Turmoil seems to be constant in this life, especially in a group setting. Always there is one who wishes to be the one who calls the shots and especially so if that person perceives himself/herself as the most indispensible of the group. We have just such a situation at the Archives at the moment. One of the staff is acting like a 15% tail trying to wag an 85% dog. This is not good for the dog and certainly not good for the tail. This staff member, it was revealed today, is leaving the organization, and that not of his own volition. I have really enjoyed getting to know this person and he has been of great help to us as we struggled with the cradle and the camera etc. I for one will miss him, but then I have not been impacted by his actions as a staff member of the Archives, and those who have seem to be looking forward to his departure.
The room in which we do the digitizing has been somewhat of a furniture storage room. The director, Mr. David Cheever, in company with Art the Archiver, came into our room and referred to the dozen or so chairs against one wall as ‘The Bus’ and asked if we would be sad to have “the Bus” taken out of the room. Of course not, just do not mess with our camera setup or take out the cradle. Well, today the workmen came in and removed chairs, tables, various odds and ends, moved the table that Christina is working with, trundled in three LARGE filing cabinets and I suspect that the pile of photo frames in the corner will not be there when we return to work on Tuesday. It appears that the worker who has the responsibility of writing grants for the Archives will be moving from her sunny, corner office, into our room and apparently they will construct a cubicle for her in the same place where we leave our coats and the shuttle cases and boxes. So we will have to move our stuff to another table, if it is still there on Tuesday.
The receptionist wants the sunny corner office and I wonder what she will do with the plants she has growing in her office now – they are so large that they appear to be taking over and there is literally no room for them in the Sunny Corner Office. The huge Angel-wing Begonia got moved from the front foyer to the ‘way-back’ office room that used to be the break room. We are apparently getting a new receptionist. We already have a replacement for Nina who is totally frustrated with the position because Nina left no notes and certainly did not offer to stay to train her replacement when retirement came. Many times at lunch, Nina made no bones about the fact that she was going to clean off her computer and leave no clue for successors as to what to do or what needed to be done.
It has been an amazing experience to watch the ebb and flow of this State Archives office staff. On the other hand, this group of office workers is not much different than any other group as they are pulled together to work on certain aspects of their respective organizations. Group process is just that, group process; an amorphous group supposedly with the same goal in mind, while all the while asserting their power over their pet or even assigned projects. I guess that is how they got the slogan on the flag which says,”Don’t tread on me”.
Once again we have had a very busy week at the digitizing. We turned in 22 folders, ten of which were reworks from the camera debacle. It has been a very difficult week all round. Each week we do our best to digitize the books, and then we turn in the shuttle and hope for the best. Often it seems like some capricious soul is turned loose on our work and arbitrarily decides to pass or fail folders. It is quite perplexing and almost impossible to predict whether the folders will all pass or all fail or what percentage of pass or fail we will receive. And then there are the mixed messages we get from those who lead us. Some say, raise the camera, others say, No! Definitely not. You should have it as low as possible so as to take advantage of the Array. Then other voices say, You should only do this single page capture but we did that one time before and got totally roasted for it and told. “You have a 50 megapixel camera and you should only do double capture with the cradle. To do less is to waste the capabilities of the camera.” Hamlet like, we feel to ask, “To do or not to do, that is the question”.
To settle my spirit and feed my soul, I went walking in the neighborhood around the capitol and took pictures of the spring flowers. One can always count on the flowers to be obedient to their eternal directive to bloom when the conditions are right and to give peace and perspective to those of us who have ruffled feathers from the week’s events. My feathers were ruffled beginning with the passing of Pop Belnap and then continued with the necessity of reworking folders as a result of someone sending us the wrong lens for the camera.
Next week, more flowers will be in bloom, more trees will sport tiny bright green spring foliage and order will hopefully be restored to the staff situation at the Archives.
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