Pros
Some really talented colleagues, health insurance, tuition reimbursement.
Cons
Hope you don’t get sick or have a disability because you will have a very hard time. Branches can be cliquey and you will be bullied out if you’re not in it. In some branches if someone leaves their position won’t be replaced making it short staff. Union meetings are miserable but at least there’s a party once a year. Working with the public like all customer service can be stressful but more so if you’re on the service desk floor by yourself all the time… and then guilt tripped/reprimanded for using your own accumulated sick leave to deal with the burnout from angry patrons, catching their illness, whatever reason you need the day off. Colleagues can also be good at their jobs, or very lazy since they’ve been there for decades and this creates tension. Work life balance doesn’t exist because sometimes your manager won’t give you your schedule for the next two weeks until the Sunday before. You’ll have a Tuesday off one week, then a Friday making it hard to plan. If too many people want to take vacation at the same time, one of you will be expected to cancel because then it will be too short staff… even though everyday it’s short staff. Unless you’re a youth services librarian or branch manager, there is barely any professional development because guess what…. You are needed at the service desk, which has consolidated circulation, IT help and reference all into one. It’s very fun checking out books and then getting yelled at by patrons who need computer help because you’re the only one there on the floor and you can’t help them fast enough. No amount of mental health days will help with the nature of this work until there are changes made- in particular how bad patron behavior is handled by management.
