[Publib] Trouble in the LA library.

[Backwage at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/25/2007 5:28:43 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
rballiot at oceanstatelibrarian.com writes:

I had a  staff member who was very fearful of reptiles.
When we brought in snakes  and other like critters for a 
children's program, the staff member could  not be present.  
There was no danger from the snakes to the staff  or
kids, they were contained.  But, the fear of the staff
member  could not be overcome.

Is that a security issue?  I think the  staff member felt
it was. So, it was as real as their feelings.  The  same
is true for other fears.  If we wanted the staff member
to  feel no fear, we would never bring in slithery critters
as part of  educational programs. There are so many phobias
out there, that if we  started down that slithery
slope, it seems that we would have nothing to  offer
anyone.  We would merely be accommodating  fear.


Years ago I worked as an investigator in a federal agency.  One day we  had 
to go out to a company to check them out.  The company had a big, dumb,  
perfectly harmless dog inside their building.  My partner, a nice lady,  refused to 
enter.  Even if the dog was tethered.  In another  room.  So, they put the dog 
in somebody's car and drove it around the  block.  Then my partner noticed a 
cat.  She fled to the parking  lot.  Cats also were too terrifying.  They 
couldn't catch the cat--it  ran around in the rafters.  Eventually we had to 
leave; I had to come back  another day, alone.  
 
I had to go to training in Washington, D.C. with another agent.  We  got to a 
bridge and he pulled over, saying, "I can't drive over bridges."   Then he 
curled up on the back seat, trembling with a sweater over his head  while I 
drove over the bridge.  There are a few bridges between New Jersey  and 
Washington, and some apparently frightening tunnels, too.  And then  there's that 
horrifying Potomac.
 
When I was a union steward, we had this guy who would refuse to use anybody  
else's telephone out of fear of viruses.  Not mere germs, mind you, but  
viruses.  And then there were the ladies who would stand on the  toilet seats so as 
not to encounter anything nasty.
 
One college library I worked at let me run the entire upper floor (as a  mere 
undergraduate) because the female library staffers were convinced that they  
would endure a fate worse than death up there after hours, no matter how many 
of  them were present.  I made huge amounts of money.  Mind you, as a  private 
investigator one thrives on the irrational fears of others, so I  shouldn't 
be critical, and I'm not--of my clients.  
 
M. M. 



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