What this post is not about, and what it is

Yesterday and today I had lots of ideas about what today's post would be about. Here are just three of them:

-managing a strike--insights into management that might come from trying to organise this many people in this many places during a strike

-what everyone's reading on the picket line where I spend my days

-them and us: how the branches and Central are still separate and different during the strike, even when it's different people in each place

***

But it's hard to think about those topics tonight. As everyone who works in our library system knows by now, today we had bad news. The most recent talks, which started on the long weekend, have broken down again. Now it's hard to imagine when we'll be back to work.

Now I'm realising just how much we've all been hoping that this strike was close to being resolved. Since both sides started meeting again, the Facebook posts have been optimistic, and we've been cheerier on the picket line. When our library patrons have asked us when we'll be back, we've been able to say (feeling pretty good about it), "Well, at least they're talking!" We've chatted about how the fact that both sides gave up their long weekend just proves that everyone's serious.

I wasn't in the room where the meetings happened, of course, and no one who was there is about to tell me what was actually discussed (at least not any time soon). But it's hard not to wonder, what the hell is wrong here? Doesn't *everyone* want the libraries to open again? Is there really someone out there who wants this to continue?

There will be people out there who are so angry about their garbage not being picked up that they will say awful things about all of us municipal workers. I know from listening to the radio that some folks would like us all to be fired and replaced with workers who are more compliant.

Today I talked with a library user who was worried about the books he returned to us just before the strike, which are now in some box in our central library instead of on their way to the owning library where he originally borrowed them. He's worried about those books, and about the fines that must be piling up in that other library system. We talked for a few minutes about some possible solutions, and it was really nice, almost like being at work. And for a moment I really remembered what it was like to be providing public service instead of denying it. It was a good feeling.