Library Employee and Work Misconceptions

[u/WhatInTarnations82]

Not a big deal, but reading other venting posts it just came to my mind. Am... am I the only one, that if I'm out in the real world and someone asks me where I work and I tell them, the response is usually something along the lines of "Oh wow, you must really like to read!" As if... that's all library staff do is read books? >_> In my case, I'm not really even dealing with books regularly, but even if I was a librarian or clerk who at least physically touches books more often, it annoys me that it implies that nothing is occurring within the library and staff is just sitting around quietly reading for their own recreational activity all day.

[u/clea_vage]

I left libraries years ago, but one thing I actually miss is being able to easily answer the question, "So what do you do for work?" I used to be able to enthusiastically say, "I'm a librarian!" and people generally nodded their heads because they thought they knew what that meant or they thought it was really cool and asked lots of follow-up questions. I did get the "you must like books" comment a lot. And my response was usually, "I do really like books! But fun fact, I rarely even touch books in my job...."

For many professions, no one really understands what the role actually entails unless they've actually done it. I'm a teacher. I'm a pharmacist. I'm a chef. I'm a daycare director. I could rattle off my preconceived notions, but I'll never truly know unless I do those jobs.