In middle school, my class takes a field trip to a major government library to research a history project. It’s worth mentioning that at the time, I am a bit of a punk-y tomboy. They have some very sensitive and valuable documents inside, so everyone is required to go through a metal detector before they can enter.

Most of the class goes through with only minor hiccups, like forgotten change or house keys. Then I go through. The detector beeps, and I’m confused because I only have a cheap necklace on that I was sure wouldn’t set it off, but I remove it anyway and try again. Again, the machine beeps.

This prompts me to have to go through every pocket I have — quite a few as I like wearing cargo pants — and after a few more failures I even leave my emptied coat with the guard. Still no luck. Finally, they break out a wand to try to pinpoint the issue. The wand is silent until they get to my shoes, where it starts beeping madly, and I realize with horror that I completely forgot that the boots I’m wearing are steel-toed. The guards immediately break out laughing, as no one even considered the idea that petite, blond, thirteen-year-old me would be wearing men’s work boots.

I wasted about fifteen minutes of everyone’s time in the end, and my classmates teased me for weeks about being a shoe-bomber. At least they didn’t take my boots from me!

(I am a volunteer at my local library. I shelve books and organize the shelves, and have been doing so for the past three years. On occasion, while I am shelving, someone will come up to me and ask for directions to a specific book, or something minor, and they are always polite. Today is… different. I have a couple of audio CDs to put away, and there is a somewhat elderly lady standing in front of the shelf that I need to put the CDs away on. I wait for about a minute, and she shows no sign of leaving.)

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am, I’ll just be a moment. I need to put these away.”

(She moves to the side. I leave one of them on the top of the shelf and put the other away, as they have different codes, and then stand back up to reach for the first one.)

Lady: “You shouldn’t do that.”

Me: “Sorry? Do what?”

Lady: “You shouldn’t ask patrons to move. That’s very rude. You ought to wait.”

Me: “I apologize for the inconvenience, but I need to put these away.”

Lady: “No, no, no, you need to wait. Did they not train you at all?”

Me: “Ma’am, I’ve been here for three years—“

(She moves back in front of the shelf, blocking where I need to put the other CD away. I shut up and wait a minute. Again, she shows no sign of leaving, and I start to become irritated.)

Me: “Ma’am, I really need to put this away.”

Lady: “I don’t care. You need to wait for me to finish.”

Me: “I don’t have time to wait, ma’am; I have other books to put away, as well. Now, please, I’ll just be a moment.”

Lady: “Well, I never!” *storms off in a huff*

(Meanwhile, another volunteer has been standing not ten feet away, listening to the whole thing. As I finally put away the CD and pass her on the way back, she rolls her eyes in the direction of the lady.)

Co-Volunteer: “Some people.”

Me: “Tell me about it.”

The library has a light therapy lamp for winter blues. On this day, I’d been specifically planning to use the lamp, and I’d been having a bit of a bad day, so it was pretty important to me. Usually, no one is using it, but when I got there, there were people sitting in both of the seats. I waited ten or fifteen minutes and then asked them how long they planned to use the lamp; there’s a sign on the lamp asking patrons to limit their use if there are people waiting to use it.

They said they were going to be there a while. I told them I was hoping to use the light therapy lamp for a little bit; they muttered a few things, and while I didn’t catch the exact words, the general gist was that they weren’t moving.

I wasn’t assertive enough to press the issue or show my displeasure, but I was pretty upset, since they’d clearly been there for a while before I even got there, and I suspected they weren’t even using the lamp for light therapy. I was also angry at myself, for not being assertive both in that situation and in general.

I wanted to ask a librarian for help, but I was too nervous to, both because I didn’t want to be “that person” and because I was afraid the two patrons would overhear and get mad at me. But a few minutes later, one of the librarians, who had apparently noticed the situation, came up to me and offered to move the lamp to where I was. Presumably, those two patrons didn’t actually need it; I suppose they were only attached to the seats.

I was really surprised and really grateful to her for doing that. She helped make my bad day a lot better, especially since using the lamp was the last thing I planned to do before I went home. She also would have had to approach those two patrons to ask if they were all right with her taking the lamp, which came with a risk of them getting mad at her. And she did that on her own initiative, without being asked at all.

I’ve always liked the librarians here, but this is really going to stand out for me.

(My town was founded as two towns back in the lumber baron days, and was made into one much later. Residents still know and refer to the areas on either side of the bridges over the river as “East Side” or “West Side.” This is important whenever giving directions, for example. It is my day to work the circulation desk at the library, and part of that includes fielding phone calls. I pick one up about halfway through the day.)

Me: “Circulation desk. This is [My Name] speaking. How may I help you?”

Caller: “Hello! I was hoping to get some directions to the library!”

Me: “Certainly! Our address is [address]. Does that sound familiar?”

Caller: “Not really…”

Me: “Hmm, well, are you East Side or West Side?”

Caller: “What?”

Me: “East [City] or West [City]? I can give you directions based off of that.”

Caller: “There’s an East and West [City] now?”

Me: “Er, as long as I’ve lived here… in [City], Michigan.”

Caller: *starts laughing!* “Oh, my God!”

Me: “What is it?”

Caller: “I meant to call the [Same City], Oregon library!”

Me: *starts laughing as well* “Yes, our library would be a bit of a drive!”

(We both had a good laugh about the mix-up. I wished her luck in her endeavor and spent the rest of my shift in a lighter mood!)

(Some variation of this happens regularly, but this user really tried EVERYTHING.)

User: “Hi, I think there’s been some mistake. You sent me a bill for an overdue book, but I don’t have any books at home.”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that. Let me just check your account.” *I pull up his account* “It says here you have several books at home, but only [Title] is overdue. Since it should have been returned two months ago and we sent you several reminders, we’ve sent you a bill for it.”

User: “Well, yeah, I have a few books at home, but not [Title]. I’ve never even heard of that book, and I certainly didn’t borrow it.”

Me: “Are you sure?”

User: “100%.”

Me: “Because it was borrowed using your library card—“

User: “Then someone must have stolen it.”

Me: “—and I see here you called twice to extend the loan as well.”

User: “Oh… Can I see a picture of the cover? Hmmm. Well, maybe I did borrow that one. But I know I returned it.”

Me: “Well, we have no record of it being returned, but let me check the shelf just to be sure.”

(I walk away and check the shelf. The book’s not there.)

Me: “No, sorry. Do you know when and where you returned it?”

User: “Weeks ago. I dropped it through the overnight slot.”

Me: “That’s strange; books in the overnight slot are always recorded as returned the next morning. Tell you what, I’ll keep an eye out for it in case something went wrong with the return, but if you could check once more at home? If the book is returned, obviously we’ll waive the bill.”

User: “Okay…”

(He walks off. Two minutes later, he comes back.)

User: “I just remembered, it wasn’t me who returned it, but my wife. So you must have returned it from her account.”

Me: “That shouldn’t matter. We don’t check ID when people return books, and anyway, didn’t you say she dropped it in the overnight slot? When we record a return, it’s always returned from the account that borrowed it.”

User: “But maybe you wrote in the wrong user name?”

Me: “We don’t write anything in manually when we return a book. We just scan the chip in the book.”

User: “Okay…”

(He walks off. Two minutes later, he comes back.)

User: “Oh, I just remembered. This book comes with a CD, and I’m sure that when you recorded the return, you forgot to write in that the CD was returned as well, so the system doesn’t show the book as returned. But we returned both.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how that would even happen. If that was what happened, the system would still show the book as returned.”

User: “But maybe you simply wrote in the wrong title?”

Me: “As I said, we don’t write anything when a book is returned. It’s all done with scanners.”

User: “Okay…”

(He walks off. Two minutes later, he comes back with a book.)

User: “Here, look, it was on the shelf the whole time.”

Me: “That’s strange, I couldn’t find it earlier.” *I check the barcode* “No, I’m afraid this isn’t the book you borrowed. This is a different copy of the same book.”

User: “But it’s the same book!”

Me: “No, it’s the same title, but a different book. We have several copies of the book, since it’s very popular. The one you borrowed is still unaccounted for.”

User: “Okay…”

(He walks off. Two minutes later, he comes back.)

User: “Look, I really don’t believe that you have more than one copy of this book, it’s not even very good. This is clearly the one I borrowed.”

Me: “We actually have four copies.” *I pull up the catalogue and turn the screen for him to see* “See? Two are checked out by other users, one is here, and one is checked out by you and two months overdue.”

User: “Who are the other users?”

Me: “I’m sorry, I really can’t tell you that. But like I said, I’ll check to see if I can find it here, and if you could check at home as well?”

User: “Okay…”

(He walked off. The next morning, the book was in the overnight slot.)