Bumps

I am in the new job.  I am the Supervisory Librarian at the Womack Army Medical Center.

It is not completely without bumps.  But on the whole it looks to be a good thing.

I’ve been jetting around from office to office filling out and dropping off paperwork in the approved fashion, so that’s good.  It looks like it will be the end of the week before I get computer access, but as that’s pretty darn fast for an activity of this size (over 3000 employees) I’m not too upset.  I’m taking my time and being extra conscientious.

Now for the bumps…in addition to no computer, the guy who is my new boss is out this week on vacation.  Therefore, I’m in kind of a weird limbo which is complicated by the fact that the library is supposed to be moving from his activity to the library’s education department and I can’t talk to the Col. who will be the new boss until this transfer is complete.  

Also, the lady who has been out sick since May (and the absence of whom was the impetus to hire me in such rapid fashion) has returned from sick leave about a week ago and is squatting in the librarian’s office (both physically and figuratively).  This is a difficult situation for me.  I want to get in there and establish myself, but I don’t want to alienate her.  If they cancel the temporary girl who has been holding down the fort, it would just be the two of us, so I definitely can’t afford to have her P.O.’ed at me.  It’s a tricky thing and they DEFINITELY don’t cover this in library school (they should though, “How to deal with paraprofessionals who have more senority than you” would be a very useful class).  It’s not that I’m particularly covetous of the office, but I always feel unsettled in a place until I can set up my “space” and there’s a computer workstation in there that I will need to use for cataloging.  Maybe I’m territorial or something.  What I’d like is for the boss to come along and say “OK, the librarian is here now, so clear out the office and give her the keys.”  That way it’s a directive from above, not me trying to muscle her out.  She’s been doing a lot of little things to deny me access, locking the door when she leaves and “forgetting” all the passwords so she doesn’t have to tell them to me and saying that she has to get everything straightened up before she can pass anything on to me.  I’d like to just let her handle stuff and move on to dealing with the people who have already stopped by to request particular “librarian-y” things like pathfinders and briefings but I need to know what’s already in place before I start making changes and doing new things.  I hope that we’ll be able to meet with the Information Management Director soon and that he’ll be able to straighten everything out.

Ah well, change brings stress.  I’m just going to ride it out.