I find it aggravating to receive corrections from my boss addressed to the whole group when one person is obviously and clearly responsible. If several people are making an error, I can see addressing the group to assure that everyone is on the same page, but why waste the time of the seven other people in the department if only one person is guilty of the problem? Moreover, individual correction keeps the group from speculating on the guilty party, stigmatizing said party (if discernible), and tends to guarantee the message is received by the person most in need of it.

Just aggravating.

My boss has the opposite problem. He'll tell everyone but the person responsible. Then when that person screws up again, he yells at them and says he told them not to do that again.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you all that farting while on IMWAN is frowned upon.

Unless you are Ross.

Ooops... I singled him out. My bad.

This is my biggest pet peeve, and both my last boss and my current boss do the same thing. It's always "You guys need to stop doing this." or "We wouldn't have this problem if all of you would just...". Drives me nuts.

if it is a mistake that anyone could make, it might be worth a reminder (or such a crucial mistake that even if people wont likely do it, you want it to be clearly reminded).

JCT and Monk,
That's good to hear. A lot of the small stuff here is handled by Memo-to-Staff pointing the correct action in a situation without suggesting a screw up inspired said memo. But they know better. We thought that was a merciful way to address stuff that only matters to someone who, in reality, doesn't matter. But if it annoys guys like you, who I respect for intellect and reasonability, I am inspired to suggest we re-visit this practice. Thank you for your input.
Now, one of you give me a silver bullet while the other says "Farewell Kemo sabe, our work here is done".

You all raise an issue I've had to deal with quite a bit in my supervisory work. It's hard to know what to do. It depends on the situation.

Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint who is doing things wrong, or whether it's only one person. A few minutes ago I was informed that somebody has a reference book checked out. That's not supposed to happen. Somebody at Circulation obviously hasn't been paying attention. I have no way of knowing which one. So I'm going to have to remind everybody about proper procedure.

Sometimes one person is doing something wrong, but you don't want to make that one person feel singled out, and it's a matter that bears reminding people of anyway. A while back I had one staffer who was chronically late. But I went ahead and reminded everybody at a staff meeting that lateness is not allowed.

And sometimes you've just got to confront somebody. The staff member in question didn't take the strong hint about lateness, so I had to call her in and give her a chewing out. She has gotten better since then.

It makes a difference whether you're dealing with a staff of women or men. From what I've seen, women tend to see one-on-one meetings as a personal attack, no matter how much you try to reassure them that it's simply something you've got to do as part of the job. Men, on the other hand, tend to see public admonitions as a personal humiliation in front of the other guys.

There are times when I wish I had a staff of men to deal with. Then again, maybe I should be glad for what I have.

Hence my problem with telling everyone. The person committing the offense either A) doesn't ever think it's her or B) thinks she's getting away with it. So you end up going one on one anyway, at least here in my world.


I suspect that you're right. The person in question (female) when last corrected individually took it upon herself to document every potential violation of policy being done by the remainder of the staff and kept haranguing HR for action. The person came close to getting us all (including my boss) fired and had some perks we enjoy as a department nullified [temporarily, thank goodness], never mind that she was clearly in the wrong.


While I don't know if guys are right for the kind of job you do, I do know that there is more interpersonal relations interfering with work in this woman-heavy department than I have ever had in balanced sex or male predominant jobs.

This happened all the time at my old day job. IAWTP. It's annoying as all hell.

Ironically, James told all of us about this even though WE don't all do it.

Actually I've known some quite good male librarians. Librarianship is a type of helping profession, and you tend to see more women in those (Partly because the helping professions traditionally pay wages that most men would never accept!) But it seems to me like a leavening of men helps, since libraries are supposed to serve males as well as females. Likewise there are various professions that could use more of a leavening of women to help them out.

If everyone can please refrain from using the word "hell" in the Playroom it would be appreciated. Thanks.

But it was only...

D'oh!

As long as we can still say "fuck" and "wee wee", I'm okay with this rule.

Will do.

(And thanks for not embarrassing me by singling me out. I cunting hate when people do that.)

We let women become lawyers and now they are taking over.

NEVER AGAIN!

The only male librarian I really know (who is also someone JCT is acquainted with) is a school librarian so he really doesn't have a staff.

... the Hell?

A male school media specialist? Now that IS rare! Bet he feels awfully conspicuous in professional conferences!