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I just don’t understand the number of managers who are totally OK with reopening community gathering spaces during a raging pandemic when numbers are NOT trending down. I want to scream from a hilltop. It’s the most frustrating and lonely feeling. #ProtectLibraryWorkers
Sure, go ahead and make your cute “wear a mask” posters and “fun” reopening videos or whatever it is. Fact is, you’re putting your staff AND community at risk of spreading this plague. You are adding to the problem to pat yourself on the back.
When one of your staff members DIES or someone in their family DIES, will it have been worth it? Is it worth giving your staff panic attacks over confronting unsafe patron behavior? Is it worth risking more outbreak?
Anyone who feels that librarians should be putting their lives at risk, providing childcare, enforcing safety at the expense of their own safety should google “vocational awe” and ask some hard questions. We aren’t frontline or healthcare workers.
Add insult to injury, most of the profession is grossly underpaid and grossly exploited, which seems to be the trend for most female dominated professions. If we keep doing more with less, over and over, over and over, we will be made to, over and over.
Am I suggesting we start being shitty at our jobs and not properly serving our increasingly struggling communities? Not at all. I’m merely suggesting we do the above but also demand the resources and respect we deserve. And we don’t deserve to put our lives in danger.
We deserve to be awesome at our jobs, serve our communities to the best of our abilities, and to REMAIN SAFE and PROPERLY FUNDED. Nothing less. Anything less is eating shit. And I won’t do it.
