A problem shared is a problem solved
The Conference wrapped up yesterday with more passionate and inspirational speakers demonstrating the width and depth of the topic encapsulated in those two words, ’social inclusion’. As always I came away with a head spinning with ideas and how they could be implemented or adjusted into my own situation/s (ie ALIA and ‘real’ job). After many years I’ve learnt that attendance a conference/workshop/seminar is not a mandate to go home and change everything. If there’s something which moves you to act, great! … if it’s for the better. It may also cause you to re-assess what you’re already doing and reaffirm that you’re on track. From my perspective PD in the form of conferences etc is really about taking off the blinkers and opening up your mind; it is legitimised day-dreaming :-).
Back to the hotel to find that I had neighbours in the adjoining room - I knew because I had one of those linking doors which are usually pretty soundproof, though not in this case! I pretended it would get better but I knew I had to do something when a friend asked who else was with me when I was taking a call from her in the furthest reaches of my room. Gold star to the young lady on reception who acknowledged and took ownership of the problem and had me moved and settled into an upgraded room within 5 minutes of my plea for help. I’ve already sent a message to the hotel management acknowledging her.
This brings me to the April issue of inCite which is about customer service - our editor Kate is currently looking for stories and I’ve been pondering what I’ll write about in my Frontline article. My library prides itself on customer service and over the years as a staff we’ve attended multiple training courses, include it as a regular item on our meeting agendas and have champions in place to keep us on track. Despite this from time to time we fall by the wayside and I find the dreaded letter of complaint in my in-tray, ditto with ALIA.
Often we make a mistake in trying to fix the problem without involving our client. Last night the young woman at reception gave me several options, some of which were unnecessarily over-the-top. In a session at the Social Inclusion Conference yesterday a speaker was reflecting on disadvantaged communities and he urged participants to ask them what the solution was as usually they have already figured it out, they just don’t have the resources to do it. Something we can all learn from.
Jan
Jan Richards, ALIA President
librarydayinthelife