That milkshake guy, would you have stayed if the manager had handled it different... or was that just the final straw on top of everything else?

That "ripped the carpet right out of the tackstrip" part is the worst, man. Commercial grade is supposed to hold better than that, but if the pad is glued down weird or there's a room change underneath, that seam is just a ticking time bomb. I've had it happen once on a hotel install where the previous guys double-cut the seam and left zero overlap. You're not unlucky, that subfloor was probably shifting or the tackstrip was rusted out. Sucks you had to eat that 6 feet of rework, but at least it didn't take out the whole hallway.

The library's microfilm room beating the app isn't a fluke, it's just how local history works. Census data is the same everywhere, but old newspapers have the weird details, like names misspelled or the exact street address of a family business. The paid apps mostly pull from the same few databases, so you're paying for convenience, not new info. Also, the librarians usually know the specific collections in their own town, which no app can match.