If you've never been on a picket line, you might imagine it as a place that's loud with traffic noises, stinking with exhaust fumes, and generally unhappy, with lots of the passersby either pointedly ignoring or even abusing the picketers.
Well, after the relative *niceness* of yesterday, I'm not really surprised that things weren't so good today. I was at a library branch right on a busy street, and buses and big trucks kept going by--some, most depressingly, carrying live chickens on their last ride. One woman walked past and asked if we weren't ashamed to be denying services to children. (I noticed she didn't stick around for any kind of answer.) A man yelled at us out his truck window, telling us to get back to work. (This was actually kind of funny, because he was carrying glass, and--as one of my colleagues pointed out--people in glass trucks shouldn't throw stones.)
A couple of things I *didn't* say to the people who gave us a hard time:
"Well, I assure you that I didn't spend six years in university to walk
a picket line."
"Yeah?! And what have *you* ever done to promote literacy or help children?"
"Do you realise that every person you just slagged off has put
in untold hours of unpaid overtime to provide the best possible
service to people like you?"
It wasn't all bad. Two nearby fellow picketers got significant work done on their knitting today. A few others got to meet and hang out with colleagues who were utter strangers before all this started. I can't help thinking of all the--ahem--team-building that's happening out here.
But the worst part is knowing that time is ticking by, we're not working, our projects are not being done, deadlines are passing, and we aren't accomplishing the things that really matter to us. It's hard not to imagine the calendar marked with dates of programmes that now can't happen. It's hard not to think of the members of the public--the library users--we see every day at work. Where are they? What are they doing now?
I can only hope they'll be back.
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Today we went down to the Kits picket, and it was actually a very moving experience. People were literally stopping their cars and getting out to tell us that they supported the job action, and local businesses (Kava Coffee and Safeway) came over with boxes of treats and jugs of fresh coffee for the picketers. I was deeply touched by the support we received from the community, especially as it's also the neighbourhood I live in.
Even so, it's hard being out there. Denying services to our users goes against everything I believe in as a librarian. Now we know there's going to be no speedy resolution to this. How do we process that? How do we reconcile what we're doing right now with the values that brought us into this profession in the first place?
If anyone has any answers to these questions, I'd be glad to hear them. I haven't been able to figure it out yet.
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