This is glorious. I've spent most of my life working as higher ed staff, much of it in library or library-adjacent jobs and it's such a wonderfully concentrated version of all the bizarre, petty shit that can happen when people don't know how to manage and dysfunction is allowed to fester for years. Beautiful. But also I'm so sorry you and all the other work studies had to deal with that. As you said,at least you learned to deal with difficult people!