I agree with Joan.
-- jack
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack Robertson, Foundation Librarian
The Jefferson Library, Thomas Jefferson Foundation
PO Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902
804-984-1577 || [log in to unmask]
www.monticello.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Joan Benedetti [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 7:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ArtDocComments
Dear Mr. Ditchburn:
OK. You've scared me. I shouldn't have said publicly that your job
rejections may have had to do with your personality--and I do apologize.
For
anyone on ARLIS-L that had any doubt, you are correct--I have never met you.
I based my assumption entirely on your written comments and this may have
been unfair.
However, I take strenuous issue with your implication that personality
should
not be a consideration in the hiring process. It is always a consideration
in any job anywhere, indeed, throughout life in any relationship anywhere.
To deny this is at best naive. This does not mean that one is hired "on the
basis of personality (or 'attitude') rather than knowledge." Of course,
knowledge of the appropriate subject fields, education within those fields
(i.e., degrees in librarianship and relevant subject fields as well as
appropriate internships), and prior experience all come into play in the
hiring process. But woe to the employer who hires someone without regard to
their ability to interact positively with people--library staff, faculty,
curators, general public, students, whoever one's clientele will be. Yes, I
DO want my surgeon and my lawyer and my garage mechanic to have "good
personalities." Even if all I wanted from them was their knowledge, their
ability to communicate that knowedge (and to hear my problem) can be grossly
impaired by that complex entity I flippantly referred to as "personality."
I
bet this is true even amongst Classics scholars.
Joan Benedetti
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