New Floor Assignments

Colleagues,

Let’s be frank with one another: The economy does not show any signs of getting better or allowing us to receive any new personnel at any point in the immediate future. At the moment, our department is being pulled for other locations which have worse issues than ours, meaning not only our supplies/trucks are being taken, but our fellow staff members as well.

That being said, we have no choice but learn to adapt to new environments and face staffing challenges head on so we can continue to learn and grow. I know we’ve heard the word “adapt” a lot over the past few years and this time is no different; in order for our department to consistently run, we must all understand the ins and outs of each floor and take on the responsibility of becoming a “Jesse H Jones Expert”.

As a whole, we must learn how to work with the staff we have, which is the main reason we are going to continue with floor reassignment. We understand changing floor arrangements can be a stressful ordeal; however we believe it will be an event that will help strengthen the ties in the department and ultimately make us into a better team than before.

The new CLST assignments will run similarly to the way it has in recent past; each person will be assigned to a floor and will carry out the required duties of the floor. To ensure fairness, the staff will take part in drawing numbers of floors and then having the option to switch no more than once. The catch: the staff member drawing cannot draw their previous floor or switch to their previous floor as it would prevent them from growing on another floor. This drawing will take place on Monday; there will be separate drawings for senior LAs and LAs. As we’ve said, we understand moving to another floor is difficult, however if we want to make sure of a fair and even workload for all, we will set up a 2 week crossover training with one of the seniors before you are fully reassigned to your new floor.

Another change that will go into effect upon the drawing: We will no longer assign 5th floor to individual staff members. What we mean by this: Each floor will be responsible for a section of 5th floor, meaning if you shelve fiction, 1st floor is responsible for Stacks Fiction. Kids/YA will work with Kids/YA Stacks and so on, meaning 5th floor will still be shelved and maintained, but will be maintained by more people, thus giving it the care and attention it truly deserves.

As we turn to face the future, we must all say with certainty that we did our very best and that’s all anyone can ask of us.

Mike Van Campen
Darcy Casavant
Sylvia Espinosa
Daniel Pillow
Jose Orozco