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Antiwork

Just thought my petty AF library manager

I used to work in an academic library for this nightmare of a manager. Only 8% of our physical collection was being checked out at that time–in most fields, articles are where people get the newest research–so I'd frequently take books from the shelf, copy articles from them for my own research, and return them to the shelf by the end of the day. These were obscure books related to my very specific research (there were 10 other scholars in the country who worked on what I did) so I knew that no one else had any reason to need them immediately. When I finally quit that job to start working for myself, I discovered that my boss had been walking my books to user services during my lunch break and checking them out on my account “on my behalf.” When I confronted her about a $148 fine for a…


I used to work in an academic library for this nightmare of a manager. Only 8% of our physical collection was being checked out at that time–in most fields, articles are where people get the newest research–so I'd frequently take books from the shelf, copy articles from them for my own research, and return them to the shelf by the end of the day. These were obscure books related to my very specific research (there were 10 other scholars in the country who worked on what I did) so I knew that no one else had any reason to need them immediately.

When I finally quit that job to start working for myself, I discovered that my boss had been walking my books to user services during my lunch break and checking them out on my account “on my behalf.” When I confronted her about a $148 fine for a series of books that were currently on the shelf, she told me user services would probably permit me a one-time-only fine forgiveness gift on one of the books. I spoke to the manager of user services who laughed out loud at my manager's commitment to the rules and immediately forgave everything once she saw that books were on the shelf.

When I left, my boss told me “you never were never cut out for this job anyway,” after I'd worked for her (competently but without enthusiasm) for six years. By that time, I'd finally managed to make a much better living as a professional writer, so I went on a two-month-long vacation to Europe and posted a million pictures online knowing my on-the-verge-of-retirement work friend who hated my boss more than I did would share my pictures with her. Pretty heartwarming.

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