A new ally

We got a new security guard recently who is kind of eccentric. I wasn't 100% sure that I liked him at first but today he won me over completely.


Three patrons came in. You could see that two were blind, and the third lady had a walker. They wanted to know where they could plug in a laptop. Unfortunately, our build is 50 years old, so its electrical outlets are pretty limited. We've got study carrels with power strips taped to them, but all of our tables that accommodate more than two people are standing out in open space with no outlets. You can run a cord from a nearby wall outlet, but technically you aren't supposed to run cords across the floor. Security is in charge of enforcing this since it's a safety issue.


I got the patrons settled at a table and showed them where to plug their laptop into the wall. As I was leaving the security guard checked in with them and I could hear him introducing himself and asking them if they needed any help. He was doing all the things you are supposed to with someone who can't see--talking to them like they were regular people, but giving extra information that they couldn't infer by looking at him (his name, what his job was, etc.). After a few minutes he came up to the desk to check in and I apologized for setting them up so that they'd run a cord across the floor. He said, "Well, there wasn't really a choice. All our stations with good plugs are single-user. Besides, this is a special case so I thought we could make an exception. I just asked them to walk around the other side of the table where there was no cord, and they seem settled."


I guess we were just both relieved to see a dog in the library that was clearly an actual service dog, which is not always the case.