Incivility in libraries

 I don't know about you but from time to time I am introduced to someone who asks me where I work or what I do for a living.  When I say that I am a librarian or that I work in a library, I am presented with a response something along the lines, "that must be a dream job, no stress at all."  Hmmm...  I wish.  Yet, so many people seem to hold this point of view.  Perhaps the only knowledge they have of libraries and library work is their exposure to libraries as an infrequent user.  In their minds, the library is a quiet and peaceful place full of all sorts of interesting books, movies, and music.  Everyone in the library is happy and there is nothing to fight about or to cause stress.  Oh, if only that were true.  The reality is that there have been days in my working life where I could barely sleep at night, had to force myself to get out of bed in the morning, feared going to work, and walked around all day with a knot in my stomach.  And, why was that?  It was generally because of some sort of workplace incivility if not outright bullying, harassment, or discrimination.  It might have been directed at me, I may have been a witness to it, or both.  Regardless, incivility made for many unpleasant minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of my life working in libraries.   And then, there is the shame of dealing with the fact that some days a person feels like they just can't hack it working in this "ideal" workplace that seems to be everyone's dream job in terms of being easy and stress-free.

The reality is that things are often not as they seem.  I can think of two experiences I've had that reinforce this idea.  The first happened a couple of decades ago when I was working at a public library.  The municipal government that employed me offered a class called "Dealing with difficult people".  The class was open to any municipal employee.  Given that I worked at a public library and my day to day work life was not the stereotypical "dream job", I thought that I should go to this workshop to learn how to rectify this problem I had been having.  In the class, we were divided up into teams of four.  One of my team members was a veteran police officer.  Our first group assignment was to introduce ourselves to the group and explain why we wanted to take the course.  I was surprised to learn that the "difficult people" the police officer needed to deal with were not the "perps".  She said something to the effect of, "we are trained to deal with that.... no, that's not what the problem is.  It's that jerk I have to ride around in the car with for 12 hours a day."  She went on to explain many of the challenges faced by a female police officer and how, to my surprise, her colleagues treated her in highly uncivil ways.  On one hand, I was shocked that police officers would behave in the way that she described.  On the other hand, I was not shocked at all.  From the outside, it appears that police officers are highly professional and respect and support their colleagues but deep down, as a woman, I know that a veteran female police officer likely experienced a lot of sexism and harassment at work.  Then when it was my turn to speak, I explained my reasons with some hesitation because I was speaking to three people who were strangers to me.  I didn't know the extent to which these strangers held the "dream job" view of library work and, as I said before, I carried some shame over not being able to make my working life live up to that ideal.  One person in the group worked on the road crews and expressed incredulity at my description of my working life.  He clearly believed in the "libraries as dream jobs" stereotype.  Another woman was a clerical worker who took tax and fine payments.  She mentioned a few examples of "difficult people" she witnessed as a library patron and also related some of what I said about my workplace to her own workplace experiences.   The police officer said that she was surprised that the library doesn't have more problems than what I described.  She added that she often walked by the library and saw many of her "regulars" in there and also made a comment that went something to the effect of "yeah, and get a bunch of ladies cooped up in a small place and then they getting pecking away at each other..."  Ok, so that last comment came from someone complaining about antifemale sexist comments...  From my point of view, I see the contradiction in her statements about not liking sexist comments and then making negative stereotypical comments about women as an indication of just how complex the issue of incivility in the workplace is and why it can be such a tough nut to crack. If I learned anything from that workshop, it is workplace incivility is very common and is not likely to be resolved by taking a 2-hour professional development class.

So, what about the second example?  When my husband and I first started dating and he learned that I worked at a library, I was disheartened to hear that he believed the "ideal job" stereotype.  Being in a new relationship, I didn't want to say too much about my embarrassing problem in terms of not walking around on clouds and playing a harp in the midst of my saintly colleagues each and every day I was at work.  I did, however, mention in a very brief and lighthearted way, a few of the common workplace challenges.  As did the road crew worker, my then-boyfriend expressed shock about what I said.  What I noted was that he was shocked over some of the milder and less difficult of the on-going challenges I faced.  What would he have thought if I were to tell him about those incidents that kept me up at night and tied my muscles up in knots?   Those discussions would have to wait until we got to know each other better.  However, in the end, I didn't have to tell him much more.  As we continued to date, my husband would come to the library to meet me and take me out for lunch or pick me up after work.  He usually had to wait for me and this allowed him to witness how library patrons and library staff interact and, more importantly, how library staff interact with each other.  Let's just say that he got a quick and rough education about the reality of working in a public library.  He couldn't believe that people behave as they do and wondered how I could "stay cheerful". To this day, my husband still mentions from time to time how shocked he was when took the time to really watch and listen to what was going on in my workplace.  

While the vast majority of my working life has been spent working in a public library,  I worked for about a decade in academic and research libraries.  I've also done some interesting contract work for organizations that had libraries. Except for the latter experiences where I was the only library employee and essentially came into the organization to set up their ILS, catalogue their collection and train someone how to use their circulation module, I've experienced some degree of workplace incivility.  I think that with the contract positions, the organization was so happy to have me come and "take care of the mess in the library" that I was treated very well.  Besides, I tended not to be at these organizations for very long and I was extremely busy when I was there that I didn't get much of an opportunity to witness what sort of incivility might be happening elsewhere in the organization.  So, what is it with libraries?  Are they all toxic?  What is going on?  This is a question that has been in the back of my mind for literally decades.  I've read a lot about the topic of incivility in the workplace in general (I often refer friends and colleagues to a Harvard Business Review article that I bookmarked several years ago  https://hbr.org/2013/01/the-price-of-incivility).  Over the years, I have found that some library workers have actually been brave enough to write on this topic.  I have been grateful for their stoicism in taking a chance and being honest about the topic because it helped me let go of the shame I felt about it for so many years.  But, are all libraries toxic?  Personally, I don't know.  Maybe the answer to that question is very much like my response to the female police officer's description of her own workplace challenges.  On the surface, I think and hope that not all libraries are rife with incivility but I have a gut feeling that likely all libraries suffer from the problem to some degree.  That being said, I suspect that all workplaces struggle with incivility from time to time.  The question in my mind has turned in recent years not so much to whether or not the civility occurs to what we do about it when it does occur.  By reframing my research question, so to speak, have found a lot of useful articles, books and webinars which have helped me to see a path for potential improvements to our working lives in libraries.  Concepts such as being upstanders rather than bystanders is an example of something we can apply in our workplace and, if we have the courage to stick with it and support each other in implementing it, could lead to real changes.  Talking about strategies for addressing workplace incivility likely can and should be an entirely different post - or perhaps a whole book.

At any rate, in my recent email chats with colleagues from the various libraries where I've worked in the past, there is one common theme that arose.  As library workers are working from home during the pandemic, many express that while they miss certain social interactions with colleagues and/or patrons, they are greatly relieved at being away from an environment that is characterized by things such as bullying, backstabbing, gossip and the like.  They feel like a weight is lifted off their back and they can focus on doing the work that they love.  While it is great that they are happy, it is also very sad that social isolation from their colleagues is the source of this happiness.  Once again, I experienced the conflict in my reaction to discovering the theme.  I thought to myself, "What? Don't tell me that all of these people are experiencing these sorts of things, I thought that it was just me...." which was then followed by the "of course, why should their experience be any different than mine?"  The other thing that occurs to me is that perhaps the "working from home" experience offers us an opportunity to view our work lives at a distance.  Over time, we can reflect on the various incivilities that are part of our work-life, admit that they exist and perhaps that we might even be part of the system that creates and reinforces them (either by commission or omission) and develop some strategies for addressing whatever it is that we discover.  What will we do going forward?  Will we strive to resist participating in gossip?  Will we back away from being judgemental and disparaging?  Will we offer support to ostracized people at work and stop treating people as pariahs?  While it might be too much to ask most of us to start calling out our coworkers on their bad behaviour, maybe we can think of small things that we can do which might help to reshape the and detoxify our work environments.

I know that it may seem overwhelming to try to address incivility in our workplaces.  Certainly, I am aware of my own reluctance in this regard.  I have seen people who have tried to stand up for what is right and good at work only to be treated in such negative ways that they eventually have to look for another job.  However, things do not have to be that way.  While COVID has been a terrible disruption to our world, there is the potential for some good to rise out of the ashes but we must have the vision and resolve to make the best of the situation.

I would like to continue to address the issue of incivility in libraries in future posts - along scattered among the other topics I like to write about.  However, I thought that I would write this post as an introduction to this topic and to potentially start a discussion.  As usual, I welcome any comments that readers would like to post below or, as seems to be the preferred approach, readers can also email me directly at d67frederick@gmail.com.