The Classifieds Bully

A lot of people that come through the library are job hunting. Most people use modern-day techniques like monster.com and online applications, but the patron who I like to call "The Classifieds Bully," takes the old-fashioned route--the newspaper. That's actually how I found my job, so I'm definitely not anti-classifieds. I am, however, anti-bullies.

This patron is obviously not having much luck finding a job, though, because she has come in almost daily for several months and has a permanent line in between her eyebrows and a definite line of disgust across her face. I can confidently say I have never seen the woman smile. Not even a slight smirk.

If you're like me, you are starting to feel sorry for her and hope that her life starts to improve. This feeling of sympathy started to diminish a bit after I tried to assist her one day early one in her job-hunting process.

In our library, the classifieds and job section of the newspaper are kept behind the circulation desk because we have had problems with those sections disappearing. So, we ask to hold patrons' driver's license while they look at these sections. We WILL send the library police out to get you.

She came up one afternoon with her license in hand and asked for Sundays classifieds. I dug through the stack and handed her the classifieds from Sunday--that's what she asked for, right? Not right...

Her: "These aren't right."

Me: "I'm sorry. You said you wanted Sundays classifieds, correct? See, this says 'Sunday' here." I pointed to the date in an attempt to convince her these are what she's looking for.

Her: "These are not the classifieds!"

Me: *confused expression* Does she not see the big letters that say "Classifieds"? How can I make this more clear? "Umm...yes ma'am, that's the classifieds section." I ran my finger across the words at the top.

Her: *frantically flipping through the pages* "No it's not! There are no classifieds in here!!"

Me: *even more confused expression* Am I missing something? Has this woman officially gone off her rocker? Is my eyesight really that bad?

There are, before us, thousands of classified ads for a sundry of things from puppies to slightly used dentures. I was really beginning to think I was losing it.

She finally spit out in a rampage of frustration, "THERE ARE NO JOBS IN HERE!!"

Everything suddenly became clear. This was not the jobs section. Of course there were no jobs in there. I grab the classifieds, took them back to their home and handed her the correct section.

She proceeded to rip them out of my hand, give me the most dramatic eye roll that one could give without permanently turning their eyeballs backwards, and stomped off to a nearby table.

Obviously, the whole thing was my fault. Why should she think anything else? Big bully.