Noi’s Story – My Struggle Working at My College’s Library

I remember that I was one of the few students who spent lots of their free time at the college library. Right after I graduated, I was offered the job of working for the assistant librarian and manager of the college library, which I felt was exciting. My position was to make sure all the books and periodicals were in alphabetical order and also to place labels on incoming books. I found my work enjoyable for the first 7 months because I still got to interact with the students. I worked with the assistant manager, Nancy, much more than with the manager, Susan. I really trusted both of them. Susan was not there often, but Nancy was very cheerful towards all the staff and students. Nancy told me she would treat me and her other employees and work study students like her own children. After a few months, I found it frustrating working with my supervisor, Nancy, because she didn’t trust me as much as she did in the first couple of months. She often accused me of things I did not do. There were instances when she thought I blamed other students for things like books not put in the correct places even though I checked several times a day if all books were placed correctly. This made me feel really bad about myself and I always felt guilty. There were times when I didn’t feel like going to work because of this. She also called me stupid sometimes when I made mistakes. I also heard her call one or two of the other students who worked for her stupid. There were times where Nancy found me crying in a back room because I was so upset. She told me to “get over it” and told me to act like an adult, but I couldn’t help it many times. She told me to not tell negative things about her to the President of the college since she tried not to tell anything negative about me; I followed her rules. I felt very relieved when I decided not to work for her anymore. On the other hand, I was happy to see Nancy when I went back to visit the college because we had not seen each other since working for her. At the end, I found a private time to talk to the president of the college about the situation with Nancy and was glad that I told her about my difficult job experience in the library. She understood me and felt bad for me. She said she would do something about it.”