don't take long naps anymore, I have more energy. Even my skin looks better. The recurring headaches and stomachaches that I used to get on Sunday evenings are gone.
I really had no idea the effect I had let my work environment take on my health. I've promised myself to never let that happen again, either.
So things are falling into place. I'm learning the layout and culture of my new campus and spending less time asking for directions. I'm learning how to fill out forms properly and whom to ask for what. I'm also making friends. The best part of all is that I actually feel like a real librarian again.
At some point I may pursue a career in library management, and I know exactly what kind of leader I don't want to be. If you ignore the people who report to you, if you interrupt them, contradict them at every turn, repeatedly get their names wrong, criticize them without ever offering praise, you will not be a successful library director.
I was once told by a library director that it wasn't her job to make employees happy, that they needed to make their own happiness. I would argue that it is the job of library directors to make their library the best place to work that they can. And that is the kind of director I hope to be.
