Don’t Take A Page Out Of This Page’s (Really, Really Neat) Book

Coworkers, Ignoring & Inattentive, Lazy/Unhelpful, Library, Nevada, New Hires, USA | Working | May 1, 2020


The pages at our library mostly work by themselves, but we team up an hour before the library closes at 6:00. We have a new page, and I’m training her about our closing duties: straightening the books on the shelves, picking up books that patrons left on tables and chairs, etc. She’s working pretty slowly, so I go over to check up on her.

Me: “Okay, good job! Just keep in mind that while we want the books to look nice and neat, it doesn’t need to be perfectly lined up.”

This is my indirect way of telling her she needs to speed up.

New Page: “No! The very top row needs to be brought all the way to the front! The edges need to be flush! This is the correct way!”

I’m surprised by her backtalk.

Me: “Well… yes, ideally. But this is a pretty big library, so if we try to make each shelf perfect, we’ll never get done, and half the library will still be a mess. Anyway, just keep the time that we have in mind.”

She seems to take the hint and tries her best to keep up with me. I expected her to work slowly, so she actually does well enough on her first day, and I figure she’ll only improve. The second day, we work with another page, [Coworker]. Because there are three of us, we start later than we usually would. However, [New Page] is working much more slowly than before. My supervisor, who has other things to do and never performs closing duties with us, comes over to baby the new page a bit, giving her some tips to help her work faster before leaving her in our hands.

Coworker: “[New Page], when you finish those shelves, move on to the nonfiction section. The two of us are starting from the end close to the audiobooks, so just come find us.”

[Coworker] and I move on to the next area and speedily work together to get it cleaned up. When we’re halfway done, we realize something.

Me: “Wait, where’s [New Page]?”

We look for her and find her still in fiction, going over shelves that have already been done and trying to make them perfectly straight.

Coworker: “[New Page], those books are straight enough! Come on!”

We drag her to the next section and I work alongside [New Page] for a while, keeping an eye on how she works and trying to coach her into working faster. I leave to finish up the rest of nonfiction, and she’s stuck on the same row of shelves.

Me: “Okay, [New Page], the reference and foreign language sections are next. Join us over there when you finish that shelf.”

[Coworker] and I go to those areas and start working as fast as we can to make up for the time we’ve lost babysitting [New Page]. We’re concentrating so much on our work that we don’t realize right away that she’s missing again.

Coworker: “Oh, God… Where is she?”

We backtrack to the previous section, and sure enough, she’s “fixing” the shelves that are already straightened.

Me: *Really frustrated* “[New Page]! I told you that we had to straighten up reference and foreign language next! We’ve already gone over those shelves!”

We drag her over to reference so that we can finish up while she barely does anything. It’s running really close to 6:00, and two more sections still need to be cleaned up.

Me: “[New Page], can you go over to health and science and help [Coworker]? I’ll go over to the young adult section.”

[New Page] follows me like a lost puppy. I decide, “To heck with it; she can help me, instead.”

Me: “[New Page], can you handle those shelves over there while I do these?”

She doesn’t. She hovers about asking me questions.

New Page: “Do I have to clock out right at the hour?”

Me: “No, you don’t have to. You actually have seven minutes after 6:00 before you absolutely have to clock out, but no one stays that long unless it’s really messy. Anyway, I want to keep you a couple minutes after just to quickly show you how we do sorting.”

New Page: “Okay.”

I continue working as fast as I can while she idly stands by and watches.

Me: “Okay, finally done here. We don’t have time to actually do all of the sorting, but I can at least show you–”

New Page: *Frantically* “But it’s 6:00! I need to clock out!”

It was actually still a few more minutes until 6:00, but she ran off to the back room anyway so that she could wait there before clocking out. [Coworker] and I did as much as we could in the sorting room before heading back. Even though it was after 6:00, [New Page] is still there. She left only moments before I clocked out.

The next day, after we spoke with our supervisor about her poor work ethic and utter lack of teamwork skills, it was decided that [New Page] would be stuck in the fiction section. For a long time, the only thing she was ever responsible for was putting away fiction and closing that area by herself; however, she worked so slowly that we often had to help her finish up. She never really got any better at her job, but she was never fired.