I have another story from That Library In Ohio, where this story and this story happened, among others.

It’s a frigid winter day, and we are in the middle of getting hammered by a blizzard. I get up early and attempt to shovel my driveway. The snow is about two feet deep at this point, and it takes three shovelfuls of snow just to clear a one-foot-by-one-foot square to the concrete. I constantly check my phone while I work, figuring it’s only a matter of time before the library closes due to the weather. Every single local school in the area has long since closed; some did last night.

Instead, I (and the rest of the library staff) get an email from our director. 

Director: “I just drove into work, and I was able to do it fine. Since I could do it, you can all do it. The library will remain open so the children have a place to go today. I expect everyone to arrive promptly for their shifts.”

I let out some very library-inappropriate language. There was a travel advisory out for the whole county. Plus, I had just reached the end of my driveway. The plows hadn’t even been down my road ONCE. There were two feet of snow down the entire residential street until the main road. No one else had attempted to drive it; there was not a single tire tread to be seen. And more snow is falling by the moment.

Maybe it was possible for [Director] to get to work. She had a massive SUV beast of a machine with four-wheel drive. The vast majority of the rest of us, me included, drove little sedans. It was about all we could afford. You don’t get rich working at a library — unless you’re a director.

At this point, I just propped my shovel against the siding, took a picture of my street, and contacted my immediate boss. I told her it was literally impossible for me to leave my residence right now. The snow in the road was EVEN WITH MY CAR DOOR. Even if I had left right then, between the roads and likely getting stranded, I never would have made it in time for my shift. 

(It’s worth mentioning that [Director] was also the type of boss who would write us up for being one single second late clocking in. She made it so difficult that I have multiple accounts from coworkers who realized they were going to be late while en route to their shift and simply turned around, went home, and called off sick because there was less backlash for doing so.)

This might be the only time my immediate boss supported my decision. But perhaps she knew I would have contacted the union over safety issues had she tried to force me to come in.

I wasn’t the only one. [Director]’s inbox was immediately flooded with messages from my coworkers who were in similar situations to mine and simply could not physically get to the library at all. [Director] wound up having to close for the day, not because of the weather (her words) but because she didn’t have enough staff to open the building.

Related:
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Look Up Some Books On Work/Life Balance

Our library rents its space from a community centre. One of the many services we provide is that we have a few study rooms that can be borrowed for a few hours at a time by organisations that need a meeting room.

A couple of years ago, we were contacted by a non-profit adult education organisation who asked if they could borrow our largest study room for a few hours once a week for a class they were giving. We said sure, no problem. They asked to come see the room, and the following conversation happened.

Educator: “No, this is much too small. We need a room for about twenty-five to thirty students and a teacher, as well. Don’t you have any larger rooms?”

Me: “Sorry, this is the largest room we have. We have a couple of others, but they’re all smaller.”

They looked around the library as if hoping another room would magically manifest itself.

Educator: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, I’m sure. This is all of the library you’re looking at right now.”

Educator: “Because I know there’s a large auditorium in the building…”

Me: “Yes, that belongs to the community centre. If you want to rent that, just talk to them.”

Educator: “They don’t loan it out for free, though.”

Me: “Afraid not.”

Educator: “Well, we can’t afford that. What if we move that wall?”

Me: “Pardon?”

Educator: *Points to the wall of the meeting room* “I know there’s another meeting room right next to this one. If we take out that wall, we’d have one big meeting room instead of two small ones.”

Me: “Well, first of all, that other meeting room belongs to the community centre, so you’d have to pay rent for it. Second, that wall is a solid brick wall, and taking it out would require a major renovation of the building.”

The educator looked hopefully at the — I cannot stress this enough — BARE RED BRICK WALL.

Educator: “Are you sure?

Me: “I’m pretty sure that’s a load-bearing wall, so yeah.”

Educator: “Oh. Well, if this is the best you can offer, I guess this room will have to do if they really squeeze together. So, can we book it for two hours every Wednesday?

Me: “Of course.”

Come Wednesday, about half the number of promised students showed up. The teacher that the educator had booked never turned up, though, and we had to deal with the students’ understandable anger at this. We tried to get in touch with the educator but never heard back, and we cancelled the future bookings.

I am a small village librarian, and I also live in the small village where I work, which means that, to many of the locals, I’m simply “The Librarian”.

A regular patron comes in one morning, furious about having received a late notice. He is adamant that he returned his magazine. Mistakes happen, so I go to check the shelf, as well as any other possible place it could have ended up.

Me: “I’m so sorry, but we can’t find this anywhere. How about I just renew the loan for you, so you can double-check at home and we can double-check here?”

Patron: “No! I know I returned it to you! I got the reminder message two days ago, and I walked over and returned it as soon as I got it!”

Then, I have a small epiphany. [Patron] lives a few houses down from me. Postal service in the past few years has been a joke, and I don’t rely on it any more than I have to. Post is delivered three times a week at best, so unless I’m waiting for a delivery, I only check my mailbox once a week.

Me: “[Patron], did you leave this in my private mailbox?”

Patron: “Of course I did! Why should I have to walk all the way here just to return a magazine?”

I went home and checked my mail, and yes, the magazine was there. [Patron] was told to use the library’s overnight return slot in the future.

I’m a disaster responder (and admittedly a bit of an adrenaline junkie). The other day, I was part of an annual drill involving a local facility and several dozen different agencies — state EMA, health department, law enforcement, Red Cross, etc. It was pretty intense and excellent training.

This afternoon, I stopped by our public library to pick up an interlibrary loan. The librarian is a friend of mine.

Librarian: “How did your training go yesterday?

Me: “It was great! We crashed a passenger plane into the nuclear power plant in the next county.”

Horrified Voice From The Stacks: “What do you do for a living?”

I am a librarian in a large public library in a town with a lot of problems. Public services are difficult to access, there is a lot of poverty, and there are issues with drug problems and crime.

We get our fair share of enraged, violent, or just bizarre people in our library, but we also get a lot of people who want us to give them services we can’t provide, such as legal advice.

Part of my training when I took the job was on what we are and aren’t legally able to do in these situations. I got pretty good at handling this and at defusing the tempers of the people involved.

I am tending the reference desk by myself one afternoon, not long after the schools have finished for the day, when an already-angry woman comes in, dragging her seven- or eight-year-old daughter by the arm. She pulls the kid over to my desk, pushes her into the chair, points at her, and says:

Woman: “Acid reflux! Now!”

Then, she folds her arms and stares at me. Unfortunately, I am accustomed to being asked for information in such a manner, so I turn to my computer to start looking it up in the catalogue.

Me: “We have books on acid reflux specifically or broader books with sections on—”

Woman: “I don’t want a book! I want you to tell me when it stops!”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Woman: “My daughter has acid reflux, and I want you to tell me when it’ll stop! Hurry up, we need to get the bus!”

Me: “Well, you’d need to see a doctor for that. They could refer you to a specialist if—”

Woman: “I already went to the doctor, you idiot!”

Me: “…”

Woman: “That’s how I know what’s wrong with her. But the bloody doctor said he didn’t know how long it’d take to go away, so you’re going to look it up on the Internet! Now!”

While she’s been speaking, I’ve already looked up “acid reflux” on the web, as I didn’t know what exactly it was. Straight away, I get a National Health Service page that I quickly see says that it’s difficult to predict how long the symptoms are going to last.

Me: “I don’t have the medical training to tell you anything more about your daughter’s condition than your doctor can, but I’m looking at the NHS website and—”

Woman: “Her name’s [Daughter]. What does it say about her?”

Me: “It doesn’t say anything about her. It’s not a list of patient information; it’s just a site of advice about the condition.”

Woman: “The Internet tells you everything! You’re as stupid as that f****** doctor! Tell me what the Internet says about my daughter! It must know!”

By this point, she is fully screaming at me, spittle flying, and bright red in the face, and our one security guard is heading towards my desk.

Me: *Trying to placate her* “Ma’am, did your doctor give you any advice?”

Woman: “He told me her home life was too f****** stressful! What could stress her? She’s f****** seven!”

I immediately looked at the girl, and she was huddled up in the chair looking utterly miserable. I felt so sorry for her. Before I could say anything else, my manager and the security guard made up their minds about what to do and escorted the woman out of the library, the daughter trailing along behind them.

Not a very satisfying story in itself, but about a week later, a couple of police officers came to meet with my manager, accompanied by a woman I recognised as a social worker. They were given some of our CCTV footage, asked me a couple of questions about the woman, and left, so hopefully, things got better for the daughter.