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I've been noodling a bit over this idea, waiting for it to come into enough of a focus that I feel like I can write about it, and I think I've finally found my pathway through, so here is A Thought (in a few different parts).
I was talking with a co-worker a few days ago, and they mentioned that they received care packages on the regular from a parent, which contained things that they would have liked a lot in their late teenage years - things that they still like now, so it's not wasted material, but not necessarily in line with their current strong likes and preferences. They also mentioned that the packages come with various tracts and printouts, some with highlighting, that have a very pointed message about coming back to church and telling them that their choices in orientation are vcoluntary. (Regrettably, no more Chick Tracts, because those are worth their weight in artistic media and/or repurposing.) Mostly, as I listened, I heard a familiar pattern with several of the accounts that I have been privileged to listen to regarding coming out and living authentically, if in contravention to doctrine of a church. The pattern seems to be that the parents get stuck in a particular vision of their child. As I put it then, they cling to the last acceptable version of their child and generally refuse to see what has happened in the meantime. For parents that worry about the eternal state of their child's soul, this seems to be a defense mechanism - if they only remember the child before they went astray, or they manage to convince the child to abandon that process and come back to the church, then everything can be forgiven. There's potentially hope left, and to admit that the child has become who they are may entail giving up that hope and coming to terms with the possibility that either their child is lost and beyond their reach...or that what they've been taught and have lived their lives in is not a complete picture, or worse, might be completely wrong.
Both of those options ask people to change, and that's tough even for people who claim to like and desire a certain amount of change in their lives. There are certain strains of both religious and cultural belief and organization that are wonderful parts of their community, do good things for their chosen spaces, and will tell you the people in their organization are fine upstanding and moral people. One of those things they won't tell you, though, is that they have a probability of being highly resistant to change, because their self-perception is that they are doing good things in their lives and helping others and being good [YOUR NAME HERE]s, so there's no reason for them to need to change to be better. Or to stop the things that they're doing that are actually pretty harmful to people outside of their own group. If a person or group is convinced they are right or on the side of virtue, it gets much harder for them to see the full picture of what they're doing. They're great. Just don't ask them to change.
Sometimes people give you a happy heads-up that they're going to be that kind of person. Or, often, a much less happy heads-up. Had a person come to the desk that lef the interaction with "Your computers are wrong." Now, I freely admit that the computers are generally finicky, can occasionally be unreliable, and sometimes have to be coaxed to give up the information, but they are rarely flat-out wrong, and as it turned out, the thing in question had nothing to do with the computers. "You charged me for damage for a book that I didn't do." was the complaint. Damage charges are all human-interaction things, no computers needed. Additionally, I can go into the back and look at the book itself and bring it out. Which got done, and they were adamant that they did not damage the book in any way, because they didn't take it out in the rain or read in the bathtub or any other such thing. It must have been some other person who did the damage, and it was damaged when they checked it out, so they can't be responsible for damage they didn't do.
At this point, I have well-realized that their version of reality is the only one they will accept, rather than entertaining the idea that there are lots of ways for a book to be water-damaged, most of them innocuous, and I'm waiving the damage charge, nodding along and saying "It's entirely possible that another person damaged it, so I'm taking care of it."
This person, friends, says back to me, "Well, you don't belive me, and that's rude."
I did not bite their head off, though I was sorely tempted to at this point, for spite and malice, even though it would have done nothing. Because this person has now accused my staff people of charging the wrong person for damage we didn't notice (excepting the part where we have a procedure for notating damage in books that we still think can be circulated, which they do not know about), has behaved in an entitled and aggressive manner toward me about getting the matter taken care of, and now has the temerity to call me rude for not instantly believing them and performing the ritual of "the customer is alwayts right" while I am doing them the favor of wiping the fine off their record.
I do not think the word "rude" means the same thing to me as it does to them.
After they left, I notated their record in a manner that did not say "this person is rude, verbally abusive, and entitled", but I think I hinted at it strongly enough that anyone else who might have to deal with them in the future that this person has burned their entire stash of good will for a very long time. They don't see any reason to change, so long as it gets them what they want.
I was much less worried about the parent who came in another day and said that they had been overseas for a long while and their children's cards had accrued significant fines from overdue materials. So I used my magical powers and wiped awy all the overdue fines for the children, because we want them to use the library and their cards, and it was a perfectly understandable situation that they had achieved. In both cases, I was exercising my power, but I was much happier to waive a much bigger amount for someone because they explained what had happened than I was to waive for the person who was combative, confontational, and so utterly convinced of their own rightness they didn't even bother to notice that I was helping them instead of fighting them about it.
I'm also reminded, since school is in session again, that we're probably going to start having the same conversations that we were having last year about the number and volume of teens in the teen area, and how much I wish the organization had decided to spring for real training about cultural competence, implicit biases, microaggressions, and the like. Because we still have people who are leery about teens videotaping them as they go to talk about behaviors and enforce the behavior policy. (We could have gone for the person who I saw today at an optional training, who does this sort of thing for lots of people, and would do a good job with it.) We have people who continue to see the teens as almost solely problems, when part of the issues are that our space is improperly designed for the volume that we get, and that we're choosing to penalize what is normal teen behavior by flitting in from the desk, rather than having someone nearby to get to know them, but also to provie a presence that can help keep everybody regulated. Or to open another space for them to be that will let them be louder than in the rest of the building. I'm still sitting on my hands about moving the discussion forward about getting a screen and game system back in there, because while it was extraordinarily well-used, there were also complaints from other staffers about the noise and behavior that came from it, and tha manager seemed to side with that, at least for the moment. And I'm not there on the days that school gets out early, so I can't volunteer myself for the job of trying to keep things down to a dull roar.
I know that I can't reach in forcibly and change everyone's opinion on the matter - perspectives are valuable, but I don't feel like we're getting it at my branch. And there's no teen librarian at the branch dedicated to this task, and I doubt The Organization will designate that all branches with two librarians will have one of them as the teen librarian for that branch. I wish I had more answers, but the best I can do right now is to keep trying to get people to change, including myself.
I was talking with a co-worker a few days ago, and they mentioned that they received care packages on the regular from a parent, which contained things that they would have liked a lot in their late teenage years - things that they still like now, so it's not wasted material, but not necessarily in line with their current strong likes and preferences. They also mentioned that the packages come with various tracts and printouts, some with highlighting, that have a very pointed message about coming back to church and telling them that their choices in orientation are vcoluntary. (Regrettably, no more Chick Tracts, because those are worth their weight in artistic media and/or repurposing.) Mostly, as I listened, I heard a familiar pattern with several of the accounts that I have been privileged to listen to regarding coming out and living authentically, if in contravention to doctrine of a church. The pattern seems to be that the parents get stuck in a particular vision of their child. As I put it then, they cling to the last acceptable version of their child and generally refuse to see what has happened in the meantime. For parents that worry about the eternal state of their child's soul, this seems to be a defense mechanism - if they only remember the child before they went astray, or they manage to convince the child to abandon that process and come back to the church, then everything can be forgiven. There's potentially hope left, and to admit that the child has become who they are may entail giving up that hope and coming to terms with the possibility that either their child is lost and beyond their reach...or that what they've been taught and have lived their lives in is not a complete picture, or worse, might be completely wrong.
Both of those options ask people to change, and that's tough even for people who claim to like and desire a certain amount of change in their lives. There are certain strains of both religious and cultural belief and organization that are wonderful parts of their community, do good things for their chosen spaces, and will tell you the people in their organization are fine upstanding and moral people. One of those things they won't tell you, though, is that they have a probability of being highly resistant to change, because their self-perception is that they are doing good things in their lives and helping others and being good [YOUR NAME HERE]s, so there's no reason for them to need to change to be better. Or to stop the things that they're doing that are actually pretty harmful to people outside of their own group. If a person or group is convinced they are right or on the side of virtue, it gets much harder for them to see the full picture of what they're doing. They're great. Just don't ask them to change.
Sometimes people give you a happy heads-up that they're going to be that kind of person. Or, often, a much less happy heads-up. Had a person come to the desk that lef the interaction with "Your computers are wrong." Now, I freely admit that the computers are generally finicky, can occasionally be unreliable, and sometimes have to be coaxed to give up the information, but they are rarely flat-out wrong, and as it turned out, the thing in question had nothing to do with the computers. "You charged me for damage for a book that I didn't do." was the complaint. Damage charges are all human-interaction things, no computers needed. Additionally, I can go into the back and look at the book itself and bring it out. Which got done, and they were adamant that they did not damage the book in any way, because they didn't take it out in the rain or read in the bathtub or any other such thing. It must have been some other person who did the damage, and it was damaged when they checked it out, so they can't be responsible for damage they didn't do.
At this point, I have well-realized that their version of reality is the only one they will accept, rather than entertaining the idea that there are lots of ways for a book to be water-damaged, most of them innocuous, and I'm waiving the damage charge, nodding along and saying "It's entirely possible that another person damaged it, so I'm taking care of it."
This person, friends, says back to me, "Well, you don't belive me, and that's rude."
I did not bite their head off, though I was sorely tempted to at this point, for spite and malice, even though it would have done nothing. Because this person has now accused my staff people of charging the wrong person for damage we didn't notice (excepting the part where we have a procedure for notating damage in books that we still think can be circulated, which they do not know about), has behaved in an entitled and aggressive manner toward me about getting the matter taken care of, and now has the temerity to call me rude for not instantly believing them and performing the ritual of "the customer is alwayts right" while I am doing them the favor of wiping the fine off their record.
I do not think the word "rude" means the same thing to me as it does to them.
After they left, I notated their record in a manner that did not say "this person is rude, verbally abusive, and entitled", but I think I hinted at it strongly enough that anyone else who might have to deal with them in the future that this person has burned their entire stash of good will for a very long time. They don't see any reason to change, so long as it gets them what they want.
I was much less worried about the parent who came in another day and said that they had been overseas for a long while and their children's cards had accrued significant fines from overdue materials. So I used my magical powers and wiped awy all the overdue fines for the children, because we want them to use the library and their cards, and it was a perfectly understandable situation that they had achieved. In both cases, I was exercising my power, but I was much happier to waive a much bigger amount for someone because they explained what had happened than I was to waive for the person who was combative, confontational, and so utterly convinced of their own rightness they didn't even bother to notice that I was helping them instead of fighting them about it.
I'm also reminded, since school is in session again, that we're probably going to start having the same conversations that we were having last year about the number and volume of teens in the teen area, and how much I wish the organization had decided to spring for real training about cultural competence, implicit biases, microaggressions, and the like. Because we still have people who are leery about teens videotaping them as they go to talk about behaviors and enforce the behavior policy. (We could have gone for the person who I saw today at an optional training, who does this sort of thing for lots of people, and would do a good job with it.) We have people who continue to see the teens as almost solely problems, when part of the issues are that our space is improperly designed for the volume that we get, and that we're choosing to penalize what is normal teen behavior by flitting in from the desk, rather than having someone nearby to get to know them, but also to provie a presence that can help keep everybody regulated. Or to open another space for them to be that will let them be louder than in the rest of the building. I'm still sitting on my hands about moving the discussion forward about getting a screen and game system back in there, because while it was extraordinarily well-used, there were also complaints from other staffers about the noise and behavior that came from it, and tha manager seemed to side with that, at least for the moment. And I'm not there on the days that school gets out early, so I can't volunteer myself for the job of trying to keep things down to a dull roar.
I know that I can't reach in forcibly and change everyone's opinion on the matter - perspectives are valuable, but I don't feel like we're getting it at my branch. And there's no teen librarian at the branch dedicated to this task, and I doubt The Organization will designate that all branches with two librarians will have one of them as the teen librarian for that branch. I wish I had more answers, but the best I can do right now is to keep trying to get people to change, including myself.
