The scoop behind the poop on the listserv

Once a quarter I send out a super warm and polite Best Practices reminder that ends with an admonition to subscribers to be gentle with one another “as everyone has accidentally sent a message to a group that was meant for one person.” For the most part, we get along.

But every once in a while, my Admin powers are called upon.

In mid-January of this year, Awesome Librarian sent a message about the problem of “gross stuff’ in the library. Not to put too fine a point on it, but people urinating and defecating where they shouldn’t. It’s a totally legit problem that every library staff person can understand. It’s sometimes related to mental illness, sometimes to vandalism (crime), sometimes to acting out.

A Contributing Librarian commented on the post. Totally acceptable comment.

Dude Piling On 1 then posted a joke about Contributing Librarian’s town and poop. Yup, he joked about her town and about poop.

By that time my colleagues were half laughing, half concerned about Contributing Librarian. Some people thought Dude Piling On 1 MUST know her. They must be friends or he wouldn’t have dared to do it. I was dubious. It was, after all, the type of poop joke that was just dying to be told.

Time for the powers of the Admin Module. I slammed the listserv into ER moderation mode, which meant every message would need to be approved in the queue, and sent an internal memo. I needed to alert my floor that the incident was over as 1. Most of us monitor the listserv as a matter of course and the giggles were spreading like wildfire and 2. It’s our primary means of communicating to the library community so they needed to know their messages would be held up.

I used the shortcut email alias. I couldn’t remember if the state librarian was on it and didn’t take time to check. I was worried my boss was going to be down in my office pronto. Therefore, I erred on the side of caution and didn’t use the word “poop” in my email. I said that the listserv was in moderator mode and when the “feces-related posts stopped” it would go back to normal.

Then I wrote Awesome Librarian and explained that I wasn’t going to allow any more comments on this topic but that we recognized it was a real and pressing issue and this was in no way meant as a criticism of her or her original post. Then I left for the day.

When I arrived the next morning, colleagues and I discussed Awesome Librarian and her situation. Because seriously, this is a real thing. A colleague said people do want to talk about solutions to this. I said that Awesome Librarian is a good presenter and I’ve often seen her at conferences, but usually with a partner. My colleague says it would be a good idea to include an additional seasoned director. This problem involves staff management and policies: who cleans it up? Who talks to the patron? Etc. We brainstormed possibilities and I emailed Awesome Librarian and suggested Wow Library Director. She coined one of the best management lines I’ve ever heard: “Is this a problem to be solved or a conflict to be managed?”

Then I brought up the queue on my workstation. No poop messages. Cool. End of the morning I check again. No poop messages. Cool. I take the list off moderation and go to a meeting.

Get a text with a poop emoji from a colleague on my floor: it’s started again.

Dude Piling On 2 must have just arrived for work! Oh yippee! He has commented on his library’s own uniquely gross experience with poop.

OK! Time to put an end to this. I sent a message to the listserv that I am not proud of.

My grandmother would cluck her tongue, disapproving.

My mother would die of shame.

It wasn’t the first version of the message. The first version read like this:

MODERATOR INPUT

Thank you to Awesome Librarian for addressing this serious issue.

Grrrrrr Dude Piling On 1

Grrrrrr Dude Piling On 2

Now we have to monitor the list over a holiday weekend, thank you Michigan!

That last line sounded very funny in my head but I called a colleague over to double check. She read it once and said, “You can’t send that.”

“What part of it?”

“Nothing past thanking Awesome Librarian.”

I re-wrote it. As a representative of the state library. As a government employee creating a permanent record. As someone who is obtuse about poop jokes.

MODERATOR INPUT

Thank you to Awesome Librarian for addressing this serious issue.

Please note that it is a Michlib-l best practice to respond to a question on the list by sending your response solely to the original poster.

Then a colleague volunteered to monitor the listserv for the holiday weekend. Seriously? I didn’t want to check it all weekend and didn’t fight her.

And now I’m the only one in this entire story who isn’t cool. Who can’t take a joke. Who can’t “let up.” Who sends uninspired messages as a follow up to the best thing on the listserv in weeks.

Now that public libraries in Michigan are closed due to the coronavirus, I look back on this incident with great fondness, and the many others over the years that bubbled over into an “Admin moderator-level” issue: a director apologizing (but going ahead anyway) and bringing up library cats (for the perennial re-run of THAT discussion). Hastily sent admonitions about rubber bands. A request to get Bookflix back. The daily, “I have one of X, Y, or Z, who needs it?” And ten minutes later: “Thanks! It’s spoken for.”

We’ll adapt. We just will. We’ll focus on what our communities need most from us right now: workforce development. We’ll adapt and we’ll provide. Because that is what we do.