{"id":8622,"date":"2010-12-06T08:37:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T14:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=8622"},"modified":"2010-12-06T08:37:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T14:37:33","slug":"james-lileks-on-of-the-brotherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/06\/james-lileks-on-of-the-brotherhood\/","title":{"rendered":"James Lileks: On Of The Brotherhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, I know, I think he’s an heretic<\/a> for his stance on book hoarding, but that doesn’t mean James Lileks cannot be one of the bagger brotherhood<\/a>. Just a heretical brother<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nThe clerk started beeping my goods, and I noted right away she was just tossing stuff in the bag. She was also talking with a friend who\u2019d shown up, and they were chatting away in fine style about something or other. When she gave me my first bag I looked into its disordered depths, and sighed: no. So I repacked it. If she saw she didn\u2019t care. The second bag needed repacking, especially since a huge bladder of orange juice was on top of some small easily-crushed items. Framing a bag is a skill, a challenge; it\u2019s like Tetris, except all the pieces are differently shaped. There\u2019s satisfaction in framing a bag properly, and I say that as someone who used to bag groceries for his salt.<\/p>\n

I repacked four bags. When I was done I realized that she\u2019d finished, and I hadn\u2019t signed the card-reader, and the person behind me was glaring at me: GET ON WITH IT. So in a matter of minutes I\u2019d gone from Mr. Generous, waving people ahead in line, to Mr. Obstacle. I apologized deeply \u2013 almost said \u201cif you\u2019d seen me wave someone ahead a few minutes ago you would know I\u2019m a good person!\u201d but they all say that; all the people who just don\u2019t realize there are other people in the world think they\u2019re good people \u2013 and moved along. Ran right into a manager. Now. Do I say something?<\/p>\n

Damn right I do. If the clerk had looked new or harried or just plain not cut out for the job, or new at this, let it slide, but when someone stands there babbling away to a pal throwing everything into the bag so the bottle of spaghetti sauce is crushing the muffins, so to speak, sorry.<\/p>\n

I jerked a thumb back to the checkout lane. \u201c18 needs to watch the video on framing again,\u201d I said. The manager looked at my bags. \u201cI repacked them,\u201d I said. \u201cThe wrong stuff was on top of small stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d said the manager. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his Bleat, Lileks wonders if he was wrong to complain to the manager. Wrong or right, I’m the sort of cynic who wonders if Lileks’ complaint had any effect at all. Would the manager really spend even minimum wage money to make that particular clerk go through the orientation video again? Would the manager have a word with the clerk? Would the manager even remember the remark by the time he got back from the loading dock? I doubt it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, I know, I think he’s an heretic for his stance on book hoarding, but that doesn’t mean James Lileks cannot be one of the bagger brotherhood. Just a heretical brother: The clerk started beeping my goods, and I noted right away she was just tossing stuff in the bag. She was also talking with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8622"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8625,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions\/8625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}