Recently, I went to a coffeehouse and ordered a bagel with cream cheese and a small coffee. I knew they sold bagels, because there was a bin of them right by the register, as well as visible cream cheese behind the counter. Nonetheless, this was apparently an unprecedented and hugely unsettling event for the unfortunate worker who received this request. Fulfilling my order was a major, multi-part undertaking, requiring three separate financial transactions, and fifteen minutes before all the parts of this complex procedure had been completed and I was able to snag the coveted corner table. As I sat and ate the offending bagel (and it was surprisingly good! I know it didn’t have new york baker sweat in it but it was still nicely done), I thought about how annoyed I’d been by this whole thing. I mean, I’m not really a type-A person. And I wasn’t fuming. But it had been a bit much in my book, especially when the worker started serving other people in the middle of my transaction because “it’s going to take so long I might as well make your latte.” Really?
It occurred to me though that if the person who had been serving me had had some kind of obvious challenge they were overcoming, involving visible physical or mental barriers to adroit bagel-bagging, I would have been completely patient. I probably, if I’m honest, would have congratulated myself for my magnanimous patience. And I would have thought, when it all finally came together, “Good for her! She’s really doing well.” Or something like that.
This is not flattering in the least. What we have here, in my hypothetical self, is someone who comes off as pretty damn patronizing to one set of people and, in my actual self, entirely intolerant of another set of people, based on my uninformed and conclusory determinations about whether they’re “legitimately” (ouch) disabled. (Pause to note here that I know that’s a loaded term but it’s the one that fits the internal narrative, for better or worse).
What the hell? Who am I to judge? But also … fifteen minutes for an untoasted bagel?
It’s not really permissible right now to admit that there are dumb people. But there kinda are. Or at least dumb in some things and at some times. Like when it’s time to retrieve a bagel, slice it, and put it in a small bag with a mini tub of cream cheese. Truly, this should not be too much for most working people. But for this one, it was. What does justice demand here? What does kindness? Why is it ok to be intolerant of incompetence when it stems from functional IQ near but not below an artificial line on a admittedly bogus test’s results?
This is where I wish that I was enlightened. That I could wait, solid stance and open heart, and simply be, instead of mentally screaming “just pick up the damn cheese bucket thing and hand it to me!!!”. Alas, I have not done the work and have not achieved anything like enlightenment. It’s so much easier to sit in the corner and gripe.
I don’t have an answer for this one. Get better at waiting is one obvious idea but that could take a while. Get kinder, really, is the thing. Because people don’t get better at their jobs or care more or move faster just because I want them to. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just try it this way:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/bagels-recipe