Example A: Nicole Congleton, who says that she was discriminated against, and eventually fired, for being black. She says she was repeatedly written up for lateness, while other, whiter, employees who did the same thing were not.

Example B: An anonymous young pregnant employee:

She needed to leave her post in the rare books department more often than usual, to visit the doctor more for pre-natal care. But according to employee warning records provided to the Press, Strand management continued to cite her for missing work regardless of the need for medical appointments...Management threatened to terminate her for "not keeping her full time employment obligations," in reference to the days she'd taken off.

And the scariest of all:

Saundra Buchanan started in the third-floor Internet department at the Strand in 2000, before it had been remodeled. "There was mice running around the table," she remembered in a recent interview. "I got some kind of fungus from rats who were on the paper."

Any problems with Nancy the boss, Saundra?

"[Nancy] would actually come into the bathroom and we'd be washing our hands," Buchanan recalled. "And she would say, 'You should be using the bathroom on your break time!'"