The Story of the End of June

As promised, I am going to tell you about the first part of what was going on with me at the end of June 2022. I promise to try and keep it as short as possible, with as little detail as necessary. Even so, it's likely to be a long post, and not of interest to a lot of people, so feel free to move along, I won't be upset. 😉

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time has heard me talk about the awful situation that was my workplace. Particularly in the past couple of years - and not really related to the pandemic - when the CEO of the place decided that until a "real" director was hired, he should be our supervisor. This was awful for many reasons. But in summary: 1) he knows absolutely nothing about libraries and archives; 2) he doesn't care that he doesn't know; 3) he is to put it mildly, incredibly narcissistic; 4) out of the four of us, he absolutely had one person as his favorite who could do no wrong, somewhat pleasantly tolerated the Reference Librarian, (who was part-time at the moment), didn't like the Archivist, and really and truly hated me. At one point, his favorite was promoted to the title Special Collections Librarian, which was disturbing for several reasons, among them that she does not have a library degree or background, and that in the library profession, Special Collections Librarian is a very rarefied, difficult-to-obtain position. And seldom is/was anyone at the place every promoted anyway.

Various things did or did not happen, and the morale - which didn't really exist in the first place - plummeted even lower. In early November 2021, the Reference Librarian resigned, partly due to child care problems, but also due to the supervisor, the treatment of most of us, and because it was no longer worth her emotional investment. At the end of December 2021, the Archivist resigned, due to the situation in our workplace and due to our supervisor. She was fortunate to find another job that she was more than happy to have.

So, two of us were left. And the supervisor decided to start the search for a director - excuse me, an "Executive Director." The first thing he did that we had all agreed was an important part of the job requirement was to take out the requirement that the person have a master's or doctoral degree in library work - according to him, this would mean we would have the chance to get "a scholar" in the position. So he found someone - a lovely man actually - who had a Ph.D. in the history of science and had come from a position at a planetarium.

The new Executive Director decided to make it a priority to hire a Reference Librarian. But he and the other person left in the department did not want to require a library degree, and the other person - the favorite - pretty much wrote the job description and said she would train the person. Train them to do the stuff she was originally hired to do and to help with, but that she doesn't like doing, so she could focus on the parts of the job she likes.

I was already having serious mental health problems at this point, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Since before last Christmas, I've applied for 80+ part-time and full-time jobs with no response, except for two interviews that went nowhere. But the situation described above made it just impossible for me to stay at my workplace. Without another job lined up, I gave my notice and said my last day would be June 30.  

Prior to that, I had applied for Social Security benefits, and Medicare, so that was something. But the situation would still not be ideal.

I was busy cleaning up projects and creating documents to let my successor (if there would be one) have at least a rough idea of where I left off on things I'd been doing. Even though I was leaving, I had every intention to leave things in a good place.

Then I arrived at work on Thursday, June 23 - one exact week before my last day. There was an e-mail from HR alerting me to an "emergency" meeting at 9 a.m. So I signed on to Zoom, and learned that I was being let go that day. According to the HR person, someone had been "researching" about me online, and came across "a post on my personal blog" that contained this sentence: 

"I ask myself, could these things not have at least been spread out over several weeks, so that my desire to stab someone would not be as strong as it is right now?"

(It was a post about a week when everything annoying seemed to be happening all at once.)

Anyway, I was being sent home that day because that particular sentence was seen as - and I quote - "An implied threat of physical violence to others."

I asked the HR person if a) this didn't sound a bit like stalking, and b) if she really believed I was dangerous, and though she gave vague answers, she said it didn't matter what she thought, it was because if others worried for their safety, I had to be let go. She said that I was not being fired, and would be paid through my original last day, but I had to leave the building as soon as I collected all of my stuff and not come back, or try to come back into the building.

So, I did just that. I wasn't able to finish things I'd begun, or leave instructions, as I had planned, but I had to leave, so I did. I spent the week until my original resignation date lying low and trying to deal with HR about my final paycheck, when benefits would end, etc. - the usual things that I would have worked on even if I'd been at work for that last week.

My very last act was to send an e-mail I had been planning to send anyway to all of my colleagues, and had already pretty much finished. I tweaked it according to the situation, and right before I shut down my work computer for the very last time, I hit SEND. I am proud of myself, because although it was honest, it was not ranty or bitter or accusatory of any particular people.  And I had so many of my former colleagues contact me with their support, that it was a nice feeling.

I feel bad that my 12 1/2 years there ended as they did, but at least I was already planning to leave. In the months between the Archivist leaving and me leaving, many other people at the place had been fired or had left under a cloud since the CEO didn't like them. Sadly, though the place is full of good people trying to do good work, the administration is seemingly doing their best to either get everyone who had been there out of there so they can start over with their own people, or just tank it altogether. 

Now that I've had a month to adjust to things, I have to say I kind of feel like the young girl below as far as how I feel about the place.

Is my mental health improved? You bet, even though we are struggling financially. But we've been poor before, and so we know how to do that and adjust accordingly. 😊

So now you know that part of the story. In a future post, I'll fill you in on life during July - which started out really horribly but has ended on an upswing.