I'm not kidding about how many times I rewrote that email

[spindizzy]

Okay, I have finally sent my INCREDIBLY long complaint email to work, after rewriting it about eighteen times, so I can come back and complain about work!

WE ARE STILL OPEN AND THERE ARE NO PLANS TO REDUCE OUR LEVEL OF SERVICE.

• The smallest level of mercy we've had is that Management's Management have finally agreed that we're not going to do extended opening hours (so staying open until 2am.)


• At least two of the unions that staff belong to have recommended that libraries close, but highest management have insisted that we have to stay open and it will be fine because the students will make sensible choices. The same students who aren't wearing masks or socially distancing in the library. Those ones.


• Listen, I will fight people for like 97% of the students I've met, but that 3%...


• The café in the library has re-opened for takeaway only, and because no one has taken the chairs away students are using it as a study space where they can work in groups because LECTURERS ARE STILL ASSIGNING GROUP WORK. IN A PANDEMIC.


• The Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university sent this as the close of his "No, you are all essential workers" email:
  
  

  We should all do our best to ensure that we are not coming onto campus if we may have the virus, and adhere to the guidance on social distancing, wearing a face mask and washing our hands regularly. It doesn’t matter how infectious the virus is, if it is not able to reach a susceptible host, it will not be transmitted.

  
  
  IF YOU'RE SO SURE THAT IT'S NOT GOING TO BE TRANSMITTED BECAUSE OF HANDWASHING, WHY ARE YOU WORKING FROM HOME YOU UTTER WEASEL.


• Highest Library Management also wrote a tone-deaf email that included the phrase "we will continue to have to operate with some risk" from someone who's been working from home all this time. Before going on to explain that we HAVE TO continue offering a full library service! It's the only possible option, "if we want to maintain a sustainable future for our service in a difficult financial environment." Library staff tends to run to passive-aggressive white ladies in this area, and apparently THAT'S what it takes to flip them to just straight aggressive.
  Like. Mate. You cannot say that we are a service that's so essential that workers have to keep coming in during a national lockdown, and then tell us that the university is going to cut our funding if we decide to limit staff exposure to a pandemic. You can't have it both ways.


• I understand the inclination! Please don't think I don't! I have worked in public libraries, where everyone is trying to thread the needle of working with the budget you have, without succeeding so well that the government cuts your meagre funding even more. I even understand the bit where we got very hushed warnings from our line managers that if we get furloughed again, there are going to be redundancies! I just don't think that any of that justifies keeping libraries open as a meeting space.


• (If I leave, I almost certainly won't be able to get another library job around because hiring freezes and temporary contracts, so I need to be REALLY sure about leaving. I'm not deliberately ignoring this as an option.)


• I wrote a very long email basically going "Dear regular management, y'all are doing your bests and I respect that. Highest management need to get their shit together and start hearing us instead of telling us they're listening." And it sucked! It was really hard! It involved trying to be fair and also admitting that I wasn't doing great with the anxiety! I try really hard to project "not anxious" and "totes neurotypical" at work, okay, that's why my social media is so full of capslock.


• One of the managers asked if I wanted him to anonymise my email and I'm just there going "... Do we have enough staff who are open about having ADHD and an anxiety disorder that it won't be immediately traced back to me? Because that doesn't sound plausible." ... I also didn't ask him to removed the note to him and the other managers that included the phrase "But I'm getting very tired of emails from people above our level talking about how 'we will have to operate with some risks' or 'it doesn’t matter how infectious the virus is' when they've been working from home for nearly a year" so we'll see how many consequences there are for that.


• OMG I went for a nap and while I was out we got an email from Highest Management that says she'll be visiting all of the libraries, because apparently she picked up that we were judging her but took the message of "I should go into libraries to see what's happening" instead of "I should believe the frontline workers," that's hilarious.

The thing that I'm churning over is what counts as a library service. If you asked me, I'd say that we haven't provided a library service since we reopened – we've been open as a space, but specifically restricted from functioning as a service. Most of our job right now is queue management and asking people to put their masks back on, and we're specifically advised not to answer in-person enquiries. Highest Management wants us to prioritise being a space for the students to study in! Neither of us are particularly wrong in general, but in this apocalypse I think I'm a little more right.

I did bitch to my doctor about this because he is a very kind soul, and he's actually gone "Oh, that all sounds like reasonable things to be anxious about" and I genuinely had a record scratch moment of "Wait, really?!"

So yeah, that's the current situation at work. I am very tired, but I'm coping! Current plan is "See if I can get my writing sorted out" followed by "Maybe reach out to the people who have offered me work before" so that I'm not panicking if this does end in redundancies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯