Well said Dale. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of D Ricklefs Sent: Monday, June 21, 2010 9:40 AM To: Laurie Mahaffey; [email protected] Subject: Re: [ctls-l] Texting on the job
Well, I guess that isn't good enough for me. In the "old days" we limited staff use of personal phone calls. Why? One's salary IS money. Not a really direct cost, but a cost just the same. Man, as a director who is not part of a process, I could text at least 4 hours a day, or do personal email for that matter. There is no effect to the company or city especially if I have my email on my cell and the city isn't paying for that cell. Cooped up in my office no one would be the wiser, no one shares my cell phone, and how useful is a director anyway in getting the day to day work done? How would I affect other's immediate work? To be paid this HUGE salary to sit and do personal email and text? SWEET! I have heard so many managers in the city frustrated with staff on cell phones and texting. It takes away from work that has to be done (but hard to directly measure), and even if it is a minimal affect on a team's work, add that up with 32 cell phones and texting in my library, and what becomes minimal becomes overall substandard performance. And, it ticks off the staff member who is busting his or her ____ and not on that cell phone or texting, creating animosity in the workplace. And, listening to folks in other city departments, the texters are increasingly viewed as slackers. It'll be interesting to see what happens as the 50s and 60s somethings retire-those who are very work focused and not distracted. Wonder what will happen to public and private services, and how much I'll have to pay for the cumulative effect of cell phone use and texting for personal stuff on the job. Sad, sad, sad. Dale Dale Ricklefs, Library Director Round Rock Public Library 216 E. Main Street, Round Rock, Texas 78664 512-218-7010; 218-7061 (fax); [email protected] Go to Facebook, and become a fan of Round Rock Public Library Visit our website at: http://www.roundrocktexas.gov/library We're on Twitter at RoundRockPL -------------------------------------------------------------- If you get a "mailbox full" or some form of message identifying delivery problems, please call me at one of the numbers above. Thank you! From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Laurie Mahaffey Sent: Monday, June 21, 2010 8:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ctls-l] Texting on the job The topic of employees (or summer volunteers) texting on the job has been on PUBLIB lately. Here's a thoughtful post that could be used as the basis of a policy. Laurie Message: 6 Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:07:55 -0400 From: Dale McNeill <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Publib] Texting on the job Cc: [email protected] At a library (part of a city government) where I used to work, I really liked the city-wide policy about personal communication. I don't remember the exact wording, but there were 4 principles, something like this: To determine if it's appropriate to engage in personal communication, consider these four principles: 1) Does it cost the City money directly? If so, it's not appropriate (example: long distance phone call). 2) Could it be embarrassing to the City is someone else heard you? If so, it's not appropriate. 3) Does the personal communication use resources that your colleagues are waiting to use for work purposes? If so, it's inappropriate. 4) Does the personal communication interfere with your own work or the work of your colleagues? If so, it's inappropriate. We found that these simple principles were easy for staff at all levels to understand. Obviously, many brief kinds of personal communication where allowed. And the policy didn't mention the medium of communication: it applied equally to chatting in person with friends, emailing, texting, phoning, etc. Cheers, Dale Laurie Mahaffey, Deputy Director Central Texas Library System, Inc. 1005 West 41st Street Austin, Texas 78756 www.ctls.net [email protected] 512-583-0704 x18 800-262-4431 x18
