Blog December Post 15 - Communication

Today's Destiny Card word is Communication.

Yesterday communication happened in a good way and a bad way.

At 7.40am I was contacted by our facilities manager that one of my branch libraries had been broken into.  At this stage, as he was still at home, he could only tell me that a window had been broken and our cash holders were found outside.

I then phoned the casual staff member that was to be working there that day as I was working at a different branch and let her know.

I then had another phone call from our Council ranger saying that if our casual could come and get him first and he could take her through the library without touching anything to see if anything was missing.

So I rang my casual back and let her know.  My casual is one of those that goes beyond the call of duty, so even if she wasn't supposed to be in at work till 9.30am, she said she'd head up to the library now - she doesn't live that far from the library.  I was thankful for this as my hubby needed the car and I had to get small one to school and get the other branch library open.

Later she rang to give me an update, and the facilities manager also called in to report the windows had been fixed.

So in that case, the communication worked well.

However, as we are going through a restructure, I totally forgot to inform my new deputy general manager.  So with tail between my legs, I contacted her late in the day - and was very thankful that she had been kept in the loop and totally understood when I apologised for not calling.

So while my communication had been good between my casual and I, it had fallen down between my reporting manager and I.  But we will be having a meeting about libraries and the break in on Monday.

Now back to the break in - I expect to get some hand slapping as we really shouldn't be keeping money on the premises and it should be locked up etc etc.  However, the library has been functioning this way for the last 20 odd years without a break in - honestly, why would a thief think there would be heaps of cash in a library??  We are only a small branch and I would think they were lucky to get $100 out of us.  And they went straight to where we keep the cash which means they've been in the library a few times to know where we keep it.

Retrospect is a wonderful thing and really this incident is probably a good thing because it will force us to look at our current money handling processes and make necessary changes.

And if they catch those that did the break in - I'm planning on asking to include community service in the library as punishment - because I'm sure they will enjoy spending days on end putting books in order!!! 8-)