Learning About Management

 Log 8

Student: Austen Esch

Supervisor: Shelley Barba

 

March 7, 2025

I have Shelley take a photo of me before I enter the office of her supervisor, Joy. I will be having a discussion with Joy about the experience of being in an administrative position at a library.

              Today is the day to meet with Shelley’s supervisor, Joy. Shelley walks me to her new office since she has had to abandon her old one due to its neighboring office with a sewage leak currently being worked on. After we make it to the office, Shelley leaves, and I sit down with Joy. We talk about the responsibilities of being in a managerial position with Joy having many years of experience to share. She also shares with me her time before being in managerial possession and the impressive climb up the ranks that she has made. Joy tells me about how she was an innovator while working in the lowest positions at Texas Tech library. She tells me that documenting your work is important for proving your worth. She gives me an example in which she worries about how the CDs were being processed but was punished along with the rest of the library because she did not make a record. I came to realize that being a manager is not an easy role.

I’m overall very impressed by Joy’s journey from a lowly employee to a manager. Her hard work really paid off for her with the administrators of the university library recognizing her value. Learning about Joy’s experience inspired me to also be a hard worker once I get hired at an academic library. Shelley wanted an update afterward, and I shared these thoughts with her, which she totally agreed with, telling me that she is also inspired by Joy and her journey. Shelley then shares that Joy had actually been heavily involved during her crisis early on with the terminating of the housing company for the theses and dissertations. Joy provided both moral support and actually helped her out during this stressful time.  In fact, Shelley admits that Joy and she had cried together a couple of times due to the stress involved.

 


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