An attitude

Many of us have attitudes. Having an attitude is one of the pleasures of work. Like wine, however, it must be rooted in genuine grievances, and must be aged and corked sufficiently to be justified and respected.

New employees, especially pages, who walk into the library with attitudes should be avoided. Many of our younger friends who have attitudes from day one are like the six month old wine being advertised as fresh fruity reisling in the liquor stores. No depth, no true resonance.

The doctors on MASH had attitude, and deservedly so. Civilians giving up lucrative medical practices to work in the field at twenty hour shifts saving lives. Just let some general try to take away their still.

Children's librarians sometimes have attitudes because they usually do more work than the rest of the staff and they know they could leave on Monday and have five job offers on Tuesday. At higher salaries. At least that's what they believe.


Clothing can be used to express attitude. An invaluable employee who wears a t-shirt and jeans tells his supervisors not to mess with him. The rest of the goody two shoes envy the t-shirt wearing employees but stick to their ties and heels because they lack attitude.

Computer specialists often develop attitudes in libraries. Surrounded by staff who think bios is a term used in civil rights cases they can solve your problems but they will do it if and when it suits them. I knew one librarian who smirked "I'm the only one on this staff who knows beans about Windows. I'll feel sorry for this staff if I ever leave." When he left they replaced Windows with Linux.