DURING one rare weekend afternoon, my partner and I had a mall-hopping tour all to ourselves, as our son and constant companion had been out of town. After exhausting nearly half a day’s hours of ticking off all that we’ve written in our list of to-dos and to-buys, we finally decided to sample what an open-air food oasis beside the Abreeza mall offered.
At once, we were in agreement that we would have coffee and something to go with it. From across our seats, we spotted a popular delicacy stall which had already started to gain much attention, judging from the growing queue alongside it and many others milling around waiting for their orders to be served.
With that as a cue, I promptly stood in line behind five people and waited for my turn.
As it turned out, the process of lining up and placing one’s order was efficient and fast. What took a longer time, though, was the part of getting served. And unbelievable as it might seem, I had to stand around for almost an hour to be so in my case.
However, even though that may have appeared to be a very long time, after I’d paid and broken out from the line to join the number of people hanging about, I must have witnessed quite a number of what one might call glimpses in the “study of human nature.” in sensurround, living color and live action.
First, I noticed a tall and athletic male, of either Chinese or Japanese descent, in clean white tees and street shorts, going back and forth several times before the dispensing stall staff to check if his orders had already been called out.
Then finally, on his last return, he began to loudly chastise the whole food crew, citing how long he had had to wait, then accusing them of poor service and even imploring those beside him to also take up his case.
No amount of plea for understanding and reasoning from the hapless people in the booth could please him, even as, already clearly shaken and harassed, they still could not hurry the time of how long it took to fry what they had offered as their stall’s specialty.
I watched another, a senior man this time, garbed to the neck in gold and glitter, who on the side subtly offered to bribe the person at the stove to forego the early orders and serve him first.
When the lady refused, he likewise opened up with the same earlier soliloquy and even went further, threatening to seek out the owner and report on their supposed performance.
The two cases (and sadly a few more) I have witnessed, along with all of those who silently waited for their orders to be called. All these in one Sunday afternoon, all under an hour, all under a tiny patch of land in the biggest city in the world.
(Ahem, got carried away and that’s quite a stretch.)
But with utmost seriousness, all these bring to mind, and I would like to seek permission in quoting verbatim, a portion of a piece by a popular art connoisseur and blogger, Joanna Preysler, wrote years ago:
“Entitlement is a quiet kind of cruelty. A form of bullying. It convinces us we’re better than someone simply because they serve us. But no job – – warrants disrespect. And no amount of stature or money gives anyone the right to belittle. Decency isn’t weakness. It is dignity in action. It’s remembering that every person we encounter has a story. A family. A name.”
