Ghostwriting No. 4: What We Can Do

One heartbreaking phone call after another. Even in economically good times, I'm sad to hear from people want me to go through the collection of a recently deceased loved one, but now I get as many phone calls from people facing foreclosure or having to get smaller apartments as I do calls about estates. I get to the soon-to-be emptied house or apartment and divide a person's beloved books into ones that fit my store's collection and ones that don't, and then I have to tell someone that some of the books they're being forced to let go aren't things I'm buying. Nobody's happy at moments like these.

I try to pay as much as I fairly can for books, and I try to take extra steps to help, like letting people know about job opportunities or apartments for rent at decent prices or groups that might be able to help them. And for the most part, the people of Iowa City appreciate and reciprocate. They give me tips to pass along to others; some offer me a cup of coffee while I'm sorting; one dear woman gave me plants from her garden to add to my own. We tell them about charities who could use the extra books for benefit sales, and many choose to give. These people are being as generous as they can. It's admirable, and it's what keeps all of us going during these tough times. The recession is eating into all of our pockets, but kindness as a currency never loses value.

Does that sound too crass? Maybe. But I stand by the analogy: the movement of kindness, graciousness, and mutual help through our society right now is the one thing we can do easily despite, and possibly even to help, the situation.

Which is why it kills me when I see abuses of the economy of humanity. Twice this week, I've had to intervene on behalf of my employees when people selling books were frankly abusive toward them, and that doesn't include the guy with whom I couldn't intervene because he hung up on us. On none of these occasions did I see my employees being anything other than honest and professional; these individuals came in ready to pick a fight about whatever we did or didn't offer. No money changed hands; the books didn't go anyplace where they could be of use; my staff and I were left demoralized. Who benefits from such incidents? No one. Having vented their frustration at someone not responsible for that frustration, the angry people gained nothing beyond a temporary adrenaline rush - not even real relief for whatever was bothering them.

I won't tolerate this in my store. Wasting our goodwill is, in the economy of kindness, theft.

We will continue looking for ways, financial and otherwise, to facilitate the recovery of everybody. We'll keep smiling at people when they come in, paying what we can for books for sale and keeping prices low on books we sell; we'll continue to offer our usual courtesy. At The Haunted Bookshop, we consider it part of our jobs to make things better, from cleaning sticker goop off books before putting them out for sale to recommending a book to fit someone's taste to sharing anything we know that might help on a school report or in someone's job hunt. Consider it our miniature GDP.

But let me make this appeal. Not just as it concerns the Haunted, its employees, or the people who are routinely mistaken for its employees because they hang out here a lot. As it concerns everyone. The clerk in the check-out at the grocery. The lawyer who isn't explaining things in a way that makes perfect sense to you. The secretary trying to help you reschedule your appointment. The teller at the bank. Give this to each and every one of them: the basic acknowledgment that each is a person, each deserves to be treated with a basic respect for each one's area of expertise and ability; none deserve blame for things they can't change or for not providing services it is not part of their job to provide, and while some might occasionally slip in their professionalism because they, too, are scared or behind on payments or got bad news or have had a rough day already, your courtesy could be the thing that helps them to be calm and helpful with the next dozen people.

This is not a pyramid scam or a sentimental, saccharine plea for hope. It's a request that, given the mess we can't do much to change, we compensate by being productive members of the civility economy. The more non-unkindness in circulation, the more each of us will have to share or save for use in the ugly times ahead.