Benefits are weird
Thanks to the hard work and support of the director of my library, my supervisor, the staff, and the voting fabulousness of the town of Reading, I now not only have more hours at my library (technically, 26.5/week), but I also have benefits.
To give you some background, I originally started at Reading Public Library at 10.5 hrs/wk, without benefits. (Yep, everything that I was talking about doing was fit into that little amount of time. I’m big on process efficiency and stuff.) I was in complete and total understanding that 10.5 hrs may be all there ever was for this position, and that no promises could be made for more, which I accepted without argument or issue.
Round about January, my supervisor Lorraine had mentioned that they had hoped to petition for more hours in my position, but that it didn’t appear possible, but since I knew about the conditions ahead of time, I didn’t really feel disappointed. I continue to be amazed that they pay me to have as much fun as I do, and the finances are just about comfortable for my husband and I, so it’s all good.
Then the campaign began.
Ruth, the director at my library, decided that I simply needed more hours. Now, we all knew that I needed more hours, but budgets being what they are, I knew it might be difficult. But Ruth was simply her diplomatically diligent self (a condition I think of as “Ruthless” in a good way) when it came to getting me these hours, and she had lots of ammunition from Lorraine and the rest of the staff, as well as from my accomplishments thus far.
In February or so, I did a presentation for the selectmen of the town about the state of technology in the library. I highlighted the complete overhall of all 22 public machines, the existence of our wiki-as-intranet, the computer classes I teach (including the Geek Out Don’t Freak Out sessions), the GIS stuff we were doing with the town GIS person (Reading has a GIS person on payroll, which is just so hot), anything I could think of. They were duly impressed with my presentation skills and accomplishments, and I received an email from the town budget guy saying that he hoped they could get the town even within just 10 years of the library’s technology.
So what started as no money for more hours evolved into 26.5 hrs/wk (that includes one Saturday per month), and *benefits*. I have the option for medical and dental (which I have gobs of through my husband, who works for a pharma company and has the best benefits ever, so I’ll be opting out), and paid holidays.
The assistant director, who handles timesheets before they go to the town, came in to explain the holidays, since I had my first holiday on Tuesday for July 4th. Now, I would normally work Tuesday night, so I took the hours (I technically get 5.3 hrs/holiday, through a complicated matrix of figuring I won’t explain here), but so many of our holidays fall on Mondays — a day when I don’t work at all — that the concept of getting money for days I don’t work is weird. Turns out I need to take the Monday holiday hours off during another part of the week, so that I, too, get a holiday like the other Monday workers, and still get paid. This hurts my head immensely. Benefits are just weird. I mean, it’s good, but still.
Tags: work
