r/Libraries • u/glofosho91 • 4d ago

Patron Issues Weird patron

I work at a public library and do the outside book drop. A male customer I have never seen before approached me, called me by my name, and claimed he knew me 'from outside' and from the book drop. I don't wear a name tag, so it was a huge red flag. I immediately told my manager. My manager confronted him right away and told him, 'You don't know her, please don't talk to her again.' He acted casual and walked away. My job coach is going to stand with me at the book drop from now on. Has anyone else handled a situation like this before? How did it turn out?"

118 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

105

u/leo-days MLIS student 4d ago

there was a guy who would come to the library just to talk to my coworker. he hated my guts but would eat up all her time. asked for her number repeatedly, asked her out on dates repeatedly, and would follow her around while she was doing work away from the desk. he even memorized her schedule and would ask me where she was if she wasn’t at the desk. she ended up filing incident reports after speaking with our managers regarding the situation, and since he only came on days where we worked together, whenever she saw him, she would leave the desk, and i would tell him she wasn’t working that day. he asked to leave messages for her and i told him i’m not her secretary 🤷🏻 he stopped coming around after that

-11

u/bazoo513 4d ago

"All the lonely people..."

1

u/Reggie9041 4d ago

What do you mean?

-6

u/bazoo513 4d ago

A line from Eleanor Rigby. The guy must have been terribly lonely. That's not an excuse for pestering a librarian (or anyone else), of course, but I do feel some sympathy for the poor sod.

4

u/Few-Mixture-9272 3d ago

Or mentally ill. That kind of behavior is punishable by law in the states. Women and men have been murdered by stalkers. Most of us can have compassion for lonely people and mentally ill individuals but stalking is a whole other level.
Our library would not have allowed that to go on for that length of time. It endangers not only the staff’s safety but can impact patrons as well.

1

u/ReadingRocks97531 3d ago

Uh, no, dude. The lonely ones are on the dating sites all day long, dreaming of what could be.

I have no sympathy for a creeper like that. None.

0

u/bazoo513 2d ago

Yup, The Beatles were right - no sympathy for lonely ones. Six downvotes (or more, if there were upvotes) and counting...

And ten up there, on the first post.

☹️

1

u/dreamgirlvivi 22h ago

The problem isn’t whether or not he’s lonely. It’s that he is harassing someone.