updates: the disgruntled fired employee, the raise that didn’t come through, and more

by Alison Green on August 1, 2024

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. A disgruntled fired employee says he’s coming to a work event I’m planning (#3 at the link; first update here)

I just thought I’d send a final update on the situation with Sam, the fired employee who threatened to attend a work event I was planning.

The tl;dr: the event happened with police presence, and Sam did not show.

I’m glad I followed up with our administration about whether the police had agreed to attend the event, because in the process I found out that they had only meant they asked the police to deliver the letter to Sam stating that he was barred from attending the event, not that they had asked the police for assistance with the event! The letter also had not yet been delivered to Sam.

It took a bit more pushing to get the director to agree to ask the police to help us with the event, but she finally did. They agreed. I never heard of any formal safety plan, but I decided that was the best I was going to get.

At this point, I’m just going to say for clarity that I work at a public library, because I don’t think the story makes much sense without that information.

After Sam received the letter, he apparently sent the director a nasty message on Facebook. When she blocked him, he strolled into our library once again, asking to speak to her. On learning she was out for the day, he stayed and talked to his former manager, whom he seems to like. I don’t know the contents of that conversation, but I heard later that he was agitated.

After that happened, I went to our assistant director, who’d been out of the office when I found out about Sam’s threat, and insisted that Sam needed to be banned from the premises entirely. The AD told me that our director was vehemently against banning Sam, but he encouraged me to put the request in writing and implied that it would be wise to encourage any other staff who felt similarly to come forward. I ended up writing a letter in which I detailed the reasons I was concerned, pointing out that all of his reasons for his previous visits to our library since being fired were clearly false pretenses — e.g. he said he needed to get things from his office that he’d forgotten but then left them behind on his way out, requested books via interlibrary loan but then had them sent back when they arrived — as well as asserting that I had considered whether I needed to quit my job for my own safety (I know that last point is against typical AAM advice; unfortunately, it was true). I also spoke to colleagues I knew were concerned and encouraged them to speak up.

That worked! A few days after the event was over, the director came to me and said she wasn’t aware of the suicidal comment Sam had made, which changed her perspective a lot. She got the necessary board approval and banned Sam from library premises for a year.

The event itself went swimmingly. The police were there, Sam was not. My two food vendors all showed, the speakers all showed, and more people were in attendance than I have ever seen in the library at one time! I have mixed feelings about that, because I was pretty angry about being forced to plan it. It did make for a nice final event for our director, whose retirement was already in the works.

It’s been over a month since Sam was banned, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. I have accepted that I’ve done all I can do about the situation and for the most part moved on with my life. There are a lot of unknowns with our AD transitioning into the director role, but I can definitely say he’s more sensitive to staff’s safety concerns than our previous director.

Thanks again for your advice! And thanks to the commenters as well.

2. I was promised a raise for doing a lot more work … and it didn’t come through

I was holding off until I had something concrete to share. I am delighted to share a happy update finally!

I received and signed today an offer for a new position that comes with better benefits, a 37% pay bump, more opportunity for growth, and a company that is actually dedicated to supporting the local market I would be working on.

While it is a completely different category than I have ever done before, a lot of the vendors and partners are the same, and I am excited for the challenge. And that’s not to even touch on the pay bump, which will be a literal life changing amount of money for myself and my family. The six-month-long job hunt has been exhausting but holding out for a position that reflected my value and worth as a professional has made it all worth it.

I want to thank you and everyone in the comments for their support and advice during one of the most frustrating experiences of my professional career. I hope everyone who was following along in the comments is able to share in my excitement. To anyone else running the job hunt gauntlet, stay strong and hold out for as long as you can- better things will come!

3. What to say when you quit your job to start freelancing (#5 at the link)

I finally gave my notice to my lovely boss yesterday, and she was as kind as she always is, so that was a relief. I did actually get a big freelance project before leaving that I could point to for needing a specific end date, which helped. I wound up giving a longer notice like you mentioned since I did have some flexibility, but it was helpful for me too, because I’ll get some extra paid holidays. It all worked out and I’m excited (and terrified) to soon be managing my own schedule 100%, but at least I have plenty of work lined up.

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{ 19 comments }

{ 19 comments… read them below }

  1. LadyHouseofLove*

    As soon as #1 mentioned this was a public library, it made sense why administration were spineless about this whole mess. It’s why I switched from public libraries to academic. Unfortunately, in my experience, a lot of people become library adminstrators for the money and not whether or not they are good at leading. Like, yes, we all need to pay bills, but if you’re in a position where you have to make decisions that affect other people’s safety, you need to consider if you’re right for the job.

    OP shouldn’t have had to defend their want of safety and librarians have a right to feel safe in their workplaces. I remember being gaslit by adminstrators for not wanting to deal with patrons that bullied and harassed staff. They didn’t ban them until those patrons started hassling THEM.

    And, OP, I too have been tasked with events I had not asked for. I share your pain.

  2. H.Regalis*

    LW1, good on you for not backing down.

    I worked for a public library where back in the bad old days, the managers and librarians never enforced behavioral rules and threw the paraprofessional staff and the pages to the wolves, and that is a big part of why I eventually left. If you weren’t cool with a steady stream of scary people alternately threatening you or trying to get you to touch their penis, other employees would say you were too sensitive. They also hired really young staff who were more likely to put up with this garbage because they didn’t know any better.

    Thanks for taking your and your coworkers’ safety seriously.

    1. Ready for the weekend*

      Happy for you, OP, and for continuously pushing for this outcome and showing how manipulative Sam is. I hope he never bothers your library again.

    2. Former public library staff*

      Ooooh yeah. There was massive reluctance to ban anyone, whatever their behaviour, largely coming from staff who hid in offices off-site and never actually dealt with them. If you were lucky you’d get a sympathetic immediate manager who would send the junior staff to hide in the back when a frequent problem came in.

  3. Aelswitha*

    Letter #1: OK, my biggest concern with all this, after the “suicide” threat, is that after being served BY THE POLICE, Sam immediately came to the library. And hung around. And the police are not immediately called.

    I was a Canadian cop for 29 years, retired now.

    Banning Sam for a year is ridiculous. Sam should never be in or near the library again, particularly if you still work there. He should never contact you again, ever, anywhere. There should be a police file, with all the details and history of Sam’s behaviour, and there should be a court order barring Sam from being anywhere near you. And library staff should be mandated to call police instantly if he breaches that order.

    Feel free to pass this on to whoever is in currently in charge at your place of work, and who will absolutely be liable if anything to happens to you, or anything else, because of their spinelessness.

    2. Op1*

      OP1 here just to clarify a couple points:
      1. Calling the police is our standard response to a banned adult entering the library. This was reiterated to staff prior to Sam’s ban in regards to a different customer, so they are aware.
      2. Once Sam’s ban expires, he doesn’t immediately regain access; he has to petition our administration for permission to return.

      There’s obviously only so much any of this can do, unfortunately. I’ve been reevaluating my willingness to keep working in a job this vulnerable.

    3. Thank someone I no longer work there*

      I worked in police/fire dispatch for years. Just a few issues we had…
      Parking for the day shift, unless you were a captain or lieutenant, was in a parking lot leased from another government agency about a mile away. Day shift employees starting at 3 am were expected to park there and walk to work past homeless shelters, which seemed safe compared to the shelter where the residents were all level 3 sex offenders.
      The rest of the department moved to a new building but left us behind for over a year. Night shift Patrol was told to do a mail run at 4 AM. A new captain wanted us to do it because the cops didn’t like it. When we protested that it was a safety issue he said “have one of the guys do it”. We were a mostly female shift, due to how the bid went that year so half the time there were no guys to do it.
      This isn’t “an American thing”. We frequently had Canadians in trainings and conferences being a border state and they could match us story for story.
      Honestly, I’m more shocked the cops did anything at the library!

    4. Dog momma*

      Aelswitha..thank you for pointing this out. Management failed in so many ways! Was there no one above this particular director that could have made sure this happened?

      OP, if unfortunately there’s a next time, or you run into Sam ANYWHERE, call the police so there’s a record. This guy’s a time bomb waiting to go off.

  4. Stoli*

    Health care is much the same. We are just supposed to put up with yelling, anger, name calling, threats, and light battery. Not only from the patient but from their family. I make sure I’m not followed home at night.

    1. H.Regalis*

      Ugh, that’s such bullshit. It’s no wonder workers have been leaving healthcare in droves. I hate that you all are just expected to be cool with that.

    2. Chirpy*

      Same with retail, only we don’t even get the vague goodwill of the public, we get told we deserve everything we get because “get a better job if you want to be treated as human.”

      People just need to stop being so awful to each other, and stop expecting that abuse of anyone in a service role is acceptable.

    3. Peanut Hamper*

      Meanwhile, all the local McDonald’s in my area have signs on the door stating that they will not tolerate any form of verbal abuse of their employees. What a bizarro world we are living in.

      1. Chirpy*

        Food service workers do not deserve to be treated like crap, or as less human than healthcare workers.

  5. Mobius 1*

    I missed where it was originally stated that Sam made suicide threats? That said, my reading comprehension is famously not good.

    1. Op1*

      OP1 here – Sam apparently threatened suicide in a text message sent to his wife that he asked my coworker to read over for him, claiming he wanted a “neurotypical person’s” advice on his message.

    2. tabloidtained*

      It’s in the original letter, but it was a rumor that LW had heard and the rumored threat was made against someone not at the LW’s library.

  6. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and one fell out*

    Just in case anyone is interested in “following the comments” for LW#2.
    They commented as teamrocket* in the first post.
    They had been job searching since January anyways. Since the question was posted in March, they had been job searching for a couplafew months at that point.
    It doesn’t seem from the comments that they managed to get the promotion or raise. Some of their teammates got promoted.

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