Are You Appreciated?

I'm eating ice cream as I write this, which is certainly not the least pleasant way to spend a Friday afternoon in late July.   Across the country, friends and colleagues are being greeted with pizza lunches, candy bars, games and tournaments, and the occasional opportunity to shove a pie in the face of a supervisor or vet, all while enjoying a steady stream of facebook posts telling us how great we all are.  It's National Zookeeper Week, and it has been quite a year.

Even at the roughest, crappiest, cheapest roadside zoo that I worked at, the owner still felt the need to acknowledge NWKW, if only by dropping a box of donuts of questionable freshness on the breakroom table.  That actually summed up the work environment best of all for that establishment.  "Happy Zookeeper Week.  Now eat your damn donut on your way out the door, because if I catch you in this breakroom by the time I turn around, it probably means that you don't have enough work to do."

Zookeeping is a profession that manages to capture idealists and cynics, often in the form of the same person, and I know a lot of keepers who get a little jaded this time every year.  Ice cream and pizza is nice, they say, but we could buy our own if we were paid better.  Also, we've been short-staffed for all but three weeks of the last seven years.  And how about that toxic work environment?

This got me thinking - what does it mean to actually be appreciated at work?

• Paid a reasonable wage.  No, no one goes into this field for the money.  Most zoos and aquariums are nonprofits and there are limited financial resources even in the best of times, and these certainly are not "the best of times."  I do see a lot of keepers who seem to be under the impression that their low wages are solely the result of sadistic or uncaring management, which is seldom the truth (ok, except for at the aforementioned donut place.  That guy sucked).  Still, zoos should make sure that they are paying a salary that, at the very least, lets their staff get by preferably without a second job.  Not only is it best for the keepers, but it's better for the zoo and the animals to have staff who aren't stretched to their limit.  I once watched, with horrified amazement, as a drooling coworker slept in the back of our reptile house, exhausted from a long night at his second job.  In front of him was an open tank.  Inside was a venomous snake.

• Reasonable staffing.  I worked at one zoo that gave out comp time like it was monopoly money.  After a few years, I could probably have retired, I had so much.  Of course, the reason I got so much was that I had to keep coming in to pick up extra shifts, because we were short-staffed.  And because we were short-staffed, I was never actually able to take off and use any of that time.  There should be enough staff that are well-trained enough that keepers can take off as the need to, for medical reasons, for family emergencies, or for vacation.  Yes, there may be times when the world is falling apart and three or four people have emergencies and it gets really tight - but that should be the extreme, unusual exception, not the rule for every time someone needs a day.

• Free from bullying and harassment.  You'd think this would be obvious.  Unfortunately, the animal care fields tend to attract... well, animal people.  And we aren't always the best socialized.  It's especially dangerous sometimes because people decide that, if they are (at least in their head) acting in the best interests of the animals, they are allowed to be as mean to any other employee as they want.  Management should establish an environment where people are treated with respect and where inter-staff conflicts can be addressed before they blow up and get out of hand.

• Room to grow.  I've worked at a zoo where it seemed like it was written into the charter that every new manager had to be hired from without.    The lead of one team quit?  They wouldn't even dream of promoting from their internal staff, the keepers who in some cases had been on that team for years.  They looked far and wide outside the zoo.  Not surprisingly, as soon as keepers began to get more experience, they would leave to get promotions elsewhere.  It was their only chance at advancement.  Zoos should strive to build up their staff by offering training and mentoring.  Not every keeper is going to be able to get promoted - but everyone should have the chance to prove themselves, to grow professionally, and to at least have the opportunity for advancement in the workplace.

• Having a voice.  Keepers are the frontline staff of the zoo.  They deserve a voice in the decisions that are made and the direction that the zoo goes in.  Management should be willing to listen to them.  By "listen" I mean, "hear out and give fair consideration to," not "do whatever they say."  Management often have a more complete picture of the zoo's overall situation, such as budget and resources, and many curators and directors got where they are based on their experience, which may be more extensive than the keeper's.  They may hear the keeper out and still decide to go in a different direction.  But they owe it to everyone involved, themselves included, to give themselves a full understanding of the situation, and that includes the keeper perspective.

Zookeeping is a tough job - physically, mentally, emotionally, financially.   Even the best managers can't fix everything with a wave of a magic wand, but they can do what is in their power to give the staff the best work environment in which they can thrive.

And a little ice cream and pizza never hurt, either.