Friday, October 12, 2007

Sometimes, work just sucks

I found out this week that I have worked at the Lexington Public Library for 5 years and 8 months. During this time I have worked on, I would say, 7 Staff Development Days, 4 of which I have been planned, organized and basically worked my ass off in the hopes that roughly 200 staff members will be "developed".

Today was the culmination of about 10 months of hard work from a diverse, opinionated, and wonderful committee of which I was chair. Also this week was the monthly board meeting of the Library Trustees, which is a huge part of my job. I worked past 7pm, 3 out of the last 5 days and am eternally grateful to my amazing husband for picking up and dropping of Sophie at daycare, feeding her her many meals, and putting her to bed on those nights that I couldn't see straight.

One of the hardest things about Staff Day is knowing that the vocal minority who HATE staff day will really ruin it for me. I try not to let it get to me, but when you put that much time and effort in to planning something and someone looks at you (knowing you're chair of the Committee) and says, "This was the worst Staff Day ever!", it's tough not to let it get to you.

But as I was detoxing at Atomic Cafe with co-workers, Committee members, and a nice frosty Anchor Steam, I was proud of the day my hard-working committee members put together - negativity be dammed! The day was beautiful, the planned walks around town exceeded our expectations, and the Organic Peruvian Coffee catered by 3rd Street Stuff was more delicious than I could even imagine.

Today, over the afore mentioned Anchor Steam, I looked at my boss and asked if I could go off the committee. She gave me a very sympathetic look, smiled, and said yes.

This was a very, very happy day.

4 comments:

kristin said...

i can tell that i would fully appreciate your staff development days...kudos to you for giving your all and then getting out.

kclblogs said...

if i worked with a staff, i'd want you to come do our staff development.

AnnaMarie said...

I would do it, Katie! And after some perspective (and sleep!) I realize that the day was a great success! Thanks for the positivity!

The Pinwheel Princess said...

Hoooooray for you!
If you were heading up staff day at my company - well - we'd all be drunk and happy!