LibrarianStress

Did we mention that people skills are really, really important for librarians? But even those with the most stellar of skills can’t escape the stress of dealing with often-frustrated library patrons.

Those wild-goose-chase research projects — “why is there air here and not there??” — that have no solution, never had, and never will. And you get blamed if you come up with nothing, nada, zilch.

Take library fines, for example. The source of the highest decibels in library land is the voice of an apoplectic patron, screaming that he shouldn’t be changed a cent for a book that “forgot” to return itself for two weeks.

Library card renewal. Not so simple. What???? Yells an erstwhile card-holder. I have to pay two years’ worth of unpaid fines to get my card renewed? Let me talk to your supervisor!!

Things like that. And we won’t point out the obvious stress of working with folks who, on a good day, may be described as “unique” or “idiosyncratic.”