I worked at the front desk for a twenty-four-hour college library. This was a huge building — ten floors. According to my health app, it was about two miles to patrol every floor, not counting the stairs. We had a front desk separate from the checkout desk, and the phone number on our website connected to the phone at this desk.
One night, during finals season, we got a call from a woman asking if we knew where her daughter was. We did not. She then explained that she had been tracking her daughter’s phone. It hadn’t moved for the past six hours, and she was worried about her.
Me: “Well, if your daughter is a student, she’s probably studying. We have a cafe in the building as well, so she wouldn’t even have to leave the building to get food. Your daughter’s phone hasn’t moved likely because there’s no need for it to.”
Woman: “Yes, but she was supposed to text me back, and she hasn’t! You need to find her; she could be kidnapped! Call her on the PA system!”
I explained that we do not have a PA system like that. (Our PA can only do prerecorded messages.)
Woman: “Well then, just go look for her!”
This was a university library during finals week. I was not walking through ten floors and asking every study group if they knew a [Daughter] and telling her to call her mom. I am barely paid enough to do my regular patrols; I was not paid enough to do this one.
Me: “Ma’am, if you’re really worried, call the police.”
Woman: “I tried that, but they said she’s an adult!”
Me: “She’s an adult? Ma’am, how old is your daughter?”
Woman: “She’s twenty-two!”
I barely, barely managed to keep myself from saying something rude. Instead, I managed to get out something like:
Me: “Well, she’s in a library during finals week. You don’t have to worry. It’s normal for students to spend this long here. She’ll probably call you back soon.”
And I got her off the phone.
Unfortunately, this woman called back an hour later when I had been replaced by one of our student workers on the desk. This student worker was very nice, bless her, but ended up looking up the twenty-two-year-old’s information in the student directory to send her an email telling her to come to the front desk and call her mom back. Which she did. The poor girl looked humiliated.
I hope that the twenty-two-year-old realizes how much her mom crossed a line and was able to set boundaries with her. But also I hope that Mom realized how ridiculous it was to expect a twenty-two-year-old college student to be at her beck and call during finals week.
