Hold Onto Those Books, And Your Job

I work with a notoriously lazy librarian. He does anything he can to avoid work. Apparently, his mother, a librarian, bullied him into being a librarian, too. He often tries to be there before me on the days I work. I have a habit of organizing the books between ones I know will be transfers and the ones owned by my branch, as I find that it makes check-in quicker. I start to notice on the days he’s here before me that suddenly a LOT of the book drop are items that are not checked out and all of them are holds for other branches.

Me: “Hey, [Librarian], are you pulling holds and putting them in the book drop?”

[Librarian] is suddenly very quiet and guilty-looking.

Me: “Look, I’m happy to process holds for you, if you ask me first. But you know I always organize the check-ins so I get a rhythm going to make it faster. When you mix the holds in with the book drop, you’re messing up my rhythm and making it take longer than it should.”

Librarian: “All right. Next time, I’ll ask.”

In fact, he never asked, but he also didn’t pull that trick ever again with me or any of the other staff. Instead, he started trapping the holds himself. It didn’t stop him from being lazy in other ways, however, such as hiding in the back and watching YouTube videos instead of working. If not for the union and the fact the manager at the time was his BFF, he’d probably be fired. We were all relieved when he was transferred.