Their Job Is A Full-Time (Dis)Appointment

I work for circulation at a large academic library on a college campus. While some places on campus employ student workers, my position is actually staff; I don’t have to be enrolled in classes, and I receive benefits, retirement, decent pay, etc.

One day, a patron comes up to the desk to check out some items.

Patron: “You work so many hours here!”

Me: “I work full-time here.”

Patron: “What kind of a course-load are you taking?”

Me: “Oh, I actually graduated from here a year ago.”

Patron: “Oh! This is your job.”

The rest of the transaction was awkwardly quiet. I didn’t quite know how to respond because our library is much too large to have volunteers, and even if I had been a student worker, this still would have been my job!