Culture
First, I went to the library to check out an item I had on hold. In the recent past, this act would require me to talk to a human at the circulation desk. This human would scan my library card and fetch my item from the hold shelf behind the desk. That’s no longer the case, as the hold shelf is now in the open for standard patrons like me.
I took my item from the hold shelf and assessed the situation. There were three self-checkout stations open as well as three human beings standing at the circulation desk, each one behind a computer. Contradictory to my profession as a copywriter, I didn’t want to be perceived as the anti-social jerk who walked in, talked to no one and walked out. Thus, I chose to talk to a human.
This human was nice, however this human wanted nothing to do with me (in the future). He immediately pointed me to a self-checkout area and taught me how to use it. I’m quite certain I could’ve figured this out myself, but I let him go through his spiel because he was nice about it and it was evident he’d been doing the same thing for days (maybe weeks). However, during the tutorial, all I heard was, “We never want you to talk to us again, so always use these things.”
In my attempt to interact with society, I was shunned and told never to interact with society again.
Sustenance
Next, I visited the grocery store. Since I was purchasing only a few items and was fresh off my never-talk-to-anyone lesson, I opted for a self-checkout lane. Almost immediately after scanning my first item, a nice woman approached and asked me if plastic was okay. I won’t tell you what I said because I’m not sure if any of you are crazy environmentalists or crazy anti-environmentalists, but I will tell you I answered her and she began bagging my items.
This woman was helpful and nice and I feel like the small talk we exchanged wasn’t nearly as useless as most small talk.
However, she confused my young, malleable brain. The friendly library man just minutes earlier taught me never to talk to humans. I heeded his advice and found myself exchanging the most meaningful small talk of my life with a friendly grocery woman.
What am I supposed to do, society? Do you want me to ask for your help or not? And why does asking for help result in no help while asking for no help results in help? And, most perplexing, why does the library need to employ three people whose only job is to tell patrons not to talk to them?*
*I realize library employees have other responsibilities. They just didn’t seem to be doing any of them at the time.
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