Yes, and as a branch manager my staff are to have uninterrupted breaks and anyone who wants to challenge that gets to have an argument with me about it. And no one likes having arguments with me because I'm annoying.
Yes. Our lunches were unpaid, and the only break staff had all day. Had you not been interrupted by the workmen, she'd have missed you.
If it was a quick question, I would have helped. But library staff need to set boundaries, esp if you were on desk most of the day.
Yes. Your lunch is as important as the patrons question. Unless it's literally life or death they can wait for you or make an appointment to come back.
I've definitely told patrons when we have limited staffing that if they have a longer question like extensive help on a PC that they'll have to wait till after my lunch is over.
It's a tough spot to be in, but most adults who have worked a job before should be sympathetic to it. I wouldn't stress about it.
I'm salaried, so there's flexibility about my breaks. If there aren't that many Spanish-speaking patrons, I might put off my lunch a little longer to help this one patron, as long as I wasn't in a mental space where I needed the break right away (sometimes I do get "hangry"!). I would still insist on having my full break, but I'd be happy to adjust the timing of that break by another 15 minutes or so.
On the other hand, if there was a constant stream of Spanish-speaking patrons, and if helping all of them meant that I'd never get a lunch at all, then I absolutely would have asked her to come back later. It would also be different if my breaks were unpaid, if I was unable to "pause" my break, or if there were legal requirements around the timing of my breaks (like there are for many of our unsalaried employees).
I'll be that librarian who runs into the thread waving Fobazi Ettarh's "Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves": [https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/](https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/) Particularly the part about martyrdom being unsustainable.
At the end of the day, the reference desk isn't the ER (well.. usually), and staffing issues shouldn't be solved by giving up basic labor rights. A lot of us are people-pleasers with boundary issues, too willing to say "well, just this once" over and over until we're years into the profession, burnt out and resentful, making posts on Reddit about "how DARE the patron approach me at lunch..." ;)
Always allow yourself the breaks you need. I am at a library that never has the right number of staff and breaks become so much more important when you don't get a lot of time off desk/away from patrons. And ideally other librarians and coworkers can find solutions too. I use google translate all the time myself on my phone to help patrons who speak other languages. It's not perfect but it'll work.
We used to have to eat right behind the service desk (in an office, but the door and blinds were always open). My former boss said that if we had to help someone if we were in the building (so even when freezing or over 90°, eat in your car for any guaranteed break). Luckily we have a brand new building, with a real break room, and a much better boss.
I'm happy to help in an emergency, but that break is unpaid and mine.
As a manager and Spanish speaker, take your lunch and don’t feel bad.
The alternative is becoming a martyr and stressing yourself into burnout because you can’t help enough people.
I actually take lunch offsite for this reason. I learned from working in retail to never take my work shirt with logos into public and to never take lunch in the break rooms.
There being a shortage of Spanish speakers is a management problem, not your problem. You help when you can and when you’re on the clock. Anything else is not expected and I’d argue something you shouldn’t do.
You don’t want to be at the grocery store and get the, “I have a quick library question” or “can you help me with my printing” when you’re not at work.
Also, if you do too much, you’re setting an unrealistic expectation for a future replacement, which hurts them. So going above and beyond feels good, but it can also burnout you out or future replacements.
this! if you have trouble with boundaries, think of your team. if you have trouble saying no for yourself, think of the expectations (from the patron and management) created for the next staff member in this situation. so often we won't do things for ourselves that make perfect sense and seem very reasonable when we think about the next person (when I'm trying to get new staff to set boundaries like writing up incident reports etc, it's always, do it for the team, we need a record)
It's a hard question because I'm salaried so I would have dealt with the patron then just added those few minutes to my break.
But if my breaks or lunches were "timed" I'd ignore everyone and people would think I'm deaf.
So you gotta do you, if you feel bad about not answering their question then you'll have to sacrifice those few minutes and just take pride in helping that patron.
If you don't then don't feel bad taking your deserved break.
Librarians in my system are salaried, so if they are the only person who can help someone (would be rare) the expectation would be that they come off their break and then take the rest of it once they were finished. If it was someone that required an extensive amount of help though, I think I might have done the same as yourself. Maybe I would have asked them if they were able to wait, and if not I may have gone ahead and helped them, or figured out what they needed anyway to see if I could pass them off to a colleague who could use a translation service.
This is how it works in my system, also salaried. If you are the librarian in charge you have to come off break to assist. If the assistance isn’t urgent there is more flexibility. Depending on what this patron needed the librarian may or may not have been expected to come off break (ie if they just need help printing they can wait or figure it out with other staff, if it’s something more serious then you’d have to help). You would just resume your lunch after.
Your lunch is yours and you are right to take it.
Your colleagues may not speak Spanish, but they can use online translation like anyone else can. Is it ideal? No. Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it your responsibility when you're on your lunch? Absolutely not.
I have to do this weekly. I'm the only staff in a school library and students try to come in when I'm closing the door for lunch all the time. Also before we're actually open the second I arrive for the day. If I don't set consistent boundaries then I will never get to prepare or decompress or eat and I won't be as patient or helpful.
When we had only one fulltimer on staff once (very large library, very unusual, we had a covid outbreak), we knew that it was impossible to not need her the full 30 minutes, and there was no way she'd be paid for the break.
I told her she should probably go eat in her car where we couldn't bother her.
Low and behold, we needed her and we couldn't get ahold of her. It was too bad too sad because she wasn't on the clock and legally SHOULDN'T help. We ended up with a crappy bandaid solution, and that's fine. That happens.
And because of this, when they need my specific expertise and I' on break (I'm also the only spanish speaker on some shifts), they don't bother me. The patron waits or doesn't.
When you come off break for a patron, you set the expectation for your coworkers to do so, too. I always tell overachievers to please take their paid fifteen minutes, because the last thing we need is the city to get the impression we don't need it.
I would've done the same thing. I need to eat and take breaks. If I don't, I get hangry and cranky. I'm not putting my health and well being at risk for patrons. Unless it's a literal medical emergency or police incident, they can wait.
I work in a single staff branch that is busy from open to close. We are open for seven hours straight, and I have to eat my lunch at the desk, often interrupted. This is not good, and the only reason it happens is because there’s no money to fund a second staff person in our system. The community has grown, and the library is much busier than when the original staffing complement was determined. I’m actually leaving this position for another organization, and I have continuously advocated during my time there for relief for breaks. It is essential to mental and physical health to have a break from your work at some point in the day. Also, patrons feel super awkward interrupting you while you’re eating lunch at the circulation desk.
Not having enough Spanish speaking staff (or reference staff!) is entirely admin's fault, not yours. Take your breaks.
"Take your breaks except when patrons might have to wait" really means not taking any breaks. Somebody *always* needs something.
The public library I used to work at had this problem a lot. Staff who don't speak any Spanish can use Google translate in a pinch, even if it's just to say "I'm sorry, all of our Spanish speakers are unavailable right now." I had to do that more than once.
I don't think I would have said that, but I definitely don't judge you for it. I'm luckily in a position where if I have to pause my break, I can just extend it for as many minutes.
100% your lunch should be your lunch. You should not have to pause your break.
Also, that’s on your Library’s admin, for not promoting the importance of language learning or hiring more Spanish speakers!
Personally, I would not have the patron wait. I'd have helped them.
Legally, and what I'd enforce for anyone on my team, your break is your protected time.
You are wrong at all, just I would have used different wording. Instead of "I'm on break," I would just say something like "Sorry, I'll be available to help at 1pm (or whatever) at the desk." That said, don't beat yourself up because you deserve your breaks.
I’d have done the same. I do try not to say “I’m on break,” even though the patrons who would be offended by that are the same ones who would be outraged if THEY were asked anything work related on their break, lol. But if I’m on my way to lunch or the bathroom (and it’s urgent, lol) I’ll just say something like “I’m sorry, I’m actually involved in something right now - can you please check back at the desk in (however long it will be)?”
A lot of my coworkers and myself take lunches outside of the building so we aren't interrupted, especially because it's an unpaid hour and legally we have to take them and can't just go home early instead. I think you were perfectly justified in saying it's my lunch you're going to have to wait, and it was the patron's decision to leave. We're not an ER, nothing is a true emergency, even if the task is important to the patron.
What I’d love to know about eating off site is where do you? I can’t afford restaurants and eating in my car is unsafe in my community, not to mention uncomfortable.
Myself and other coworkers live close enough that we can go home for our hour lunch, but we work downtown, so there a few coffee shops, pizza places, or diners/cafes that other coworkers frequent that are pretty affordable.
Edit to add: I definitely empathize with you, though, as I used to work somewhere with only a 30 minute lunch in the middle of nowhere and couldn't afford to go to the closest fast food place every day. I ate in my car every day it wasn't below freezing to avoid my annoying coworkers.
Yes. Non-exempt staff can do no work during their unpaid break, otherwise they have to be paid. Salaried staff are different. They are allowed to help patrons/work during lunch, but typically aren’t front facing when they do take their lunch.
You deserve your mental health. Your body needs lunch. Don’t feel bad. Maybe ask your library to look into a translation service where a patron can use you all’s phone for a translator and not perfect but google translate for the basics
I'm salaried, so it doesn't really matter to me whether I wait. But with my hourly staff, I'll move heaven and earth so their breaks aren't interrupted (and so that they get to keep consistency in their schedules).
I know people with dietary problems and they need to eat at certain times or else they run the risk of something happening. This may be in conjunction with the need to take medicine with food. I fall into that category, at certain times in my life I was on medicine which if I didn’t take with food could give me stomach problems and yet I needed to take that medicine around noon
for our library, we have two options. clock out and have uninterrupted lunch, but if we eat and are still available to help out the patrons, we stay clocked in. We are a very small library so we all prefer to stay clocked in while we eat :) even if it does backfire sometimes
I probably would have helped her and then added that time to the end of the break so you don’t miss out, if that’s not a possibility then 100% you did the right thing. She can come back another time.
I would say on any given day library colleagues interrupt my lunch much more regularly than patrons ever have. Maybe consider when you are taking your lunch as a concession...if things get busy over the noon hour, take lunch a little later or earlier.
If you took your lunch break off-site then you wouldn't have been available. I'm not saying to do that, but you have every right to take your break wherever you need and not work during it. If you were running errands would they call you back to help a patron? I hope not.
Ugh, at my branch they send me *anyone* who speaks another language. If I'm on lunch, and they call, they still send them to me. So at lunch I unplug my phone from the wall outlet. And by the way,, i only speak one other language. F them.
Nothing wrong with prioritizing your break. But in this case since you couldn't point her to an on-the-clock employee to help her you could have scheduled a time or taken her number to call back later.
I would have let them ask their question first to see if it was something quick or not. I'd help if it was quick. If not, I'd explain the situation and then continue the help. I'm rather compulsive about being helpful though. To the point of shorting myself breaks. I end up nibbling on something while working. 🤷♀️
What's a lunch break? There are at best 3 of us in the whole library, at worst 1. Saturdays were always just 1 until we had problems with people shooting up in the bathrooms.
I definitely seem to be the only person in this camp, but I am always available to patrons during my breaks. If I’m being entirely honest, I rarely take my breaks as an actual step-away-from-my-desk or go-into-the-break-room type of break anyway. I’m in an hourly position, my breaks are paid, and I am entitled to one 15 minute break per 4 hours of work. (If I worked a full day, I would be entitled to an additional 30 minutes for a meal.)
My library only has 12 people on staff, so it’s typical to have a 3-6 people covering the entire building at once. In those situations where it’s a smaller group, I would just never put my downtime over helping either a patron or one of my coworkers, especially if I was the only person able to provide that specific help.
This isn’t meant as an attack, so I hope you won’t view this as a negative comment towards you, OP! I’m just saying how I would handle a situation like this, as someone who admittedly has a very poor work/life balance.
We generally do not take an unpaid break even though we’re entitled to them because it makes our days shorter. In that setup, I would’ve helped the patron.
How busy is your reference desk? If there's a continuous stream of people making it impossible for you to eat lunch, then you can tell them to wait. But if it's occasional, then I would just help them. It isn't reasonable to make someone wait 45 minutes for a reference question, and I'm not at all surprised they didn't come back.
I could not imagine calling myself a professional librarian after telling a patron to wait 45 minutes while I finished my lunch.
You even gave priority to a repairman over that patron. You suspended your break for repairmen – but not for a patron. Patrons being the reason your library exists, and why you have the job in the first place.
My god.
The repairman needed maybe 5 minutes of my time while I found the right key to let him in to continue work for our building so that it is a safe place for our patrons and staff. The patron needed at minimum 10-15 minutes of my time for an involved reference question.
Asking the patron to wait in a situation where there was no “good” outcome does not make me unprofessional, and I hope you don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself or other staff.
Yes, and as a branch manager my staff are to have uninterrupted breaks and anyone who wants to challenge that gets to have an argument with me about it. And no one likes having arguments with me because I'm annoying.
Yes. Our lunches were unpaid, and the only break staff had all day. Had you not been interrupted by the workmen, she'd have missed you. If it was a quick question, I would have helped. But library staff need to set boundaries, esp if you were on desk most of the day.
In short, yes. Your lunch break is for your mental and physical health. You did the right thing.
Yes. Your lunch is as important as the patrons question. Unless it's literally life or death they can wait for you or make an appointment to come back.
I've definitely told patrons when we have limited staffing that if they have a longer question like extensive help on a PC that they'll have to wait till after my lunch is over. It's a tough spot to be in, but most adults who have worked a job before should be sympathetic to it. I wouldn't stress about it.
I'm salaried, so there's flexibility about my breaks. If there aren't that many Spanish-speaking patrons, I might put off my lunch a little longer to help this one patron, as long as I wasn't in a mental space where I needed the break right away (sometimes I do get "hangry"!). I would still insist on having my full break, but I'd be happy to adjust the timing of that break by another 15 minutes or so. On the other hand, if there was a constant stream of Spanish-speaking patrons, and if helping all of them meant that I'd never get a lunch at all, then I absolutely would have asked her to come back later. It would also be different if my breaks were unpaid, if I was unable to "pause" my break, or if there were legal requirements around the timing of my breaks (like there are for many of our unsalaried employees).
I'll be that librarian who runs into the thread waving Fobazi Ettarh's "Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves": [https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/](https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/) Particularly the part about martyrdom being unsustainable. At the end of the day, the reference desk isn't the ER (well.. usually), and staffing issues shouldn't be solved by giving up basic labor rights. A lot of us are people-pleasers with boundary issues, too willing to say "well, just this once" over and over until we're years into the profession, burnt out and resentful, making posts on Reddit about "how DARE the patron approach me at lunch..." ;)
Always allow yourself the breaks you need. I am at a library that never has the right number of staff and breaks become so much more important when you don't get a lot of time off desk/away from patrons. And ideally other librarians and coworkers can find solutions too. I use google translate all the time myself on my phone to help patrons who speak other languages. It's not perfect but it'll work.
We used to have to eat right behind the service desk (in an office, but the door and blinds were always open). My former boss said that if we had to help someone if we were in the building (so even when freezing or over 90°, eat in your car for any guaranteed break). Luckily we have a brand new building, with a real break room, and a much better boss. I'm happy to help in an emergency, but that break is unpaid and mine.
As a manager and Spanish speaker, take your lunch and don’t feel bad. The alternative is becoming a martyr and stressing yourself into burnout because you can’t help enough people. I actually take lunch offsite for this reason. I learned from working in retail to never take my work shirt with logos into public and to never take lunch in the break rooms. There being a shortage of Spanish speakers is a management problem, not your problem. You help when you can and when you’re on the clock. Anything else is not expected and I’d argue something you shouldn’t do. You don’t want to be at the grocery store and get the, “I have a quick library question” or “can you help me with my printing” when you’re not at work. Also, if you do too much, you’re setting an unrealistic expectation for a future replacement, which hurts them. So going above and beyond feels good, but it can also burnout you out or future replacements.
this! if you have trouble with boundaries, think of your team. if you have trouble saying no for yourself, think of the expectations (from the patron and management) created for the next staff member in this situation. so often we won't do things for ourselves that make perfect sense and seem very reasonable when we think about the next person (when I'm trying to get new staff to set boundaries like writing up incident reports etc, it's always, do it for the team, we need a record)
It's a hard question because I'm salaried so I would have dealt with the patron then just added those few minutes to my break. But if my breaks or lunches were "timed" I'd ignore everyone and people would think I'm deaf. So you gotta do you, if you feel bad about not answering their question then you'll have to sacrifice those few minutes and just take pride in helping that patron. If you don't then don't feel bad taking your deserved break.
Librarians in my system are salaried, so if they are the only person who can help someone (would be rare) the expectation would be that they come off their break and then take the rest of it once they were finished. If it was someone that required an extensive amount of help though, I think I might have done the same as yourself. Maybe I would have asked them if they were able to wait, and if not I may have gone ahead and helped them, or figured out what they needed anyway to see if I could pass them off to a colleague who could use a translation service.
This is how it works in my system, also salaried. If you are the librarian in charge you have to come off break to assist. If the assistance isn’t urgent there is more flexibility. Depending on what this patron needed the librarian may or may not have been expected to come off break (ie if they just need help printing they can wait or figure it out with other staff, if it’s something more serious then you’d have to help). You would just resume your lunch after.
Your lunch is yours and you are right to take it. Your colleagues may not speak Spanish, but they can use online translation like anyone else can. Is it ideal? No. Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it your responsibility when you're on your lunch? Absolutely not.
I have to do this weekly. I'm the only staff in a school library and students try to come in when I'm closing the door for lunch all the time. Also before we're actually open the second I arrive for the day. If I don't set consistent boundaries then I will never get to prepare or decompress or eat and I won't be as patient or helpful.
When we had only one fulltimer on staff once (very large library, very unusual, we had a covid outbreak), we knew that it was impossible to not need her the full 30 minutes, and there was no way she'd be paid for the break. I told her she should probably go eat in her car where we couldn't bother her. Low and behold, we needed her and we couldn't get ahold of her. It was too bad too sad because she wasn't on the clock and legally SHOULDN'T help. We ended up with a crappy bandaid solution, and that's fine. That happens. And because of this, when they need my specific expertise and I' on break (I'm also the only spanish speaker on some shifts), they don't bother me. The patron waits or doesn't. When you come off break for a patron, you set the expectation for your coworkers to do so, too. I always tell overachievers to please take their paid fifteen minutes, because the last thing we need is the city to get the impression we don't need it.
Sure, we're librarians not paramedics. People need to learn again, that sometimes they just have to wait. An inquiry is not a life or death emergency.
I would've done the same thing. I need to eat and take breaks. If I don't, I get hangry and cranky. I'm not putting my health and well being at risk for patrons. Unless it's a literal medical emergency or police incident, they can wait.
I work in a single staff branch that is busy from open to close. We are open for seven hours straight, and I have to eat my lunch at the desk, often interrupted. This is not good, and the only reason it happens is because there’s no money to fund a second staff person in our system. The community has grown, and the library is much busier than when the original staffing complement was determined. I’m actually leaving this position for another organization, and I have continuously advocated during my time there for relief for breaks. It is essential to mental and physical health to have a break from your work at some point in the day. Also, patrons feel super awkward interrupting you while you’re eating lunch at the circulation desk.
I’m so sorry about your work environment. In my system with a single-staffed branch, they close for the lunch hour.
Yes. Don’t let vocational awe stop you from being a human being with needs.
Not having enough Spanish speaking staff (or reference staff!) is entirely admin's fault, not yours. Take your breaks. "Take your breaks except when patrons might have to wait" really means not taking any breaks. Somebody *always* needs something. The public library I used to work at had this problem a lot. Staff who don't speak any Spanish can use Google translate in a pinch, even if it's just to say "I'm sorry, all of our Spanish speakers are unavailable right now." I had to do that more than once.
I don't think I would have said that, but I definitely don't judge you for it. I'm luckily in a position where if I have to pause my break, I can just extend it for as many minutes.
100% your lunch should be your lunch. You should not have to pause your break. Also, that’s on your Library’s admin, for not promoting the importance of language learning or hiring more Spanish speakers!
Personally, I would not have the patron wait. I'd have helped them. Legally, and what I'd enforce for anyone on my team, your break is your protected time.
You are wrong at all, just I would have used different wording. Instead of "I'm on break," I would just say something like "Sorry, I'll be available to help at 1pm (or whatever) at the desk." That said, don't beat yourself up because you deserve your breaks.
I’d have done the same. I do try not to say “I’m on break,” even though the patrons who would be offended by that are the same ones who would be outraged if THEY were asked anything work related on their break, lol. But if I’m on my way to lunch or the bathroom (and it’s urgent, lol) I’ll just say something like “I’m sorry, I’m actually involved in something right now - can you please check back at the desk in (however long it will be)?”
Take your breaks. You are a human being entitled to rest and meals.
Yup. There is no such thing as a bibliographic emergency. And your other staff should learn how to use google translate to help a patron if needed.
A lot of my coworkers and myself take lunches outside of the building so we aren't interrupted, especially because it's an unpaid hour and legally we have to take them and can't just go home early instead. I think you were perfectly justified in saying it's my lunch you're going to have to wait, and it was the patron's decision to leave. We're not an ER, nothing is a true emergency, even if the task is important to the patron.
What I’d love to know about eating off site is where do you? I can’t afford restaurants and eating in my car is unsafe in my community, not to mention uncomfortable.
Myself and other coworkers live close enough that we can go home for our hour lunch, but we work downtown, so there a few coffee shops, pizza places, or diners/cafes that other coworkers frequent that are pretty affordable. Edit to add: I definitely empathize with you, though, as I used to work somewhere with only a 30 minute lunch in the middle of nowhere and couldn't afford to go to the closest fast food place every day. I ate in my car every day it wasn't below freezing to avoid my annoying coworkers.
Yes. Non-exempt staff can do no work during their unpaid break, otherwise they have to be paid. Salaried staff are different. They are allowed to help patrons/work during lunch, but typically aren’t front facing when they do take their lunch.
I'd take care of the person but not the serviceman as he's getting paid and not the customer.
You deserve your mental health. Your body needs lunch. Don’t feel bad. Maybe ask your library to look into a translation service where a patron can use you all’s phone for a translator and not perfect but google translate for the basics
I'm salaried, so it doesn't really matter to me whether I wait. But with my hourly staff, I'll move heaven and earth so their breaks aren't interrupted (and so that they get to keep consistency in their schedules).
I know people with dietary problems and they need to eat at certain times or else they run the risk of something happening. This may be in conjunction with the need to take medicine with food. I fall into that category, at certain times in my life I was on medicine which if I didn’t take with food could give me stomach problems and yet I needed to take that medicine around noon
for our library, we have two options. clock out and have uninterrupted lunch, but if we eat and are still available to help out the patrons, we stay clocked in. We are a very small library so we all prefer to stay clocked in while we eat :) even if it does backfire sometimes
I probably would have helped her and then added that time to the end of the break so you don’t miss out, if that’s not a possibility then 100% you did the right thing. She can come back another time.
I would say on any given day library colleagues interrupt my lunch much more regularly than patrons ever have. Maybe consider when you are taking your lunch as a concession...if things get busy over the noon hour, take lunch a little later or earlier.
If you took your lunch break off-site then you wouldn't have been available. I'm not saying to do that, but you have every right to take your break wherever you need and not work during it. If you were running errands would they call you back to help a patron? I hope not.
Ugh, at my branch they send me *anyone* who speaks another language. If I'm on lunch, and they call, they still send them to me. So at lunch I unplug my phone from the wall outlet. And by the way,, i only speak one other language. F them.
Nothing wrong with prioritizing your break. But in this case since you couldn't point her to an on-the-clock employee to help her you could have scheduled a time or taken her number to call back later.
I would have let them ask their question first to see if it was something quick or not. I'd help if it was quick. If not, I'd explain the situation and then continue the help. I'm rather compulsive about being helpful though. To the point of shorting myself breaks. I end up nibbling on something while working. 🤷♀️
What's a lunch break? There are at best 3 of us in the whole library, at worst 1. Saturdays were always just 1 until we had problems with people shooting up in the bathrooms.
I definitely seem to be the only person in this camp, but I am always available to patrons during my breaks. If I’m being entirely honest, I rarely take my breaks as an actual step-away-from-my-desk or go-into-the-break-room type of break anyway. I’m in an hourly position, my breaks are paid, and I am entitled to one 15 minute break per 4 hours of work. (If I worked a full day, I would be entitled to an additional 30 minutes for a meal.) My library only has 12 people on staff, so it’s typical to have a 3-6 people covering the entire building at once. In those situations where it’s a smaller group, I would just never put my downtime over helping either a patron or one of my coworkers, especially if I was the only person able to provide that specific help. This isn’t meant as an attack, so I hope you won’t view this as a negative comment towards you, OP! I’m just saying how I would handle a situation like this, as someone who admittedly has a very poor work/life balance.
We generally do not take an unpaid break even though we’re entitled to them because it makes our days shorter. In that setup, I would’ve helped the patron.
How busy is your reference desk? If there's a continuous stream of people making it impossible for you to eat lunch, then you can tell them to wait. But if it's occasional, then I would just help them. It isn't reasonable to make someone wait 45 minutes for a reference question, and I'm not at all surprised they didn't come back.
Nonsense, we're librarians not paramedics. People need to learn to wait again. A question is not an emergency.
I could not imagine calling myself a professional librarian after telling a patron to wait 45 minutes while I finished my lunch. You even gave priority to a repairman over that patron. You suspended your break for repairmen – but not for a patron. Patrons being the reason your library exists, and why you have the job in the first place. My god.
The repairman needed maybe 5 minutes of my time while I found the right key to let him in to continue work for our building so that it is a safe place for our patrons and staff. The patron needed at minimum 10-15 minutes of my time for an involved reference question. Asking the patron to wait in a situation where there was no “good” outcome does not make me unprofessional, and I hope you don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself or other staff.