= new reply since forum marked as read
Public library working conditions a book could be written about 
this particular job, lots of staff talk about their prodigious drinking. Beer, wine, tequila. Only job i ever had where my Kris Kringle wanted booze as their gift. Smokers on staff, which is rare. Hints at drug use. It was a terrible environment. Glad I'm out
Both my husband and son were Union members. My Son was lucky enough to be in a very rare Enginners Union. He became a Business Agent, but gave it up because he had to defend too many bad employees, plus handling his duties designing machines for the auto industry.
As companies were sold to foreigners, Unions became weaker he watched the workers on the floo be persuaded to take less and less, he was so frustrated he managed to get his 30 years/55 in he retired.
Neither one resorted to drinking. My husband smoked,he died of a fast acting cancer. The Doctor said chemicals from WW 2, Omaha Beach chemicals caused it. I never heard him complain, he was too busy making good money to support his family, send them to College. But he also enjoyed his work, making sure his machines were running.
My family still benefits from Union membership. I am also a lousy typist, but SC hates me,too!
Lived with it. And accepted the responsibility of your decision. You proved you could do it alone. Now you can be proud of yourself.
I thought I could not make it by myself when my husband died, but I proved to myself and everyone else I could do quite well. You did, too.
if you find something you like to do, you'll never work a day in your life.
Trust me, I am the worst employee ever but I work for myself fairly well.
Been retired since 2015 it seems that everyday is Saturday. 
I quit and retired in my 50s because of sexism. My new male assistant made $20,000 more than me when hired. Left and so glad. Never looked back!
and people asked me if I liked my new job, I said I didn't like it at all, that's why they have to pay me to do it. 
it is great ...
I have had 3 jobs ...
military 20 and 14 days ... 
and it wasn't work I loved it.
DOC Dept. of corrections 10 years
(this was the only JOB I had )
DoD contractor
16 years and I loved it ..
but now ... all the jobs I put off till I had time
I can do now ... its great ...
Was able to retire at age 52. It was a large shop with about 3,000 hourly workers split up by a couple of shifts.
Most couldn't afford to retire because they had families and debt. I didn't have either and socked away some money and had no bills.
After one year I had pretty good jobs, only because I had perfect attendance and knew how to type. I did have some ups and downs, got fired 3 times. Two of those they caught me just as I got to the door and gave me my job back and one time the company called me at home 3 days later and gave me my job back. Made me feel needed. 
Went back to college part time and that made work a piece of cake. I got to ignore every one because I had my nose stuck in a book.
Had to fight the company and the Union a few times, but grateful to both. Still pay my dues and buy the product.
Best advice I can give anyone retiring is to keep moving.
rid of the older staff member ("dead wood" . Of course, she would (and did) get sued eventually but I had planned my retirement to when I could collect a more liberal SS payment. It made sense to me and I did my job. But I was one of the "old staff" she wanted to replace because she wanted younger, cheaper staff that she could control better.
She made impossible demands and when you didn't achieve her unreasonable goals she could say "well, she didn't make her goal."
One older staff member sued her and altho the details of the case were not known, we all knew it was outright age discrimination. There was a pattern.
Of course, she went too far and the organization's Board of Directors fired her. This was after I had retired but I was relieved and gratified that my suspicions about her were correct.
I find this very odd, it must be an American culture thing. I remember when I retired from the Navy and took a couple of months off before my next job. One of my friends was horrified that I was content to do "nothing” for eight weeks. She said she would feel awful if she didn’t have a job. : :
I doubt I’ll ever be able to retire. Life circumstances have prevented me from saving much, and even with my Navy pension I’m currently struggling to make ends meet. Things are going to improve eventually, but I don’t ever see myself not holding a job. I like my job, but not enough that I want to do it til the day I die.
And am I ever glad I can work for myself because I love my job as director of school gardens/community gardens. Believe me, I had plenty of jobs I hated. I have this contract, however, and they keep renewing it, and I love it.
However, I thought I would mention the following as a refreshing change of pace. It is in reference to your comment:
I used to argue with management and the union. I told both of them what you are doing is counter productive. Driving, harassing, the workers hurts productivity. The goal should be to make your workers happy, not miserable.
On some of my jobs, I did just that. I worked for a very large international company, privately-owned, who hired me to give recognition to the achievement of their employees. They funded a monthly internal magazine that I wrote and edited, and every article about was about some achievement of their people at work (the company employed around 13,000 at this particular location). The stories didn't have to be work-related, either. While one of my stories might be about an employee who worked with Al Gore on a health committee in DC, another was about a woman who worked in cat rescue on her time off.
I will never forget something she told me. She was a tall, red-headed, vivacious woman with an opinion on everything. She told me she could spot who would be good in cat rescue in the first few minutes of meeting them. She then described herself, LOL. They would be "Tall, opinionated..."
It was great to interview these employees about their work and after-work pursuits and publish stories about them. The recognition meant something to them. One, a doctor entering her sixties, told me she had sent the story to her mother. Mom was almost 90!
On two other jobs I had, I was hired to go around to locations and show managers how to give back to their communities. We had a fund set up where the managers could tap into to donate to local causes. In addition to the financial donations, we would set up fundraisers, based on inquiries made of us through community organizations. That was a fun job, too. I always liked dealing with issues that gave people satisfaction and that made them feel like their company wasn't just a profit seeking entity, sucking everything everywhere dry.
Of course, the companies had image motives for paying for me to do this. In the former situation, the company was privately owned and did not want to lose their people to publicly owned corporations that might give them stock options, for example.
In the latter, they were going to be donating the money anyway, so why not hire me and get a little extra public recognition for it when I was able to get the event publicized?
