As you read this I am off to my first In Service Day in five or six years. In past years I have avoided it by fleeing the country for Europe, which seemed like a classy, novelistic approach. The plan this year is that due to the Pandemic our library system gathers for In Service Day in a small assortment of our library locations, to spread out, then we crowd into the main meeting rooms therein, and watch various managerial self promotion presentations on a big screen for hours on end.
But as ever the real challenge for me will be to not become consumed by my hate.
I usually manage this pretty well until we get to the insulting lunch of In Service Day. But I swear I'll do better this year! I just heard one of my colleagues tell a younger colleague about how lunch is the highlight of the day! A thin cheese sandwich made by a Thai restaurant is the highlight of the day!
There are a lot of different people in this world.
Some of them get very strange.
Meanwhile, because it has barely come up here in my daily missives for half a dozen years, some of you (the luckiest of you!) may be wondering what our Library In Service Day actually is.
Here is a helpful primer that will explain it:
In Service Day FAQ
What is In Service Day?
I really have no idea.
I hope you survived your day. I enjoyed my first two library in-service days which were highlighted by songs written for the occasion; at least one of those songs was based on real patrons' comments. At least, that's what we were told. What did I know? At the time of the meeting I'd been with the library for about a week.
ReplyDeleteIf it's any consolation (I know it won't be), similar rituals are found almost everywhere. I can vouch for PLATO Learning, for one, and the Girl Scouts for another. It was at the GS that the Exec Dir told us she was going to bring in a speaker about Credit for Women. I happily told her that I looked forward to this, as I'd just been turned down for a credit on the basis of "not enough income." My happy sharing resulted in a couple of months of probation, as I recall.
Or perhaps the probation was for firing a volunteer.
I soon got a much better job...and a credit card.