Book Companion:

Library and Information Center Management,
Seventh Edition

The Case of an Overachiever or the Perils of Being Too Competent

Duckettville was a typical medium-sized town in the heart of Tennessee. Due to its relative proximity to a quickly growing city, this historical southern town was experiencing steady population growth while trying to maintain its classic southern charm. The feel of the town was one of the attractions for Meredith, the Assistant Manager of the Duckettville Branch Library. After having lived, worked, and studied in the New England area Meredith was excited about the opportunity to experience life in the southern United States when she saw the job posting for the position a year ago. However, after 12 months that excitement had faded and she was wondering why she remained.

It was a little bit surprising to Meredith when she was hired as the Assistant Manager of the Duckettville Branch Library. Although her interview with Pam, the Branch Manager, went well Meredith thought that she did not have the experience necessary to obtain the position. When offering the position, Pam explained that it was Meredith's hard-working, dependable, and creative attitude that lead to her hiring. If only Meredith had been able to see that these words, although great praise, were the first warning signs of the trials that lay ahead for her.

The first couple months of work were wonderful for Meredith. The previous Assistant Manager had transferred within the department and was glad to assist Meredith in any way that he could until she got comfortable with her new surroundings. The staff of the library was helpful and polite. The patrons were eager to meet the new person and find out about her and her background. Her primary job duty was the management of the part-time, student, and volunteer staffs. She was responsible for scheduling, meetings, work assignments, and payroll for the dozens of employees of these types at the library. While this kept her busy, she enjoyed getting to know her staff and facilitating their work.

As time went by Meredith became more and more involved with the various areas of Duckettville Branch Library. She was asked to learn how each different responsibility was handled and to occasionally step in and cover shifts when employees were sick or on vacation. Whenever the employees in these areas had questions or needed help they went to Meredith for assistance. Soon, working in other areas became a regular occurrence. Once a day while away from work Meredith would get a call from someone in some area of the library asking about a particular policy or how to perform a specific job duty.

A couple months into the job Pam called Meredith into her office. Pam had noticed that most of the full-time staff looked to Meredith for guidance. Pam thought that Meredith was doing an excellent job informally managing them and thought that it would be a great idea to formalize the situation. Pam officially made Meredith the manager of the full-time staff as well. Despite what Pam had said, Meredith assumed that the real reason behind the change was the conflicts between Pam and the employees. Few, if any, of the full-time staff enjoyed working for Pam. Although the reasons were not clear to her, Meredith had observed that most employees openly spoke negatively about Pam; some staff didn't even speak to Pam and vice versa.

Over time Meredith also became well known with the patrons of Duckettville Branch Library. Employees often went directly to Meredith whenever they received a question that they could not answer so library visitors soon began going directly to Meredith with their questions and concerns. Meredith's office was directly off the main path in and out of the library and people would often drop in to speak with her. While she loved getting to know the library's users the steady stream of customer interaction often took up a significant amount of her time.

While Meredith was taking on more and more responsibility Pam seemed to be doing less and less. Often Pam would disappear into her office without much interaction with the public or the staff. She would usually say that she was working on the budget (which consisted of a once-a-year budget proposal; office staff handled the daily reconciliation of expenses) or the brochure (a twice a year publication that listed upcoming programs and events). Pam also handled the upkeep of the building which consisted of her calling in maintenance requests to the county public works department but Meredith actually coordinating any work that was to be performed.

After nine months Meredith started thinking about her satisfaction with her job. While she enjoyed the people, the mission, and the atmosphere of Duckettville Branch Library, she could not say that she enjoyed her job. She was constantly rushing to do her work and could never classify herself as "caught up." She had always been willing to help wherever she could but had reached a point of burn out. Meredith also felt the beginnings of resentment towards Pam for the discrepancies she saw in the amounts of work they performed.

Meredith had previously tried to talk to Pam about her tremendous workload and some efforts had been made to help the situation. Pam had posted a memo stating that she should be called when assistance was needed and Meredith was not at the library. Some staff did follow this directive but inevitably Pam would then call Meredith claiming ignorance of how to handle the specific situation and Meredith would have to return the employees call. Other staff members simply continued calling Meredith. At some point, without anyone noticing, the memo was taken down.

Meredith had also mentioned to Pam the length of time that it took to complete payroll for all of the library's employees. Pam offered to assist by taking on some of the duties associated with payroll. Unfortunately, Pam often made mistakes that Meredith would have to catch before payroll was sent to the county office. After a couple occurrences, Meredith offered to complete payroll individually again.

Though she came into the job full of excitement and vigor, Melanie now feels as though Pam has taken advantage of her. She knows that she cannot continue to work under the same circumstances but does not know how to successfully initiate change (or what change to try to initiate). Although she could simply leave, Meredith does not feel that this would help the situation; it would only remove her from it and lay a trap for the next over-achieving Assistant Manager who comes along.

What type of policies would you recommend the library adopt to keep Pam from transferring so many duties to Meredith? What do you think are Pam's motives in assigning so much work to Meredith? If you were Meredith, what would you do?

Case written by Matt Howell, 2007 Graduate of the School of Information and Library Science, UNC-CH