Just shoot me in the head right now. I’m tired of being bludgeoned to death.

Why, why, why, or more accurately, HOW can someone reach the age of 50-something and posess precisely 0% (that’s zero) people skills?

That’s my new librarian. I suggested that she’s coming across as authoritarian and demanding [telling people what to do instead of asking, offering unsolicited suggestions on how to do things and insisting that things be done her way in despite of instructions to the contrary in the SOP], so now she’s telling the staff that I and our other librarian “want” people to do what she wants them to do (essentially lying). She vacillates bewteen chirpy and weird, hostile, crude and sullen. It’s like an evil personality slot machine.

This woman is old enough to be my mother. She’s been in the Army (WAC) in a leadership position. She went to school and got her Master’s Degree in Library Science (I KNOW they have management courses). How is it that she manages to alienate absolutely EVERYONE on our staff?

Is it me? Am I such a bad manager that I can’t get across to this woman that while she is not in charge of the library and therefore is not authorized to assign people work, she can (using tact and good communication) engage their assistance in the valuable work she is doing if she follows the established proceedures? She says she feels like she gets no respect. This is true. People are pretty much at the “politely ignoring” phase right now. What’s my place in this? Tell them to play nice with her? Tell her to earn their respect? I want the staff to work as a team, to help one another. Most people are doing this. Why is this one person such a problem?

Gah! Makes me wanna holler!