emotional labor – Rebecca Tolley

how do caring organizations feel to library workers?

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Answering this question will be different for everyone. No two libraries are alike. No two or three libraries employ the same demographics or experience the same organizational behaviors, and so while we can say that “Caring organizations feel safe to library workers,” or “Caring organizations feel welcoming and supportive to library workers,” what that looks like or how it manifests within the organizational dynamic differs greatly.

Given that, what actions can library administration and library leaders take in their creation of a caring organization? Obviously, my first answer is “look to the six principles of trauma informed care.” And yes, those principles guide the majority of my responses.

Safety is critical. I’ve worked with people who shirk in meetings because they expect personal attacks from more senior individuals. When leadership allows bullying, blame shifting, and other negative elements to take root within libraries, library workers don’t feel safe, they experience very limited trust, if any, and they realize that their voices are unimportant. That’s how a culture of silence and complicity permeates some workplaces. And how an organization feels uncaring to its workers.

Feeling cared for is relative. We all respond to different means. Having an extra day off is nice. Since COVID my university has granted us one or two paid days leave in addition to the time we accrue and paid holidays. Those were appreciated, but not every library or its parent organization can extend that kind of largesse to workers.

Isabel Espinal suggestions that microaffections and microaffirmations can go a long was in reducing the chilly work environments that POC experiences. Libraries maybe too sterile, too brisk, too “professional.” And as a Latinx person the lack of personal warmth in libraries affects how she feels at work. She recommends that we warm up the library for POC with pleasantries. Pleasantries create connection and caring.

Showing appreciation equitably is another means of spreading care around to everyone working in libraries. It seems as though one of two of the superstars or favorites receive all the accolades from leadership. Library leaderships shouldn’t let opportunities for everyone’s strengths to be acknowledged publicly pass them by.

My library has always been broke, so while there was never an abundance of swag or catered events celebrating library workers, there were times when we felt appreciated. When we were celebrated for no special reason by the dean treating us with a catered sundae bar. Food in workplaces can be tricky (as I wrote a few weeks ago), but, for me, it comes down to intent: Was leadership intentional about demonstrating their care and thoughtfulness for workers? Does leadership care about the impact of their actions? Are library workers invited to the table for the main event, or are they emailed when leftovers are available?

you earned it, take your leave time

Weekends and evenings and paid time off brought to us by generations of successful workers rallying for basic human rights in the workplace should be enjoyed, fully.

What kind of culture of self-care exists in your library? How encouraged are you by the higher ups to take annual leave, sick leave, if those are available to you? The tone library leaders set around taking leave time that you earned is a crucial element of modeling self-care and creating a culture embodying those principles.

I’ve know library workers whose supervisors questioned every hour of sick leave they took, ultimately remarking that they were using too much sick leave each month. Perhaps it’s a difference between managing, ahem micromanaging people, and leading them. Frankly, managers making statements along this vein seems illegal to me, but I’m not a lawyer. Similarly, supervisors telling their workers they need to be more “present,” is just as troubling, especially after commenting on how they tend to use their leave time rather than accrue hundreds and hundreds of hours, never calling in sick, never taking a break from the workplace.

What is presence in the workplace, anyway? And, is it achievable? My body may be physically present, but where is my mind? And I may be “always there” ready to jump in and help out, or ready with a quip or retort, but how authentic am I? I digress.

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Granted, many libraries are short-staffed and library workers wear dozens of hats, thus feeling guilty about taking your earned time off may be valid for anyone. However, for library workers to be their best at work and perform the emotional labor expected, they must have time away from work to restore equilibrium, find joy, and break from the minutiae of demands on their brains.

Balance may be difficult to attain, but it is essential for our self-care and wellness.

creating a culture of wellness in libraries around food & eating

Who hasn’t struggled with disordered eating? American culture foments it with our advertisements about food and sex and food and fitness and food and thinness/obesity.

How does disordered eating feed into wellness this month? And how do our library workplaces create cultures of wellness for those with food trauma?

Food trauma occurs with specific types of food and usually stem from an event someone experienced that causes them to feel anxious, insecure, and possibly surveilled when eating.

Someone with a high ACEs score may be more likely to experience anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, to being eating disorder. Caitlin Beale describes several types of food trauma:

restriction or deprivation
food insecurity
forced eating
sensory trauma
misunderstanding of neurodivergent behavior

It’s very easy for those with disordered eating to be misunderstood. When we avoid parties, potlucks, or receptions, or situations wherein food is present, our absence may be noted. Absences around team eating and socialization can be perceived poorly by supervisors. They may request that you be more “present” and appear at team-building events. And unless we disclose about our disordered eating and why workplace events with food may unsettle us, our absences could be counted against us or viewed as our not participating in team events. Or that “so and so” is a curmudgeon and doesn’t like to socialize with everyone else. When, in fact, the food may be the issue, not the emotional labor socialization entails.

Certainly many people are aware of how loaded that baked potato may be. Our greater awareness about dietary differences and how we accommodate gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, etc. preferences is essential in promoting inclusion and belonging in our library workspaces.

Creating an affinity group in which library workers with disordered eating can support one another, and share and crowdsource strategies and tactics for dealing with this issue in the workplace is one idea. Convening a monthly trauma-informed/responsive book/information group with library workers may be another idea for stimulating conversations about food-related experiences.

This is one area in which trauma informed/responsive leadership can raise awareness of food trauma in the workplace, discuss this sensitive issue, take an environmental scan of food issues affecting their specific demographics, and model thoughtfulness in this domain.

Somewhat unrelated food for thought: public library workers are involved with summer feeding programs in their communities, which seems like another example of job creep, of library workers being all things to all members of their communities. More and more, library workers are expected to fill all the gaps that our social infrastructure is failing.

48 hours of interview anxiety

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Who hasn’t experienced a train wreck of an employment interview? Fleeting memories of past interviews cycle through my head, and I don’t want to re-visit them. Am glad they’re in the past.

Ian Ross Hughes covers that in his chapter “Mental illness and the in-person interview” within LIS Interrupted. Disclosure: I know Ian professionally. We were matched as part of an ALA mentoring program between new librarians and established librarians years ago and we follow each other on social media.

Almost immediately I was shocked that someone at the interviewing library remarked on his trench coat and made awful insinuations about him coming in to shoot up the place. That’s a terrible way to begin a day. Ian describes the day, or days, as “meeting the library family,” at which I cringed (another post, another time).

There are always problems when creating an agenda for a person’s interview. As a search committee chair and search committee member, I’ve advocated on the candidates’ behalf for more time to rest. And believe it or not, I’ve experienced lively debates on whether to end the interview with a dinner, even though we began with a dinner the previous day. In retrospect, asking the candidate about their preferences seems the best course of action. Ian writes “If the day is not well planned, or clear objectives are not set, the day can be further complicated.” He also reminded me about eating and meals and how this activity can be a point of stress for people with disordered eating or whose dietary restrictions may be challenging for libraries with very little experience handling that type of diversity.

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The public speaking aspect of library interviews gets to us all. Most entry-level positions in academic libraries require a presentation to those working in the library, and sometimes others from campus are invited to attend as well. Ian reminds us that body language and speech patterns we exhibit while speaking may not be due to nervousness, but manifest as part of a person’s mental illness and people should not be judged a poor fit for the job or organization based on those visible things.

In closing, he makes a case for “eliminating superficial barriers and hiring the best candidate” as the goal.

leading with vulnerability

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After nearly every talk/workshop/presentation I give I’m thanked by the organizer/facilitator for my vulnerability. Sometimes I feel as though I’m oversharing. But mostly, I’m just honest about the everyday mental health struggles I experience in my library workplace and how I establish boundaries with others to protect myself and my energy. Last blog, I shared about my library-induced panic attacks.

Here, a back channel exists in which check in with each other to learn about the “mood of the day.” Sharing this information with each other helps us pre-game meetings by taking anti-anxiety meds. Incidentally, centrally organized library back channels exist for BIPOC who want information about safe places where one can thrive: Greenbook for libraries.

Today I read Karina Hagelin’s “Surviving to thrive: creating a culture of radical vulnerability in libraries” which exists within LIS Interrupted. I’ve co-presented with them and admired their work a great deal and was pleasantly surprised when I saw their essay in the collection. Karina inspires my professional vulnerability.

Yet, I’m also exhausted by remaining silent, pretending, and performing collegiality in the workplace. Those actions, or lack of actions, daily impinge upon my sense of integrity. Martha Beck and Gabor Mate both write about how both our integrity is tied to our mental/physiological health. They’re negatively affected when we revert to our socially constructed “good girl” “good boy” “good child” personas instead of speaking the truth.

Karina defines radical vulnerability as “a praxis and a strategy of sharing openly about experienced, identities, and satires that have been stigmatized and weaponized against us, in order to keep us quiet, small, and powerless.”

How often do you surface act? It’s part of the emotional labor that many of us are expected to perform daily in our workplaces, both with the people we help as well as our colleagues and administrators. Karina describes this as “forcing a smile during a challenging experience” when actually you don’t want to smile. You want to scream or cry or leave the space immediately. They also write that answering something as simple as “How are you?” is stressful.

We follow social scripts in our lives. We’re programmed to ask others “How are you?” and the expected response is “Fine, how are you?” Admittedly, it’s a struggle for me to answer this honestly. I’m usually not fine at all. Yet I don’t want to share how I’m really feeling for a variety of reasons. First, it’s a matter of privacy; it’s not everyone’s business. Second, I don’t feel safe sharing how I truly feel, especially with an abuser. Keeping my boundaries engaged takes so much energy and forethought. I spend some time fabricating a benign yet truthful answer when an abuser asks “How is your Monday?” My answer: “Well… it’s a Monday…” which answers vaguely, and truthfully, so I’m not lying or pretending, or performing collegiality.

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Karina recommends we act in a manner that contributes to a culture of empathy and vulnerability. This includes showing up for others, holding space for others, and letting co-workers know they’re not alone, that we are someone whom they can trust.

library workers on May Day 2023

Last month we celebrated National Library Workers Day on April 25. My mom sent me a card. My library didn’t mention it.

Today is International Worker’s Day.

Some facts from the DPE:

Librarianship is overwhelmingly white (82%).

And old (31% over 55).

And underpaid for work in which undergraduate and graduate degrees are often required for entry-level positions.

Average and median salaries are listed as: $69,070 and $64,180. There’s regional and institutional variance.

As a feminized profession (82% women), pay and benefits may lag behind other industries since some library systems don’t offer health insurance, retirement plans, or paid leave. People working in libraries experience the glass ceiling and the glass escalator. They’re expected to perform emotional labor. Some aspects of their work are invisible labor (thanks, feminists, for offering this dynamic to the workplace).

According to Anne Helen Peterson and Joshua Dolezal and Xochitl Gonzalez Library workers are not okay. Peterson’s pronouncement came after keynoting the CALM conference in 2022. She cites burnout and demoralization. This year, Dolezal writes about the attack on tenure status of academic librarians being stripped away. And also in 2023, Gonzalez cataloged hate emails and threats that librarians get nowadays with rampant book banning and challenges.

Let us celebrate reform–the kind that is pro-worker, not pro-business– and revolution by dipping into a bit of Marx. Let us take our two 15-minute mandated breaks, and our one hour for lunch to honor the actions and sacrifices of our foremothers and forefathers who fought for us to have an eight hour day, five day week. And also, because we deserve those breaks. They are necessary for self-care.