lines of communication

this branch has been closed since mid-July. now, imagine how many new books, movies, CDs, etc come out each month. alot. every month central orders certain items for us and then we supplement this with our own orders. so we have about two months worth of stuff that central ordered for us that we should have gotten here. but it is not here. "where is it" you ask? good question. we don't know! now, i hate to say this ... but i think the only logical conclusion is that it was stolen. i'm sorry, and i'm certainly not accusing anyone in particular. but where else could it be?
the library manager has said that it was supposed to be held at the vendor's until we reopen. so i ask her, "oh, did the vendor say that they shipped it to us?"
she replied, "i don't know what the vendor says because i'm not allowed to call the vendor."
yes, that's right. the manager of the library is not allowed to call the vendor to ask where our items are.
are they still at the vendor's?
were they shipped to central?
were they then stolen from central?
are they still sitting at central in a dark corner somewhere waiting to be rediscovered?
who knows? we don't know because thanks to the ever-efficient chain of command we are not allowed to ask anyone who is actually directly related to this issue. we have to wait for the higher-ups to poke around and figure it out and then report back. assuming, of course, that they remember to. since it really isn't any concern of theirs since they are up at "central" and we are here in the hood and we will have to deal with irate patrons wondering why we don't have any new dvds.
motivated self-interest: we will have to deal with the results of this problem, therefore we are the most motivated to solve said problem. yet we are the only ones not involved.