Library employee could have opened doors five minutes early on cold day

Voice: Trish Hall, Saginaw

On Jan. 10 I went to the Zauel Memorial Library to find the doors locked and that the library opened at 1 p.m.; I was there five minutes before. Others started coming to the door and also waited with me. It was freezing out. I am handicapped and cannot walk very well or stand for a very long time; I walk with a cane.  

I knocked on the door several times hoping  someone in the library would open the door, as my hands were feeling numb. Not one person  acknowledged my knocks. There is a foyer between the doors that people could have been let into to wait for the library to open, yet no one had the decency to even do that. 

Upon finally being let in I stated this very fact to a staff person at the counter. She had no compassion. She stated, “We don’t open up till 1:00. You could have waited in your car.”  

I remember when people used to care about others. I remember when coming to the library  was a pleasant thing. It seems that there just are not caring people anymore. I would have thought that at least in the library they could be found, but I guess I picked the wrong day to visit. 

I wonder if this employee will be able to understand one day how difficult it is for a handicapped person, who can hardly walk in the first place, to go all the way back to her car because someone cannot let them in five minutes before the library is scheduled to open. 

I wonder she knows that the library gets tax dollars from people like me, and she would not  have a job if it were not for the tax dollars that pay her wages.