Did you ever have a dream?

I'm in one of my "what on Earth is the point?" moods and trying not to sulk in my tent. Over the past few months we, like so many other public library authorities, have been undergoing a "whole-service change process." In our case the change has been that Policy Team has been even less communicative than ever. I'll probably get into trouble if I wheel out the Ouija board one more time for a lark.

Meanwhile, those of us in the lesser management echelons have been charged with getting on with a few smaller projects to prove to the world that we're as capable as we keep saying that we are. We are not covering ourselves with jam and glory...

To support these projects I offered to build some shared workspaces so that we could work collaboratively without having the rigmarole of having to arrange meetings and then having to reschedule each one ad infinitum because of problems with the enquiry desk rotas. Simple stuff that you, dear reader, well know how to do because you're clever enough to be able to read a blog and comment thereon and are comfortable with the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Or at least prepared to give it a go and see if it's any use. I pulled together all the background materials, links to all the necessary, etc. and circulated the details and the links to a whole bunch of people, including all the Assistant Librarians.
Use of shared workspace over two months? None.

Not that the meetings work any better, either. A couple of months ago I had a meeting with Bronwyn, Maybelle and Frog to look at ways I could support their project working, especially given how often we end up recreating the wheel whenever pieces of work are undertaken in this organisation. It was a good meeting and I came out of it feeling that we'd done some good work and there was a lot of potential for the future. I wrote the notes up and asked them to check them out and that if they were happy with them I'd pass on a copy to Milton to see if we could build a few ties-in with some of the other work Milton and I are working on this year. Nada, even after re-sending them. I could, and should, ask each of them if they're OK with the notes and passing them on but I'm feeling stubborn about it. They're really, really busy and running round like blue-arsed flies so I completely understand why they've not had time to get back to me about it. But I can't help feeling disappointed that we can't do better than Policy Team. I have high hopes of these people and don't want them to turn into Policy Team, they could be so very much better than that.

And I can't help feeling it personally, despite everything.