Blindsided in Glasgow

And here I thought things were going so well.

We've been very busy in the Johnston household. First, we moved from Japan to Boise, ID. Mark had several interviews lined up and he aced them all. So we were going to stay in Boise. Then he found out he couldn't start right away, like they told him he could. Because of his international background, it was going to take a month to complete his background check. But that was okay, because he had another job offer in Utah. So we moved to Utah and stayed in my parents rental in Roy. He had to wait to pass his CDL before he could start training, but that was okay. Training wouldn't start until the end of April anyway which gave him time to study.

Meanwhile, I had been contact with a little library in the middle of nowhere Montana that was looking for a new director. A gentleman from their local workforce services department had found my information somewhere and invited me to apply. He said the board was interested in giving me an interview and they were figuring out how that interview was going to take place. I didn't want to drive all the way out there without some sort of compensation. Gas is expensive, and if I was going to travel to an interview without a firm offer, then there were better options then this place. But, they decided to try a Skype interview. Unfortunately, none of them knew how to work Skype. The first twenty minutes or so of my interview was my instructing them in how to connect with someone though Skype. They hadn't bothered to try to research that before the interview, and none of them had an account set up. Thank goodness one of the board member's spouses had a Facebook account (You can now Skype through Facebook. Its kind of neat.) or the interview probably wouldn't have taken place at all.

I thought the interview went well, but not fabulous. To my surprise, the next day they called and offered me the job. I accepted. That was on a Wednesday. The next Tuesday we drove off to the middle of nowhere Montana.

Flying into Boise to arriving in Glasgow, MT took 18 days. Things were falling into place. We didn't have a place to live yet, but we had several leads and another board member was kind enough to put us in her basement while we waited. It didn't take long. Housing is very rare here. There's an oil boom happening in North Dakota, and Glasgow is close enough to get spill over from that. Plus the railroad has been hiring, so there's a large influx of new families and not enough housing to go around. I think if someone were to build an apartment complex, it would do very well. So were extremely blessed to find the rental that we did as quickly as we did. We moved in on April 25th, only a week after we arrived.

I had started work on April 19th. I wasn't suppose to start until we found housing. But with nothing to do but wait on that, I decided I may as well be working; earning some money and learning about the library's systems and the community. I got no formal training. One board member gave me a tour of the library. The previous director volunteered a couple of hours to give me an overview on some of the administrative procedures. My total training time with other people had been less then 8 hours, barely a full day. The previous director had been very sweet in letting me call her whenever I have had questions. The staff have been marvelous in showing me how things have been done. But most of the systems were a matter of trail and error. At the same time I'm making lists of contacts, finding out the current status of several different projects and grants, getting my name put on all the library accounts, sending out press releases on current library programs, brainstorming new programs, deciphering the budget, creating staff schedules, reading book reviews, ordering new materials, researching prices for new library furniture, and creating new incident procedures. I'm learning how the current procedures work so I can figure out what, if anything, needs to be changed to be patron friendly and/or efficient.

As of May 3rd, 5:30 PM MST, we are jobless again. And I don't know why. That night was my first board meeting. I had meet all of the board during my interview of course. Since I started work they had all dropped in to say "hi" and "welcome" but not much else. The first thing they said to me was "You're not really what we were looking for. You're not what we expected so we're offering you a severance package. We think its very generous. You'll be given two weeks pay. Do you have any personal items in the office? No. Then we'll have your keys. Bye." I tried asking what is was I've done to make them come to that conclusion. They won't tell me. Only that I don't match their vision. They're sorry for the miscommunication. More like no communication. How am I suppose to work on their vision when they won't tell me what it is?

The longest conversation I had with any of them was on a car ride back from a library federation meeting in Wolf Point. I had gotten a ride out with another director from Malta. (I was a stop along her way, and when I accepted her offer, I didn't know who, if any, of the board member were going.) Since I arrived I had been warned to beware of a couple of the board members. That they seems like nice people, but they were very hard to work with. This particular board member had struck me as being kind a bully, and I'm wary of bullies. So I was that thrilled to be riding with her, but I did want to get to know her and what she wanted for the library. Our conversation was not very enlightening. She had a few ideas of what she wanted. Booktalks to all the book clubs in town, visits to the schools and unincorporated towns in the county, which I was all for. But she didn't know how many book clubs there actually were in town or how to reach any of them, other then her own. Nor did know how many towns there were in the county. So I put that on my list of things to research. I'm afraid I wasn't very forthcoming with my own ideas because a lot of them were, and still are, half formed. I had only been on the job for a week and was still feeling overwhelmed with everything I had to learn. It didn't help that we had just come from a federation meeting where I had learned even more was required of me. I don't know if that car ride was my undoing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

And the terrible thing is that I keep thinking of things to make the library better. Other views on our situation: Something Rotten in the Town of Glasgow Fired Librarian's Tenure a Short Story