There are twenty branches and one main library in our system in Davidson County. One of them is closed for the foreseeable future because of flooding. The entire basement flooded, six feet up the walls. Men in hazmat suits have had to go in and clean things out. All the books have been removed to prevent them getting moldy. The employees have been reassigned to other branches.

This is a big deal. The branch that closed was a tiny branch, and my branch is a huge branch. There are patrons that went to my branch when it opened and shortly learned that it is not their style. They now are having to come back to us. It isn’t very easy for them.

It reminds me of when I tried to leave Bank of America. I was sick of being treated like a number. I was sick of stupid rules that made no sense. I should be able to write my account number on a check I’m depositing when I go through the drive through, rather than park my car and come in to get a deposit slip. But, they didn’t see things my way. They have a lot of customers. They can’t make exceptions. I opened an account at a smaller branch and was greeted by name every time I went in. The turnover of the tellers was minimal. I got to know them, and enjoy going in. I refinanced my mortgage that was with BoA in order to begin the process of leaving BoA. Sadly, the mortgage was resold to BoA within two weeks. My master plan was foiled. I was stuck dealing with a huge entity.

These patrons are in the same boat. They want the personal service of a tiny branch, but that is impossible with a large branch. The employee who has been reassigned to us said that two hours on the desk at my branch was like a whole week at his branch. We serve 800 people a day. We can’t take the time to learn your name and the name of your children and husband and what books you like to read and how your medical history is going. We just can’t.

And I’m OK with that. It is a library. It isn’t a bar and we aren’t bartenders. It isn’t church and we aren’t priests. People forget that sometimes. There is something about a library that makes people think we want to hear all about their problems.

Sure, we care. We do. We are human. We enjoy stories. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t read books. Books are full of stories. But people aren’t like books. We can’t close them when they get to be too much. Books don’t get their feelings hurt when we get overwhelmed with what is going on. We don’t feel trapped when the problems in books are too big for us to handle. It is human nature to want to handle problems, to fix them, to make things better. That expectation isn’t there with books. Books are books, and people are people.

People are messy things. People are difficult and complicated and weird. They are amazing too. But there isn’t any training when you go to work for the library that tells you how to deal with people who feel that they need to tell you everything about their lives.

I don’t remember this happening in retail. Working in the library is a lot like retail and yet different. People treat you better, for starters. But they also share a lot of deeply personal stuff. Sometimes it is too much, too deep, too personal. Sometimes I want to run away. Sometimes I’m fascinated. Sometimes I’m grateful for the pastoral care training I’ve had that helps me to just be a calm presence for them.