[Publib] Public servants, abuse, irony, et.

[Paul Ericsson]

Colleagues --

I agree wholehartedly with all the points as noted by public-servant 
John.  And I agree with Sherri that humor is an essential quality 
needed by administrators, as well as by our dear friends that are on 
the front-line of services to patrons day-in & day-out.

Related to this discussion is what was taught to me as the difference 
between bosses, and leaders.  Ironically this was taught to me while 
I was previously in a job for an organization that was as toxic as 
they come.  My wife's comment to me each day when I went to work was 
"Have a good Dilbert-day Dear."  This was a place that had real-life 
examples of Dilbert comics every day. Measurements for usage of our 
services by the public had been on a downward trend for years. The 
big-cheese boss blamed it on the front-line staff. We all knew this 
to be nothing more than a dodge. Front-line staff were exhausted and 
tired of being a scape-goat for bad administrative decisions. So, to 
make it all better, the empty suit sends us middle managers to a 4 
day supervisors training workshop.

The irony was that it was this workshop facilitator that showed us 
how to raise ourselves up beyond being middle-managers, to become 
leaders.  And how do we do this?  One way is to examine the true 
"leaders" that we've had in our lives, to analyze their qualities, 
and to be intentional in our day-to-day work to demonstrate these 
qualities.  Absolute number one on the list of leadership qualities, 
was a sense of humor.

It is my opinion that this sense of humor we need in the workplace is 
not the shock-jock stuff that is common in today's media  --  the 
stuff that masquerades as humor that is at the expense of other 
people's dignity. I am certain that graciousness and humor can indeed 
go hand-in-hand.  True leaders exhibit this as naturally as 
breathing.  Empty suits (a.k.a. bureaucrats) are Klueless with a 
capital K when it comes to these qualities.

Many thanks for the coffee-break chat.  Time to get back to approving 
bills and invoices for payment, one of those bureaucratic tasks I do 
weekly that does NOT qualify me to be a bureaucrat.

Yours,

Paul

Paul Ericsson
Branch Manager, Bemidji Public Library
"up nort" in Brrrr-midji, MN

ericssonp at krls.org


At 09:48 AM 11/1/2007, Lazenby, Sherri wrote:
>If we as public servants and bureaucrats can't poke fun at 
>ourselves, then we definitely are loosing our sense of humor.
>
>Sherri L. Lazenby
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org 
>[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of John
>Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 9:32 AM
>To: publib at webjunction.org
>Subject: [Publib] Public servants, abuse, irony, et.
>
>O.K., I forget every now and then that there are people who do not 
>know, understand, or care to acknowledge my particular sense of 
>humor...which, by the way, has kept me from going CRAZY for years (I 
>am convinced).  THE DEMONICS OF BUREAUCRACY was published in 1965, 
>per the info I could find, and seems to be of a rather more 
>scholarly nature than your latest right- or left-wing rant.
>
>My father was the State Archivist of Nebraska, Kansas, and Associate 
>Director of the KS State Historical Society for a total of, oh, 38 
>years before he retired.  He was a bureaucrat who had to take orders 
>from bureaucrats.  He know perfectly well what kind of bureaucracy 
>it was that a) paid his salary, and b) required him to do officially 
>weird and seemingly pointless things from time to time.  There have 
>been teachers for 100+ years in my family.  I think--I could be 
>wrong, but maybe my signature line, et al., isn't clear enough--it 
>is obvious that I am not retired, I *am* working in/for a 
>governmental entity, and so I am a public servant, too.  Being in a 
>district library isn't quite as bureaucratic as being in a municipal 
>library--where I have also been--but bureaucracy simply 
>*is*.  Notice that I am not retired, I like my job (most of the 
>time), I have always loved libraries, and there certainly *are* lots 
>of devoted public servants.
>
>And some are not devoted, but rise to the level of their 
>incompetence and stay there.  So it goes, so it probably always will 
>go.  Again--I think I repeat myself--I thought it was IRONIC that 
>THE DEMONICS OF BUREAUCRACY was in the place where it was.  Just the 
>"is-ness" of it all was/is ironic.
>
>O.K., I was going to report on the child dressed as a toilet seat 
>(and very convincingly, too) who came trick-or-treating to our door 
>last night--open the stool lid, drop in the candy--but now I am 
>feeling bureaucratically crabby, and am going to go give some of my 
>staff members a few pointless assignment.
>
>(Er, my tongue was in my cheek just then.)
>
>John D. Richmond, Director
>Alpha Park Public Library District
>3527 So. Airport Road
>Bartonville, IL 61607
>Ph: (309) 697-3822, ext. 12
>Fax: (309) 697-9681
>E-mail: jrichmond at alphapark.org
>_________________________________________________
>"To do two things at once is to do neither." -- Publilius Syrus, 1st 
>century B.C.
>
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