I'll have none of that language, not even through a brown paper parcel

A strange day. For once I've been crosser with the staff than the managers. To explain I must make something clear from the onset:

No job cuts have been announced yet in the library service; council has said they want to keep all the libraries open and none of our staff has yet been told they will be being made redundant.

I'll repeat that:

No job cuts have been announced yet in the library service; council has said they want to keep all the libraries open and none of our staff has yet been told they will be being made redundant.

The scythes are flashing round parts of Helminthdale Council and have been doing for months but

No job cuts have been announced yet in the library service; council has said they want to keep all the libraries open and none of our staff has yet been told they will be being made redundant.

So we have a touch of the dooms. Not helped by what few words filter out from The Bunker: nothing can be done because "they" (it's always "they") will "probably decide to cut" whatever is under discussion. And Doreen has spent the past two months telling anyone who'll listen (and many who won't) that she's not long for this world.

Milton, to his credit, is at least going out and about trying to start new things going and encouraging staff to take any opportunities going for personal or professional development. He drives me barmy because we're supposed to be working as a team and I'm finding out too much of this as an afterthought but at least he's doing something constructive most of the time. Other than that, the word is that we are doomed.

Staff are naturally dismayed and worried. Which is fair enough. I'm not, which is also fair enough. It could be my Quixotic nature, it could be sheer bloody-mindedness or it could be that I think if something's worth fighting for when the things are relatively easy it's worth fighting for when the shit hits the fan. But I entirely accept that people are going to be dismayed and worried, especially when what passes for leadership is as feckless and supine as ours as been lately. T.Aldous, and to a far lesser extent Mary, would at least have been arguing the case for the library service long and loud, however ill-advisedly or ineptly. Even dear old Reggie Clockwatcher, who was a lovely man but a shockingly weak manager, would have been making the effort. But... But... And so staff are dismayed and worried.

I do draw the line when they decide that despite the lack of objective evidence they are actually doomed and there is nothing that anybody will or can say that they will listen to that will contradict this.

No. We're not doing that. We don't have the spare time, space or energy for that.

So I got cross. And pinned their ears back. Which they didn't like. Nor would I have done in their shoes if I'm being honest but I'm not letting them do it. If senior managers decide that they are doomed, that's up to them. If senior managers try to sell staff down the river to buy their own safety, that's despicable and I'll say so and I'll fight it. But I am not having staff undermining themselves and their colleagues and, effectively, selling themselves down the river.

And I said so.

We'll all calm down, because we do in the end, and we'll see what we can do despite the organisational culture, because that's also what we do. And if things do get really bloody we'll do what we can and we'll care and we'll support and we'll hope for the best because that's what we would want to do if it came to that. But if it really does come to that I don't want people compounding their injuries by already having undervalued themselves and their contribution to the service.