My boss is on vacation and I am taking joy in departing from a few of her policies that I most dislike, #1 being: You can't leave the desk unattended. This means that patrons have to wait for help until your counterpart returns or you can call someone from the back to interrupt whatever they are doing and stand at your computer. In some libraries I think this would be a reasonable rule (we do have the cash drawer here, after all) but in mine, the desk is standing-height and projects out from the staff area, a doorway from which is the only way to enter the behind-the-desk space. The staff area is separated from the public area with a badge-swipe lock. So a patron who wanted to get behind the desk would have to vault over it.
Not that that would never happen, just that it doesn't seem reasonable to base constant policy on a rare event.
What do you revel in doing at your library when your boss/manger/the director is away?
eat at the desk, of course!
ReplyDeleteoh, letting kids use the phone to call their parents, giving patrons minor office supplies (paperclips, a used envelope)
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I hate that your library has rules against those things in the first place!
DeleteWe let people stay on the computers longer if no one is waiting, without making them sign in again, because that is stupid and annoying
ReplyDelete