my blogging nemesis: the elephant in the room not spoken about

When I announced the retirement of the explodedlibrary in the main blog, I wrote mainly about one reason for retiring the blog. That it was like a favourite t-shirt which had served me well over the years, but is now starting to wear out and which no longer fits me comfortably.

The other reason is more complicated. I wouldn't call it blogger's block - that's when you don't know what you want to write about. My situation is different. There's something I desperately would like to write about, such that everything else pales into insignificance, but there is absolutely no way that I can write about it publicly. It's hard to act as if something which seems so important is not happening.

I'm not going to into all the details here either, because although this bunker blog is more obscure, it is not a private space. But I can give some basic information.

It's quite commonplace, really. Mergers and acquisitions happen all the time amongst organizations associated with libraries. One's happened to MPOW. Yes, mergers and acquisitions happen all the time, but a merger amongst true equals seems to be extremely rare. There usually is a dominant party and a subordinate party. It has turned out that my place of work is on the losing end of this merger.

There is now an integration process underway. Integration after a merger is a strange process. The integration that I'm experiencing means that the subordinate party is completely disintegrated and then parts of it are absorbed into the dominant party and the rest is discarded. That is what will be happening at MPOW. No, I'm not happy about it. The process is by no means over yet, and is likely to get worse before it gets better. It will be easier for me to handle this situation and still do a good job at work if I don't have to worry about this blog as well. Maybe it will all work out for the best in the end, and this will lead to me moving to an interesting position in the other library - or a completely different employer. If that happens, I'll mention that here, and who knows, I may resume blogging at the explodedlibrary.

I was doing some research for an interesting project at work today and I stumbled across this:

55. One key element in dealing with stress is taking control. A feeling of helplessness increases stress. So take some action that reflects that you do retain some amount of control over the situation – even if that little control is only over your reaction to the stressor.  [Project Management Source]

I'm sure I could find a lot more inspiring or relevant quotes about dealing with this situation, but this one resonated with me because I found it in the course of doing my work.

To close, while the explodedlibrary is in retirement there still may be the occasional post here in this bunker blog. But this is it for now.