Management is tight fisted with opportunities for growth, and they mostly save professional development funding for themselves. For example, higher level management is heavily involved in professional organizations and are paid to do this work and get all their conference fees covered. Lower level staff are not supported to be involved in this work to the same level, and while we can request to attend conferences, attendance is not guaranteed and they do a raffle to decide who else can attend in addition to the higher level management. You also must pay for your own professional memberships. Folks are often overworked and underpaid because there is high turnover and it takes FOREVER to hire new staff. Turnover is high specifically because management micro manages everything to the point that you can’t gain experience that is vital to further your career. Instead you feel like a cog in the wheel and then they take credit for the programs you create for them. They often hire folks from other library systems into higher level manager roles specifically because they have more varied experience, but that is experience denied to current staff. They claim to want to change, but their actions show they aren’t really invested in promoting or supporting BIPOC staff when they actively avoid hiring BIPOC candidates for higher level roles. Division directors and the county and deputy county librarian are all white folks, some of which were hired largely because of who they knew/who they are related to rather than if they are actually good at their jobs. Pay will never be higher then mid-level compared to other libraries in the Bay Area. Also if you are bilingual expect for your skills to be used constantly, but to not be compensated fairly for it UNLESS you are in a bilingual designated role.
