The Tale of The Return Desk Nazi.

This is an archives post from my old blog and the old DeviantArt Days.

A brief history to put things in perspective

There are certain events starting to unfold (again) over at DeviantArt. Cries of censorship have started to be heard as dissatisfaction grows.
Ordinary users are being banned by administration...whether it be because of strict adherence to policy or abuse of personal power, well, it depends on how you look at things.

I understand about "abusing power". I did it myself, years ago, when I started working my first, full-time job. It's not something I like to think about, but it is a part of my history, my life, so I offer to share some memories here, in the hopes of getting folks to understand why I feel some of the admins are using the latter, and not the former, of my previous statement.

I was 22, working my first, full-time job, in the university library where I'd worked for four years as a part-timer. I'd been lucky enough to get a job at the circulation desk, the 'front lines' of the biggest library on campus, and it was an experience.

There's something one must understand about this library: There was a seperate departments for pretty much everything. Most of the departments were reference-oriented, and their job was to say "yes", to help patrons find the information, get the book, the article, whatever. They were there to help.

Circulation was there to help as well, but more often than not, we had to say "no".

No, you can't borrow that book because you're not a student here.
No, you can't register for classes because you owe $250 in fines, and we've put a hold against your account
No, you can't get change to feed the meter outside and I don't care if the cops are showing up to tow your car.

You might think it's funny to see David Spade doing those "no" commercials, but that was something I did. A lot.

In the beginning, I was nice. I tried to help out as many as I could, but that lasted for, oh, I think, a week.

Given the amount of people we had to deal with...this was a big library on a BIG campus...it was non-stop for awhile, especially in the beginning of the term. People wanting materials for course reserve made available NOW (despite the fact we had a three-week backlog of stuff to get out), people wanting to borrow a book but they didn't have their ID with them...

They wanted something from me, but didn't want to respect me in my position. So I made sure they didn't get a damn thing.

You want this now? I'm sorry, no.
You owe $50 in fines? You've gotta pay it all before you can borrow a book.
You don't like it? Tough.

It wasn't long, tho, before I had my first attempted theft. Someone decided they didn't want to pay for a library card (and at $100 a year, I couldn't blame them), and didn't want to wait the couple of days it would've taken to send it via interlibrary loan to the local public library (we had a great agreement with the public libraries, and it would've been a snap for him to do it), and tried to walk out through the tattletape sensors.

The alarm went off, I called the person back over, and found they had one of our books. A quick call to the campus police later, and they were leading the person off in handcuffs.

I had power, and damn if it didn't feel good.

For the next four years, I had a shitty job, but I had power, and damn if I didn't use that power.

It wasn't until one day, one user called on the phone. I forget her exact question, but she said that someone at the library wouldn't let her do something, even though it was in policy to do so. She referred to him as the "Return Desk Nazi", and when she described him...really, she described me.

When I told her that she'd described me, she was stunned. I looked on that as a proud moment, and now, years later, I look back on that as my darkest moment.

Shortly after that, when telling a friend about what had happened, he told me I was taking things too personally, too seriously. It was just a job. Life is too short to be such an overblown asshole about things.

I'd long respected his opinion, and it got me thinking...was having the power, was abusing the power, really worth it?

It didn't happen overnight, but slowly, I'd come to realize what an asshole I really was. I started to change, to take things less seriously, to cut people some slack.

The Golden Rule really does work: Do unto others as you've have them do unto you.

Being an asshole, abusing your power, it's all well and good for the short term. In reality...all you're doing is eating away at your own soul.

It isn't worth it.