But they don’t understand…

I’m a pretty calm and rational person (with the exception of deciding to have a child at this point in my career, but that is another story on its own!) However, since my little one is almost two years old it seems more and more people in my life (in-laws, family, friends and even daycare workers) are urging me to have another baby. Their reasoning:

The little one will be spoiled by being an only child…
The poor little one will not have anyone to play with… (hello! it is called daycare and play dates!!)
Two is easier to handle than one because they will keep each other company (hello??! twice as many chances to get sick!)

I’ve tried explaining that I need to achieve tenure before I would even consider the idea, but to no avail. What is wrong with that? I can certainly understand why female academic librarians as well as female faculty members decide to wait until achieving tenure before having children. It is extremely difficult! Case in point: I’ve decided that I would like to be more involved in my local library association, but I have to coordinate the timing with daycare and my husband’s schedule. I’ve decided to revisit this idea next year. It is just too complicated. I just don’t have the time freedom, which is vital to pursue scholarly activities and professional development, outside of the 9-5 pm realm. I hesitate to make such a commitment if there is a chance that I can not deliver. Will this affect my bid for tenure? Most likely, but I will have to adjust and find other ways to contribute to the profession….

The end, but also the beginning!

Finally the end is here. That is, the end of negotiations! I was negotiating for a couple of weeks and for what? To get a nice “no”.  At least I tried. Anyhow one day before the deadline I met with Mr. Chief Librarian who told me that he conferred with his people and they said no way. He could not deviate from the template letter of offer that they provided. By this time I wanted to sign the letter anyhow so I nodded my head and signed away! Am I glad that was over!!! Now I can worry my head off about achieving tenure while still being a good mother. While excited about being offered this continuing appointment I’m still weary about working with my colleagues. Why do you think that is? Well I’m not the best at math, but here it is:

3 contract librarians + 1 continuing appointment positon=?

You fill in the blank! Out of the 3 of us I was the lucky one! I feel like I’ll be swimming with the sharks when the announcement is made about the filled position. The department and even the whole library is divided with each candidate having their own corner cheering them on. Well what happens when your corner doesn’t win? No one wants to lose, but we all need to lose gracefully. Let’s see what happens. I hate politics in the workplace, but it looks like I’ll have to tread lightly and be extra sensitive… at least while I’m working with the other contract librarians.

Negotiations and the Librarian

Okay, so I’m not currently on the tenure-track. Yet! I’ve been offered the position and I’m currently in negotiations! Yikes! That word “negotiation” can strike terror and fear in the heart of any librarian. Maybe it is stereotypical, but I don’t believe that a lot of librarians feel confident negotiating. I know that I didn’t. The union representative I spoke with believes that the librarians are too timid and need to be more active in this area. But it is scary looking across the table at your boss, the Chief Librarian. I scanned briefly this article about negotiations on LIScareer.com.

At the institution that I work at, librarians are part of the faculty union. I was encouraged to seek help from the union regarding our collective agreement and what I could/should negotiate for. First of all the salary was pretty much non-negotiable, but the union did say it was pretty fair. The one item I wanted to negotiated was a bit trickier. What was it? Recognition of my previous 2 yrs as a contract librarian at the same institution. I wanted to jump to year 2 on the tenure track (instead of year 1) and fast-track the process. And why not? While on contract I performed the same professional duties as the tenure track/tenured librarians. This included teaching information literacy (IL), serving on committees, collection work, faculty liaison and research consultations. The Chief Librarian assured me that I could do this, but I wanted this option explicited stated in the letter of offer. Sound simple, right? So I thought. But, alas, I am waiting for a positive response. In the meanwhile the clock is ticking away!