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I've had this blog for ten years now, and every new year I've written a post reflecting on the past year and setting goals for the year ahead. I was hesitant to do that this year as it's been a very tumultuous, difficult year for me (worse than 2020) that began with an ending and I really wasn't sure I wanted to reflect on it. But, I decided maybe that would be the best way to close that chapter once and for all and move on to better things! Fair warning, this is probably going to be a lot to read, but this past year was definitely A LOT!
Around the middle of 2024 I had begun to realize that no matter what or how much I did my work was never going to be valued or appreciated by management, and nothing I did was ever going to be good enough. I struggled with deciding whether to go or stay, because I was proud of all I had accomplished and had grown attached to all my regular patrons, but what started as a generally dysfunctional environment then became overtly hostile, abusive, and deeply toxic. Over the years many of you have thanked me for my honesty in addressing the many challenges and issues we face on this blog, but unfortunately that honesty came with a price and I faced retaliation because of it. At the end of January 2025, after weeks of workplace bullying and harassment, things came to a head and I finally left what had begun as my dream job but had become a nightmare. It was truly a bizarre, horrible, and demoralizing experience.
I was so burned out and traumatized I didn't even consider looking for another job for a couple of months. I am very fortunate to have a spouse with a significantly higher income so that I could afford to take some badly needed time off to rest, travel, focus on physical and mental health, and figure out what I was going to do next. One great outcome of this was that after three years of always feeling like I couldn't take time off, I finally got to take several trips I'd been dreaming of and visit my kids. During this time I also got back to a healthy lifestyle, got my blood sugar under control (I'm a type 2 diabetic), lost weight, and I'm in better shape now than I've been in years. It's amazing the damage a toxic environment does, and how much your health improves once you get out of it and away from the constant stress, belittling, and gas-lighting.
Now that I've been away from it and regained perspective, I can see just how toxic my previous workplace really was from the beginning, and I now know I should have left long before I did. I had a hard time letting go of what I thought was going to be my dream job; I kept convincing myself I could make it work, that I just had to work a little harder, do a little more. But now I know there is no way to succeed in a toxic environment, no way to make it work, and nothing you do will ever be good enough. There is no pleasing a toxic, insecure manager; in fact, the better you are at your job the more they will resent you. As much as I hated leaving all the kids and families I had built relationships with, I should have done it much earlier. I now recognize the red flags I should have seen early on and regret passing up other opportunities. As another librarian friend tried to tell me, that library had likely been toxic for so long that they didn't know any other way to be. I didn't want to believe it at the time, but they were so right.
During my time off I also re-evaluated my career and considered leaving librarianship. I was burned-out, disillusioned, and very disheartened by the continually growing anti-library and anti-librarian movement and the realization that the great managers I'd had earlier in my career were probably the exception rather than the rule. But after I had time to rest and recover, I realized I wasn't ready to give it up just yet. I still loved being a children's librarian; I just needed to find a workplace where I would be valued and treated with respect, and a position where I had a more manageable workload and could maintain healthier boundaries and work/life balance.
After three months I began job-hunting, focusing on children's librarian positions in branches of larger library systems that would have centralized collection development and centralized summer reading planning and support. While I believe these are both very important and am proud of all the work I did developing a vibrant and diverse collection and a robust, evidence-based summer reading program, I realized that one person can't do it all, and I am content to have others perform those functions. I would prefer to focus on branch programming, day-to-day customer service, outreach, and building relationships with patrons. Also, being in a branch of a system puts some distance between you and upper admin, which I've learned is generally a good thing, making it much easier to keep your head down, focus on your job, maintain a more positive attitude, and ignore the BS.
Luckily, I found a position relatively quickly, and started my new job in early June. I am now the children's librarian at a smaller neighborhood branch in a larger system. I primarily assistant patrons, plan and conduct children's programs, and do outreach. I do some weeding, but I am not responsible for collection development; I do branch programming during the summer, but am not responsible for planning and designing the whole summer reading program. I also do not have any supervisory duties, which is something else I was happy to give up. I did take a small pay cut, but also a significant cut in responsibility and workload. The best part of my new position is that I am part of a great youth services team. My supervisor is a former youth librarian and really understands my job and all that it entails, and is very supportive. The teen librarian started at the same time I did and we have a great working relationship, providing support, advice, assistance, or just a sounding board for each other; there is none of the territorial behavior, competition, undermining, bulldozing, gas-lighting, or duplicity that I experienced at my last job. My stress and anxiety levels are so much less now!
I have found that while I still want to be a children's librarian, I do not quite have the same level of passion for it as I used to, which honestly is probably more healthy. I give it my best for 40 hours a week, but no longer do I give it my all. I have accepted that sometimes "good enough" is good enough. A wise librarian once told me "don't let perfect be the enemy of good", and I now really understand what that means, and how important it is to be able to let go of frustrations and perfectionist ideals. I am going to focus on doing my job, but now I see it more as just that, a job. I have finally shrugged off the sense of vocational awe many of us have, and after five years as a professional librarian I no longer have the naïve idealism of someone new to the profession. I now have a more balanced approach; I am committed to doing a good job without making it my whole identity, re-defining success, and trying to resist the desire for external validation (though that's a tough one for me).
My goals for the upcoming year are pretty basic:
- continue prioritizing my health above everything else
- continue to maintain healthy boundaries and work/life balance
- continue getting to know the community and try to better understand their needs
- develop relationships within the community and the library system
- work on organization and time management
- increase storytime attendance
- increase outreach
- develop two new programs for 5&U
- Imagination Station - themed activities and dramatic play to encourage imagination, exploration, expressive language, and socio-emotional skills
- STEM Storytime- storytime that focuses on developing problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, inspiring wonder and curiosity, and modeling a growth-mindset with pre-math and science activities.
- maintain and possibly expand family & elementary programming
- take vacation time!
- go hiking at least once a month (this is my therapy!)
- read at least 1 book a month
- walk at least 3 days a week
- go to the gym at least once a week
Unfortunately, maintaining healthy boundaries and a healthy work/life balance means I probably won't be blogging that much, but I also don't want to give it up entirely, either.
