"That dusty old dust/ keeps rollin' along"

As loath as I am to jump into this morass again (due to his supporters' vocal and obviously blind faith in his abilities and ideals), Michael McGrorty's done it again. His latest post, found here, is a scolding of the librarians he professes to love so much, based on the hiring practices used in most public library systems. While his entire rant might be completely written off as the ravings of a man whose grapes have turned exceedingly sour, unfortunately it is also ignorant to the ways of the world, and offensive to those people who work very hard to find good candidates for their limited job openings.
McGrorty notes at the outset that he is not a good interviewee, although I would point out that he has apparently had ample opportunities to practice; he is clearly not one to bend his notion of what is right or sensible to accommodate others' points of view. "Generally, when they ask me those idiotic questions--you know, the ones like, 'What would you do if a patron came to the desk and was very angry about a kid using the Internet,' I tend to treat them like idiotic questions, and I probably look like it as well."
Gee, Michael, do you think it might be possible that the person who wrote that question may indeed be sitting opposite from you? It's not that big a wonder you are still unemployed . . . And regardless of whether you think that is an "idiotic" question, these kinds of "situational questions" are drawn from real-life episodes, and the managers who are judging your potential worth as a professional working for them are interested in seeing how you handle yourself. Customer service, which is a large part of librarianship, requires an inordinate amount of self-control, and treating a patron's actual question as "idiotic" is a quick way to involve not just you, but your entire library in an (at best) embarrassing lawsuit.
McGrorty continues his paragraph, "I am not good at concealing amusement, and it is not beyond me to inquire whether the panel is satisfied that such questions reveal the better candidates. Among librarians there is a saying that there are no dumb questions; most likely those who say this have never served on an interview panel."
Get a freaking clue! Librarians say that there are no dumb questions because we must have that attitude when dealing with the public. We are trying to encourage people to use our resources and thereby prove our continued worth to a society that wants to eliminate us. Part of the interview process is, at least in your case, Michael, figuring out ways of answering even the most practical of queries intelligently and equably, because in this way the managers can reasonably assess your ability to do so at the desk. Treating the process as some sort of joke provides a big hint to those whom you are presumably trying to impress that you are not serious about their profession.
McGrorty posits that librarians have no actual standards of conduct, which has resulted in our hiring practices being determined by non-professionals. "The hiring rules and procedures for librarians in many parts of this land were established by default: the libraries simply did nothing to maintain their own systems and the county or the municipality stepped in and took over. Librarianship has engaged in a century-long debate with itself over standards, yet somehow come away without any decent examinations for the job?at least that hiring authorities accept."
Even given that McGrorty offers no references or citations for his assertion--just another odd bugaboo that librarians, in addition to any responsible writers or researchers, are required to provide--the fact remains that public libraries are, well, public. We are funded by the cities, townships, counties, etc., and that means that they have an obvious stake in what goes on inside our walls. Why shouldn't they have a say in how our professionals are hired? The whole notion of "civil service" was to reduce the chances of political corruption, but it plays out in our arena as a curb on nepotism or cronyism. (Check out the old, but still useful Outlawing the Spoils and the newer Politics of Civil Service Reform.) Allowing "outsiders" (as McGrorty calls these funding bodies) to at least oversee our hiring process is the price we pay for not having to defend the institution from lawsuits every time a new librarian is hired. Ideal? Maybe not. Cause for condemnation and ridicule? Certainly not.
McGrorty then shows his solipsism and grandiosity once again by assuming that all people are as smart as he is:
I fear for the future of any library system whose professionals are sifted from the mass of humanity on the basis of questions like: 'If you were to be assigned to a children's [sic] section, what sort of preparation would you undertake for the work?' Mind you, I have chosen the very best of the questions--one that can actually be answered with some reference to materials and processes. But there is no need to have attended library school to answer even this question; what normal human being would not respond, 'To begin with, I'd have to undertake a review of children's [sic] reading materials at all levels, including reference works, and the subject guides to these as well. I would also consult with the children's [sic] librarians of my acquaintance, and of course with those employed at this library.' I have a couple of terriers at home who could probably have given that answer. And they, like me, never took a class in children's [sic] librarianship.
Michael, if your terriers could have given those answers, then you should have had them do your interviews for you. It's obvious to me that you have virtually no idea how little understood our profession is by the general public, making it wonderfully clear to me that you will probably never be hired to work as a public librarian. Is there a reason why you've chosen to denigrate this completely lucid answer to the question? Do you have any notion that the vast majority of people in the world don't know the difference between a "reference work" and a "novel", and therefore wouldn't know the first thing about how to actually decide what books to purchase following any rationale? Do you really think so little of this profession that you think any "normal human being" can do this job? That's what you're saying here . . .
Screw you, pal. The librarians I work with and know take a great deal of pride in themselves and the jobs they do for little or no recognition beyond the internal pats on the back we give each other. Calling the hiring process a "farce" or "dust and fluff" is marking you as more than a malcontent who can't get a job; you're belittling the efforts not only of the questioners, but also those of us who have pursued this career seriously enough to answer those questions you think so little of. Take your snide self-aggrandisement and cram it.
And before all the McGrorty groupies come all unglued and flame me mercilessly, telling all about what a scumbag I am for calling him out, let me say this: I don't want to hear from anyone who has not worked with him personally, ok? Because every single person I know that has worked with him, and that number is probably in the teens by now, thinks little of him, to put it nicely.