Who’s on top?

I was at a library committee meeting earlier this week when someone said “my director doesn’t understand what happens at the bottom . . . “ It bothers me (1) that the director didn’t care and (2) that the speaker felt like he was at the bottom.

Picture an upside down triangle, balancing on its tip. It seems to me that customers are at the top, with the library workers who directly serve them directly supporting them. The aforementioned director is at the bottom, supporting the structure that provides for customer service.

Placing the director at the top suggests that library workers and customers exist to support the director, which is not so – in any service industry. The director may not know all the minute details of what happens, but I sure hope would know that it’s the director’s job to support the workers and customers who are truly at the top.