My 3 year old and I were sitting in the Jr. Section and reading our selected books. I had been moving and packing boxes all day so I decided to lay on the bean bags provided along with my daughter and had been reading her Jr. age books so she could get used to only seeing pictures every so often. I put my calves up on the chair in front of me to let the blood rush from my feet and to relax further. Then the lady (who I later found out was the manager) walked by. She did not say anything politely or as you would expect someone to treat a patron of anything. She looked at my feet with a scowl and then at me and said "Oh No". I didn't understand what she was saying and for all I knew she was just a lady from town (no name tag). I just stared at her, I was in shock that some lady was accosting me so rudely out of nowhere. And she said, " That is not ok and continued to scuzz me off." Because she was being very rude and unclear I asked her "excuse me?" Then, she finally used her words to speak to me like an adult, though it still carried a disrespectful tone and said "You need to take your feet off of that chair and sit up." No politeness to be found in that sentence or the tone. Now, that I understood what was the problem I took my feet off of the chair. I went to continue on with my afternoon relaxing in the PUBLIC library with my daughter when she continued to accost me. Still, in a disrespectful tone this woman (who unfortunately is the Main Manager) continued to talk down to me and stated, not asked or politely requested that "You need to get out of this section." I asked her "What?" Because I thought I must have heard her wrong. But she continued to not only tell me how I could sit, but where I was allowed to GO in the PUBLIC library. She asked me how old my daughter was and when I asked her "why it mattered", at this point I felt like this is none of her business. And she said because she looked like she was young enough that we needed to both be in the Children's Section of the library and that I needed to go there NOW. And that I needed to get off of the bean bags that are provided because those are only for the Kids that use that Section of the Library. Not, Hey could you go there, or keeping in mind at all that as a Citizen of the United States of America that I have the right to be in any room of a PUBLIC library that I would like to. She didn't know how old my daughter was, she could have been short for her age, or smart for her age (which she is) she merely assumed and DISRESPECTFULLY told me where I HAD to be in her library. Still in shock, I just got up and left. All I had been doing was using the library
After thinking about it and really wrapping my head around what had just happened I went back in and asked to speak with the manager of the place as long as it wasn't this lady. Well, come to find out it was, and she proceeded to have a conversation with me in front of her staff and other patrons where she ignored anything that I said about how she cannot tell people where they should be in a library if she expects to get any patrons and that nobody deserves to talked to with such disrespect and continued to state the same thing over and over (and only once she was in front of other people did she use a respectful tone at all). She said, "Well, you were laying out in the Jr. Section and had your feet up on a chair." And I apologized for that about 5 times in the whole conversation, hoping we could move past that and she could come to see the real problem that she was disrespectful to me in a PUBLIC place and that people are not going to want to go to a library that has a Nazi-like manager who will not let the library be enjoyed unless you are in the exact section (which are not clearly labeled either-which means more run-ins like this for poor souls who venture in) that you are supposed to be reading in. Do not go in this library if you want to be treated kindly, or if you enjoy the rights afforded you by the United States Constitution to read whatever material from whichever section you desire without being disrespectfully spoken to by a woman who will pretend nothing of the sort happened when it gets brought out into the public. read more
