The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 16

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For Better or the Worse

Day: In the Light of Day
Weather: Four seasons in one day

The new academic year didn’t really fare well for the academics. Shortly a month into the new semester, two prominent teachers at the drama school decided to quit. Danielle Lazarus, one of the voice teachers responsible for first year voice training decided that she had enough of the craziness from Succubus and submitted her high profile resignation – through a mass email. Succubus, well known for having no appreciation for voice work and reckons if audience can’t hear the actors on stage, she can simply mic them, gladly accepted her resignation. She then sent another mass email to all staff saying that Danielle has accepted an invitation to her farewell party to be announced at a later date for her contribution to the drama school in the last 15 years. Her high profile move was then backfired when Danielle, to Succubus’ surprise, replied with another mass email to all staff saying that she had never accepted the invitation and was amused that someone couldn’t understand the simple English word “No”. Publicly humiliated, Succubus sent another email to all saying that from now on anyone who wants to send all staff email has to get her prior approval or otherwise risk disciplining actions from her. On Danielle’s last day, Succubus sent a bunch of flowers to Danielle to show there were no ill feelings between them. However, later during the day, Danielle noticed that the vase holding the flowers was actually defective and water was leaking all over her stuff. In response to Succubus’ friendly move, Danielle sent one last all staff email thanking Succubus for the flowers and hoped that the leaking vase wouldn’t cost the drama school too much to replace the carpet in her office. Caught out again publicly, Succubus asked the IT guy to take the all staff distribution list offline completely. Danielle was snapped up by the second biggest theatre company in the city as their in house voice coach immediately after.

Shortly after Danielle’s resignation, Luke McPherson, one of acting teachers there, decided to go too. He was sick of the change of curriculum from actual production experience into street theatres that jeopardise students’ learning from actual work. Under Succubus new curriculum direction, students will not be involved in any real productions until the second half of the second semester in their second year. Luke, who was passionate about students learning on the job to identify their shortcoming, was vigorously against this change. As a result, Succubus took him offline from the curriculum board and just assigned regular teaching duties with minimum hours with students – to avoid a bad influence on students’ mentality. When some third year students knew that, they called for a student council meeting to support Luke. Succubus, as iron-fist as she was, sent a mass email to all saying that if any student was found to organising activities without her approval, they risked expulsion even if they were in their third year – something the drama school will never do. Angry by her move, Luke file a grievance report to the board and to the Employment Ombudsman citing unfair and groundless bullying activities at the drama school. His filing caught the attention of the media and with the Board questioning Succubus on the bad publicity and her recent splash of cash for her own use, Succubus backed down to seek a settlement. Finally Succubus was made to send an apology to all staff and students over the misjudgement she made and apologised to Luke. Although Luke had scored a victory on this matter, he decided to go after the city biggest Theatre Company noticed the saga and offered him a job as the acting coach for their resident company actors. When I ran into Rena, another voice teacher there the other day, she said there the drama school’s standard is on the blink of collapsing. Probably Succubus will seek to get rid of all voice teachers there in the next year or so.

Back to the Library front, things were quiet for quite a while until one day my boss told Claire and I that we are going to a local conference at the end of next month. The conference is about application of modern technology in information services. Claire and I were fairly surprised by the notification but we gladly accepted the offer. Eva, however, was not that happy. She immediately started a personal campaign hoping to undermine Sonia’s decision by going around telling people about favouritism in the organisation. She even went to the HR manager to whinge about it. Basically she was complaining about that it is not fair full time ongoing staff like her were not chosen for the conference but part-timers and contract staff like Claire and I were chosen instead. At first people were trying to be nice to her and empathised her but then after two weeks of a campaign with a size bigger than the Academy Awards rallying, people started to get sick of her. Finally today at the tearoom, when she was saying out loudly “I don’t know why people like him, who isn’t even committed to the profession, should be given that chance.” Another manager overheard her statement, went over to her and said, “Just ask yourself, when did you last finish a project without screwing up? That’s why”.

Eva was shocked by that manager’s public comment. She immediately sculled (and choked on) her tea and left the room.

However, the damaged was done. Some of the staff members who have lower IQ bought Eva’s view and she had now successfully recruited a group of minions. Claire and I knew that the year ahead would not be easy with Eva.