Episode 580: Quietly Refusing To Quit

I'm cleaning up, and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you-- the job, the family, the [BLEEP] big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disk, and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage.

You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks, the Research Library Rock and Roll Radio Show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the studio with Marlee Givens and Fred Rascoe, who tried to make me laugh right before the mics came on.

I'll get you one of these days.

We have to get you back for abandoning us for two weeks.

[LAUGHS]

Ah, we did it. We did it.

Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.

Nicely done, Marlee. CHARLIE BENNETT: I felt that I had left the show in capable hands and that my own import-- let me get back to the script.

We still missed you, Charlie.

Thank you. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk and perhaps hassle our co-workers. Whichever you, the listener, are here for, we hope you dig it. MARLEE GIVENS: Today's show is called "Quietly Refusing to Quit." Earlier this year, we talked about slow librarianship in an episode called "Pump the Brakes." In that conversation, we touched upon achievement culture, and we'd like to return to that topic today.

At the Georgia Tech Library, we have been in the middle of transformations of all four of those ideas as we redesigned the building, revised our mission, and relocated our books.

If you are a long-time listener, you know all about those shenanigans.

When we say achievement culture, we're talking about a certain kind of organizational culture, perhaps a librarian identity that requires innovation, achievement, and highly visible accomplishments without considering balance between life and work or the important but unflashy work of keeping a library running.

And why is this episode called "Quietly Refusing to Quit"

Because critiquing achievement culture, finding life balance, and focusing on unflashy but necessary parts of the job is not quiet quitting, as it is sometimes labeled. What we're doing here is quietly refusing to quit.

So our songs today are about achievement culture, moving too fast and improving things by slowing down. Our listeners who aren't in the library profession may find this hard to believe, but even librarianship can be a rat race. So let's start with "Rat Race" by Ralfi Pagan right here on Lost in the Stacks.

That was "Rat Race" by Ralfi Pagan right here on Lost in the Stacks. Today's show is called "Quietly Refusing to Quit." And that's a bit of wordplay on quiet quitting, but let's try to find the truth of this phrase. MARLEE GIVENS: Here's the definition of achievement culture from an article by a librarian, M. Jason Martin published in The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship all the way back in 2006. Was anything actually electronic in 2006?

The article is titled, "The way we do things around here, an overview of organizational culture."

Martin writes, "An achievement culture is one where people work hard to achieve goals and better the group as a whole. This culture generally consists of highly motivated people who need little to no supervision. Rules and procedures are limited, as they may interfere with the accomplishment of work. When a rule gets in the way of achieving a goal, the rule is simply ignored."

Hmm. Martin continues, "The best tools and methods for producing results are utilized. And when one goal is met, everyone quickly moves on to another because of this environment and mindset. Achievement cultures tend to be highly adaptive. Unfortunately, members of an achievement culture tend to burn out on their work." MARLEE GIVENS: Martin concludes, "It may be difficult to establish control if the need arises as the culture cultivates individuals.

Uh-oh. Now, when I read that and heard you all reading it, it reminded me more of the Georgia Tech Library than I really wanted it to. And it also had a little hint of satire to it because some of these phrases, which appear to be neutral or even positive, make me think, oh, that's no good at all and then lead into, of course, dishonest and illegal behavior and employees that cannot be supervised and that kind of thing.

Yeah, it's the encouragement in an achievement culture to stand out, to go for more, to rise up above whatever is around you, thus possibly exposing yourself to being more easily mowed down.

Yeah, and to accomplish a goal and then discard it-- what was that? Oh, quickly moving on to the next goal as opposed to, say, I don't know, building an infrastructure around it to support it. Marlee, what have you observed at the Georgia Tech Library that seems to match this achievement culture description?

Yeah, I know. I felt like, yeah, was he writing about us? I mean, I came along-- yeah, I was here. I arrived here four years after this article came out and, yeah, and being here 13 years later than when I started. It's going on 20 years since this article came out, but anyway. Yeah, I mean, I feel like right now we are dealing with the legacy of people who probably accomplished-- I mean, we won an award.

Yep, a couple of awards, actually.

Yeah, and you know, but-- where?

The library as a whole--

Library as a whole, yeah, exactly.

--for being innovative and yeah.

Yes, yes. But yeah, we don't have a lot of procedures in place. There's no real-- even something as small as like, where do we put documentation, let alone what kind of documentation do we need? Because we don't have any. CHARLIE BENNETT: What's it called? SharePoint? Isn't that the thing?

Well, but there's competing, yes, yes.

Until it changes to something else.

Right, right.

We certainly don't use that for the show.

[LAUGHS] In libraries as a whole, not just at the Georgia Tech Library, I think there is a culture of, hey, look at the person who is standing out, the rock star who is-- that's who we focus on. Even one of the predominant magazines of our profession, Library Journal, they have an annual-- oh, what's it called? CHARLIE BENNETT: Movers and Shakers. Movers and Shakers-- yes, that's it. Yeah, and--

Which could be disruptors and breakers if you wanted.

Right, but it's people who are trying to be innovative and achieve more. But that's like, library profession-wide, I think. It's not just the Georgia Tech Library

I think it connects with the "constantly in crisis" brand of libraries, the are you irrelevant? Well, maybe not, but let's go ahead and do something to make ourselves relevant. How can we quickly adapt to what's coming at us so fast, this technological change? And also, libraries often take on the cultural vibe 10, 15 years too late. So in high capitalist rat race style, American individualism, that just got to us later.

Right. What's the latest thing? And let's hire for that. And certainly, academia does that. Academic libraries do that. I'm sure it's the same in public libraries, and other libraries. Whatever is the current-- I guess, fad is a word for it. Let's hire for that and let that person that we hire achieve whatever it is that position is designed to do but without fundamentally restructuring an organization to support some new mission, some new--

Yeah, yeah.

I keep thinking about the maintainers.

Oh, but we had several people who went through that very thing.

And are no longer--

And are no longer here. They're just like, I did the thing. There's nothing else for me to do here, And I'll go.

I achieved the goal, and I'm going to move quickly away from it.

Or-- and this definitely happened at the Georgia Tech Library, not to get into details. You hired me to do a thing. I can't really do that thing effectively, so I'm going to go on to greener pastures, and they did.

Mm-hmm.

OK, well, on that note, this is Lost in the Stacks. We'll be back with more about the work culture of academic libraries and achievement culture, and we'll get to some kind of diagnosis of it after a music set.

File this set under Z675.S7F37.

(SINGING) You got to stop, look, and listen. You got to stop, look, and listen. You got to stop.

"Stop, Look, and Listen" by Patsy Cline. Before that, "Slow Down" by J.B. Lenoir, and we started off with Ted Neeley's "Slow Movin' Man." Those are songs about achieving more by slowing down. Oh, normally right about here, there'd be a little music bump.

Yeah, I think I think I can hear it in my head.

[SINGS]

Yeah, can we just use that? Because I forgot to load it in the little machine here. MARLEE GIVENS: All right, [SINGS]

It is three. Marlee, bring us into this segment.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called "Quietly Refusing to Quit," about our experiences with achievement culture. In our reading for this episode, there is one way to get out of the rat race that came up multiple times. It's deceptively simple. Reimagine the meaning of your life separate from the work you do.

Now, that does suggest that we're going to talk about how our lives are meaningful, but I would like to pull back from that, step away from the ledge of spiritual or existential rumination, and let's stick with work because we were-- I feel like we uncorked a little bit of-- oh, yes, my memories of achievement culture when we were talking in the first segment. It has been difficult sometimes to adapt to a hard-driving work culture when we are also susceptible to vocational awe, right?

Yeah, one of the pillars of civilization.

Yeah, yeah. So you need to-- I want to make a joke about that.

So we should appreciate that we're here and appreciate that we can be a part of this upholding of the pillar.

And understand that you've got to keep going even if you feel a little bit burnt out. You've got to go on to the next goal where the libraries must be saved. I'm going to ventriloquize a little bit. Libraries must be saved, libraries must be changed, and you got to do it, and you got to do it fast. And try not to break too many things.

I think I've mentioned on this show before, previous library administration-- no longer here-- all of us in a room, and them saying, yeah, this librarianship can't be just a job. If you're a library faculty, it's not just a job. And that was direct words--

What was it?

--out of this person's mouth.

If it's not just a job, what is it?

Yeah, see, I've never had a problem looking at it as just a job.

I've always liked that about you, Fred. FRED RASCOE: [LAUGHS] And Marlee-- we were talking off mic. It might have been the very same meeting where this same person--

About 10 years ago, yeah.

Yeah, about 10 years ago, this same person said that if we were only working 40 hours a week, that was definitely not enough. As library faculty, we should be working way more than that.

And that is the bad side, right?

Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: When I said earlier, it seemed like a Saturday Night Live or a sketch, the description of achievement culture, is because why would you say that it's wrong to define a goal and attempt to achieve it? That seems like a pretty simple, and straightforward, and effective way to run an organization. What are our goals?

Yeah, I'll just tell the audience.

Yea, please.

Do you know why faculty infighting at colleges is so bloody and personal?

Why?

Because the stakes are so small.

Yeah, rings true.

And now just imagine the librarians who operate in support of faculty-- very small stakes.

Yeah. And for a faculty on campus that don't even really recognize librarians as faculty.

Well, that's the thing. We're trying to get the attention, right? And so some of the articles that we read were about children who are praised for their academic achievement and how that hurts them later in life.

Yeah, because it's only for that achievement.

Right. They respond positively to that question. And it is hard to find-- I found it, you know, now that I've been here-- I've been in this profession for 30 years, but being here for 13 years, I've settled into, OK, this is how I'm defining success for myself in this job. But I think we as a profession are-- you know, we've messed up in some ways.

We rested on our laurels, maybe. I don't know. We've gone-- I mean, Charlie, you've described it as like the libraries used to just be inevitable. It was just like, there didn't need to be a reason for a library because-- CHARLIE BENNETT: Because it's a library. Yeah, it's just there, right? But now, yeah, we feel like we're losing relevance and losing relevance on campus.

And in some cases, under cultural attack.

Yeah. Oh, well, that's also true. Yeah. I don't like to think about that.

That is another show, more discussion. I keep coming back to we have to separate the quality of life, having meaning in your life, having goals, like, saying, oh, I want to do this thing and putting your effort into it, which appears to be mentally healthy, spiritually rewarding versus when working in a job, only being praised for outlier activities, or surprise successes, or moonshots, oh, or small bets that turn into great successes. Hi, Ameet.

Our old buddy, Ameet.

It gets back, I think, to what you were saying about what's wrong with the word achievement? What's wrong with achieving things? And it's just like what that word achievement culture has come to mean. It's not just, hey, your library accomplished things. The librarians and staff working there have accomplished things. It means you have exerted yourself more than those around you.

Yes, yeah.

There's the hidden meaning, but there's nothing wrong with achievement itself. But when achievement means you've done more than those around you, you've exerted more, you've put more effort in to shine that light that we like to bask in, like innovation, and breaking boundaries, and bringing librarianship into the modern age.

Yeah, if people would just respect the inevitability of the library, we wouldn't have to innovate anything.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and we'll talk more about achievement culture and its discontents on the left side of the hour.

Hey, guys. This is Frederick from Future Oak Records. You are listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta.

Our show today is called "Quietly Refusing to Quit." You know, it's funny. So we named it obviously before this live broadcast. And I've noticed that we haven't really touched on any refusing to quit or anything like that. We're not really talking about resilience just yet. But we talked about meaning a little bit, and we talked about purpose. I'd like to read from an interview published on the Greater Good Magazine website on August 30 of this year.

"William Damon, a Stanford University professor and expert in human development, told me that young people today are stressed and anxious, not necessarily because we're overworking them, but because they don't know what all their efforts are for. Too often, we fail to help our young people understand a why that's greater than landing a spot at a college or building their resumes, a why for their role in the world.

She continues, "Adding value to others is an underutilized tool that can help our students combat feelings of emptiness, anxiety, and disengagement that so many are feeling today." As Damon notes--

"The biggest problem growing up today is not actually stress. It's meaninglessness."

That section of the interview really caught my attention because we've got a ton of meaning in librarianship and who we are. And I wonder what the solution for us is going to be. Let's go and just file this set under PZ4.R14, and we'll figure out what we're going to say next.

"Too Fast for Love." by The Donnas. And before that, "Wow Pow Bash Crash" by The Fast. And we started with "Snail" by Bug Moment. I mean, that's a poem all by itself, just that set review. Those were pretty fast songs about slowness and the negative consequences of moving too fast.

Hey, I remembered to play the little music that time.

Yeah, but it was only one. I don't know. I'm disappointed, Fred.

Yeah, OK.

You did not achieve the goal that we laid out.

This is Lost in the Stacks and I--

Look at him quietly refusing to quit.

I'm a radio mover and shaker. Today's show is called "Quietly Refusing to Quit." And maybe we should just take a minute to acknowledge for all the real stress and anxiety that achievement culture and libraries does produce. And it is real, and we need to deal with it. It's maybe a half measure or a shade-- just a light shade of what it's actually happening greater corporate culture in a lot of cases.

That someone felt like they could say that, yeah, yeah.

Or that 996 in China that we heard about.

That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, you work from 9:00 to 9:00 six days a week.

Which just sounds like murder.

I love that the resistance movement to the 996 workweek is called lying flat.

Yeah, that's how I call my weekend.

So, Fred, you bring up an excellent point. And I feel this conversation is loosening as we go. If we did this show immediately after this show again, we'd probably be talking about a lot more stuff than we're talking about right now.

Yeah, we're opening up some cans of worms, I guess. CHARLIE BENNETT: But libraries do not have the pressures of corporate business, really. But librarianship likes to follow in the footsteps. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, it definitely models the corporate world. Gosh, Likert scales, you know-- anyway. MARLEE GIVENS: Charlie, you gave us an article from The Harvard Business Review to read to prepare for this show.

I did. I love how you just said that too, like, yeah, I gave it to you to read, [LAUGHS] like a grand reading.

But we do not have-- our stakes are low in comparison to corporate America. We do not profit share. We do not worry about our bonuses. We're not going to be fired out of our department if we're the lowest performing.

We're not, but you know what, the library can get cut.

That's true. That's true. But let's stick with the work culture that's been established in our library because we could go down several roads here. I have never been told, point blank, that my job involves being spectacular, and exceptional, and achieving goals that are not even remotely referenced in my job description. But somehow, I started feeling that way, especially my first promotion review. And I started thinking, oh, I have got to amaze people in libraries. I don't know.

No, I mostly just noticed that other people seem to be getting more attention for things. And I felt a little envious. But then, I walked myself through, well, what would it take to do that? I did do some things. They were not spending my time, but they were spending my money.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

You're talking about going to conferences?

Like going to extra conferences, yeah, yeah.

And not having it supported by--

Because that shows up on performance reviews and promotion reviews for non-academic library listeners.

Because that helped me build my network, and that helped me get more outside service opportunities and so on.

Yeah. Fred, how about you? Do you ever feel driven?

Do I feel driven?

Yeah.

I think I am the exception to-- when I got out of library school at age 30-- I had just turned 30.

A baby.

And I was literally just about to have my first baby, my wife and I. And perhaps that age and just young, but not too young, and starting a family, that maybe helped me put things in perspective, like, I'm qualified to do this job that I've chosen. I've taken this path through school, and now I'm qualified to do this job, and I will do this job. And I like doing extra things that are of interest and contribute to academia, this radio show being one of them, I think.

Yeah, right? And there it is. I can confess to enjoying validation that came with that extra work or those extra achievements and also being amazed at how, in my mind, little you have to do to be-- not amazing, but to be noticed in librarianship. We started a radio show, and that was a huge deal. And people start radio shows all the time. And I don't know that ours is better than anyone else's, but it got a lot of attention because, oh, librarians on the radio? How is that going to work?

No, I was just actually just sitting here thinking about how everyone's got a podcast now.

Yeah, now, I mean, this show's been going 13 years.

If we did that now, it'd be no big deal.

Yet another library podcast?

I do like being OG in some way.

Yeah.

Well, we've talked about everything. We've answered nothing. And I think that's fitting for a show that's about resisting achievement culture. We haven't come to any huge definition or plan of action. We just talked about work, which I think sometimes is perfectly fine.

Maybe a little therapeutic. Well, this is Lost in the Stacks. And as we wrap up, it's time for a music set.

Make it a therapeutic one.

Yeah. Oh, I think it will be. It's a BF. File this set under BF683.M32.

That was "Working Man" by Otis Rush. And before that, "The Woes of the Working Woman" by The Rakes-- songs about the downsides of achievement culture and having work control you rather than the other way around.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and our guests today have been, well, me, Fred Rascoe, and Charlie Bennett. Our show is called "Quietly Refusing to Quit." And you know, normally, we have one last question.

Yeah, like a wrap-up discussion.

But I think this time, we've said it all. We've done enough.

I like that.

All right, let's roll the credits.

Make them relaxed, Fred, not goal-oriented.

How's that? CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, that's perfect. I almost feel like we should just let it play. No. Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by me, Charlie Bennett, along with Fred Rascoe and Marlee Givens.

Legal counsel and an honorable mention ribbon were provided by--

--the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia.

Is that like a participation trophy?

Mm-hmm.

Special thanks to, well, let's say to everyone who gets their priorities straight. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening.

Our web page is library.gatech.e du/lostinthestacks, where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to our podcast feed, and a web form if you want to get in touch with us.

Next week's show is about-- well, I find this kind of surprising. We're going to talk about AI.

Fred?

We'll just have to wait till next week. Time for our last song today and a reminder. Doing what's best for you isn't necessarily what's best for your employer, even if your employer is a gosh-darn, good, old, kind-hearted library. CHARLIE BENNETT: What is happening? So take care of yourself because your job isn't number one. Money isn't number one. You are. Let's close with "Looking Out for Number One" by Mariska Veres right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody.