A familiar voice rises above everyone’s conversations, and the library gets quiet for a short second. Slowly, the noise builds back up again, and the lady with the purple fleece and red glasses sighs, her shoulders slumping a bit.

Pam Miller, a librarian’s assistant, has been working at Wayland High School for 23 years. Her responsibilities include opening up the library, checking books in and out, pulling books out for classes, filing and shelving all the books and what she describes as the “toughest” part of her job: keeping the media center quiet.

She patrols the library like a security guard, her eagle eyes seeing everything. They scan back and forth as she turns in a little circle, searching for groups of students who are too loud.

Target acquired. She creeps over in her sneakers to a hoard of teenage boys just entering the library. As soon as they see her they halt and stop talking. She points her perfectly manicured finger adorned with a gold ring to the door, and the boys turn and go. She smiles satisfactorily, but then another disturbance grabs her attention.

“Excuse me, Ms. Miller? Do you have any calculators here?” a shy freshman asks.
She says nothing but beckons him her way and gives him a calculator from the front desk, then picks up a thrown down coffee cup and places it in the recycling bin.

“Ms. Miller? Could you copy this for me?” a girl holding a large textbook asks.
She struggles with the weight of the textbook and puts it through the copy machine.

The phone rings, and she quickly picks it up, effortlessly writing down notes as she talks into the receiver.

“The printer is out of paper, Ms. Miller.”
She opens up the drawer and refills it with a giant stack of printer paper.

Lurking around, she finds a large group of juniors and seniors hanging around one of the library’s tall circle tables.

“Did you just get here?” she says in a high pitched voice, clearly annoyed.
“Uhhhhh… I’m about to leave.” the junior replies.
“Ha, you’re about to leave. Don’t. Talk.”
“B-b-but, I’m helping her with her essay?”
“I don’t care, talking is not allowed here. OK?”
The student groans and leaves the library with her on his heels.
She moves around slowly, hushing each table in the library, then repeats the process where she started.

Sometimes she only need walk by or give them the “evil eye,” and they all immediately stop talking. Sometimes she sneaks up behind people, standing quietly with a cheeky, knowing look on her face until someone turns around and makes everyone disperse. Sometimes they fight her, arguing that they weren’t doing anything wrong. Sometimes, with the upperclassmen, she jokes around and gets into a funny or personal conversation.

“As much as they think otherwise, I really like teenagers. We fool around a lot, and I pretend that I’m crazy,” Ms. Miller laughs. “Well, not always pretending.”

One righteous junior begins to play music on his laptop. He stares at Ms. Miller, anticipating a fiery reaction. She ignores him, knowing he is just trying to make her job even harder than it already is. He gives her a little wave until she looks up. She fake smiles and waves back sassily.

The shouting grew louder, but she stayed in her seat. She looked at me then, slowly shaking her head, a longing look in her eyes.

“I like what I do.”

When I finally exit through the double doors, leaving the dull roar behind me, I turn back to have one last look at the under-appreciated lady who keeps the media center running smoothly.