David Sedaris decides now's a good time to joke about citizens being able to fire workers
Aux Features Books
In 1992, David Sedaris first read “Santaland Diaries,” the tale of the horrible time he had working as a Macy’s elf. The story includes him recounting an awful customer threatening to have him fired, which he imagines responding to by saying, “I’m going to have you killed.” That was the ‘90s, though, and Sedaris is no longer a lowly department store elf. He’s now a rich guy who would like to be able to fire people who, like his younger self, did not do their jobs to the satisfaction of angry customers.
Sedaris’ crummy new story debuted on CBS Sunday Morning in both text and video. We recommend the former option to anyone who generally likes Sedaris’ work and would prefer to pretend that his choice of excerpt from new collection The Best Of Me was written by someone else. The story is simple: “During this difficult time when so many Americas are looking for work, I’d like introduce an idea for something I’m calling the ‘citizen’s dismissal,’” Sedaris begins. “It’s like a citizen’s arrest, but instead of detaining someone, you get to fire them!”
He describes situations like a lifeguard who ended her shift at a swimming pool early because she needed to do laundry at her parents’ house and a cashier who didn’t have any “bubble wrap or bags” on hand after Sedaris “bought a number of very expensive cups and saucers.” The joke is that he thinks those who dislike the quality of a lowly-paid customer service worker’s efforts should be able to fire them from their job. Then, he says, the “go-getters” could have their jobs instead.
The response has not been kind.
The story is a joke, of course, but it’s also just not a very good joke—the sort of material usually written by people who’ve never worked demeaning minimum wage gigs where customers yell at them all day—and one that just kind of fizzles out into a not particularly funny complaint. That it was used as a book promotion toward the end of particularly difficult year for people who have to actively risk death to earn less-than-subsistence-level pay only adds to how bizarrely ill-considered it all is.
If we’re all potential book customers, maybe we should just ask for this story to be fired from Sedaris’ repertoire.
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145 Comments
David has reached the age and tax bracket where his same old humor now sounds like punching down.Congratulations?
Theory: Maybe it wasn’t that funny all along.
David Sedaris has been funny for decades.Also, don’t call him “it.”
The whole “customer is always right” mantra is toxic and needs to die.
More than anything else, Sedaris’ take is strong evidence to me that he probably treats waitstaff and retail clerks like garbage.
The people who try to decide for the rest of us that “you can’t joke about [anything], when [bad thing] is happening” – are the worst.Some of us need more levity in shitty times, to raise the spirits. Some of us like gallows humor. Read the room? Whose room?I don’t think Sedaris’ content was funny this time. But nobody gets to decide that it’s unacceptable.
Why not?
Because what gives “them” the right to decide for other people what’s acceptable or unacceptable? Who put “them” in charge?This is the same type of “outrage” that started the PMRC.Whether it’s talk about firing service workers or saying “happy holidays” rather than “merry Christmas”…nobody cares what offends you.
I mean, nobody’s in charge. That’s kind of the point. People are going to criticize someone who says something they don’t like. You’re free to disagree with them. You’re worried about people deciding what’s unacceptable, yet here you are deciding what’s unacceptable for other people to say. And yeah, comparing the plight of service workers in an economy in freefall to a bullshit right-wing talking point that exists only to reinforce Christian hegemony is more than a bit disingenuous.
Because what gives “them” the right to decide for other people what’s acceptable or unacceptable? Who put “them” in charge? Why do you think that “they” are deciding anything? Why do you think that they think that “they” are in charge?I can find something unacceptable that you find acceptable. I don’t have to give a fuck whether you find it acceptable, and vice versa. I ain’t shopping at Amazon. Personal choice. If you shop at Amazon, hey, fine. I ain’t doing it. This shit isn’t hard.
Everybody gets to decide what they like/don’t like, find unfunny/funny, etc. That’s exactly what the people who are pushing back on his comments are doing. They are expressing an opinion.
Who is calling for no one to be able to read this?
If you’re trying to make me laugh, and you fail because you offend me instead, then you’ve failed as a comedian. Which was the goal of the writing. You didn’t grasp that immediately?
Who is deciding that for other people? What are you actually upset about here? All I see are folks expressing their opinion that David Sedaris is an out-of-touch bourgie asshole—aren’t you for people freely expressing their opinions? Isn’t that what free speech is supposed to be about?
Because what gives “them” the right to decide for other people what’s acceptable or unacceptable? Who put “them” in charge? I don’t really see it happening like that. Where are the people with the guns and threats, telling me how to feel? I don’t see them.Maybe a little calming down is needed here? Maybe it’s ok if you like what he says and you could just go ahead and say it? What’s the worst that could happen? Internet comments?
You contradict yourself. You wonder who put “them” in charge and later state categorically that “…nobody cares what offends you.” Are you not now the dreaded “them?”
You are not the arbiter of what is or isn’t acceptable, you’re just an asshole.
But nobody gets to decide that it’s unacceptable. Nah, they absolutely do. Anyone who isn’t them then gets to decide whether they give a fuck. Some will, some won’t.
Get some proportion. It’s not saying Sedaris should be shot, or even fired, it’s saying that maybe his people should have found a different piece to promote his book. Is that really an unacceptable infringement on Sedaris’s constitutional freedoms?
But people get to comment on what they think is funny/unfunny, just as you are doing here.
So you didn’t understand that the people thought the joke was stupid? This kind of joke works because the jokester is attempting to generate a sense of amused fellow-feeling. Instead, he sounded like a tone deaf, self-involved ninny.
Literally everyone gets to decide if it’s unacceptable. That’s how a) culture and b) society work. If Sedaris had launched into racial slur-laced tirade would you still be saying that nobody gets to decide that it’s unacceptable? If people were calling for Sedaris to be stoned to death for his shitty joke-adjacent commentary that’d be one thing, but who are you to dictate how people should react to it?
Actually, we do. Humans do have a right to opinion.
Yeah but when the target of your joke is the woman who’s risking COVID to pay their rent, maybe it’s a little… haughty? Marie Antoinette-adjacent?
So if someone tells a shitty joke we’re not supposed to tell them it was shitty? This isn’t a kindergartner trying to tell a knock knock joke that you pretend to laugh at so as not to hurt their feelings. This is a grown ass man who is paid to be a humorist and did a shit job at it.
Only read the excerpt in the article, but isn’t the joke that the person is arrogant enough to think “citizen’s dismissal” is justifiable? Like, a super-micro “A Modest Proposal”?
Only thing is that if you’re gonna try that, you have to NAIL it. This…didn’t.
I thought it was a very good representation Of that type of person (like, it’s so accurate, that it seems like it’s not satire?)Buht! I might be wrong – maybe he’ll make a follow up statement like, “Eh, when I was younger, I Was an idiot – everyone should be fired!”
That’s the way I read it. Hardly punching down when you seem to be making fun of the type of person that would suggest it in the first place.
The thing about jokes is they tend to have at least two sides. Half of stand-up is “express a semi-reasonable frustration in an exaggerated, unreasonable way”. I could imagine Seinfeld doing a bit like this, except he might make it funny, or at least funnier than Sedaris.
I mean couldn’t you just as equally say getting upset about some lukewarm jokes is also pretty bullshit in these awful times?
Not really
Who could argue with such a retort.
I mean you’re upset about people being upset so
You’ve posted like 50 times about one anodyne joke taken out of context. So it’s definitely me who doesn’t have this story in proper proportion. Get a fucking grip.
What context makes “we should be able to fire retail workers in a pandemic” a stance beyond criticism?
You think that’s a literal stance he’s taking? You’re either an absolute fucking moron or a bad faith actor who fakes outrage for attention. Either way kindly fuck off.
“Who could argue with such a retort”
No, in these awful times the only reactions to content allowed are either rage or YASSSS and either way we will, nay we must, have a thinkpiece about it
I’m always baffled by these comments that seem to feel it’s somehow wrong for a pop culture website to have an article about a pop culture figure saying something controversial
because you fail to grasp the advertising incentive that causes writers to exploit and exacerbate controversy at the expense of quality writing
Wait, you mean this site exists to make money? I’m shocked!
What a dumb capitalist response. Welcome to being part of the problem.
I mean if you’re angry about capitalism then you should be cheering on making fun of Sedaris’ bourgeois bullshit take
I am, sorry. This was not an ideal article for this.
Gawker: Thank you for your clicks and comments.
It’s completely baffling to me. It’s literally their job to cover pop culture.
Are you no longer able to conceive of a kind of pop culture writing that isn’t “how dare this person say this morally unacceptable thing”?
Sure, there are examples of that all over this web site, which makes these comments all the more eye-rolling. Pop culture covers a lot of ground. Sometimes it covers a writer seemingly having pulled a 180 from the views that he first gained success with and the reactions to that. Sometimes it covers what people are doing with those giant skeletons they bought for Halloween. But you don’t see those complaints on that article do you. You only see it when they dare to point out a pop-culture controversy (which is very much in line with their job description), or use snarky humor (which is very much in line with the website as a whole). These coments are like the stupid “stick to sports” comments that they used to get on Deadspin (RIP).
because I would rather this space be used for something more intellectually stimulating.
Yeah, I’m always mystified by people who comment on this website how much they hate this website. No one is making anyone be here.Also, as long as this site has had “Newswire”, it has always covered this kind of thing. Look up AVClub items about Justin Bieber, like him peeing in plants.Dig around. Or better yet, leave. Every article that isn’t about Batman or something has commenters like ‘why do you cover this?’ They do. They always have. Leave.
I think a lot of them disagree with articles like this but don’t want to come out and say so
Yeah, true. I guess I’m just naive.
I think they should cover it, if it amounts to actual controversy. Maybe this does, maybe it doesn’t, I’m not gonna go on Twitter to find out. But my complaint is that their take is just always the same unfunny and unclever thing. There’s nothing here other than “get a load of this clown,” and that’s the gist of most of their pieces lately. Cover it, yes, and even go after Sedaris (or whoever) for saying whatever poorly-judged thing, but would it kill them to actually write something funny and worth reading? The writing here used to be a large part of the draw. This piece like a thousand others here over the last few years is tired and toothless; I knew what it would say nearly word for word before I clicked on it.
Eh, I thought it was funny
The thought that they could somehow ‘not react’ to something doesn’t occur at all.
I say this with regret but AVC has been shrill, dully judgemental and click bait-y in a distressingly low and obvious way for a couple of years now. I used to check in almost every day and stopped after one of the (presumably more touchy) writers deleted a perfectly polite post about the pretend rape scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on the day of William Goldman’s death. For me at least whatever values the site proclaimed to uphold were proven to be demonstrably false.
The Internet thrives on there only being two opinions on any subject: violently and extaticly for , or organ vomitingly against, as that leads to the maximum level of conflict that it feeds off.
I’m not seeing much “violence” in any of this. Mostly just people pointing out that the joke isn’t funny and makes him sound like an out-of-touch crank.
So are you raging or YASSSing?
I think you’re probably overestimating how upset anyone is. Basically all the comments I’ve seen are “ugh, what a stupid fuckin’ thing to say” not “CANCEL DAVID SEDARIS FOREVER OVER THIS”
I think you’re overestimating how much people do care. Twitter dunks are a low impact activity.
Absolutely. I don’t know what exactly is triggering all of these people. It does seem typical for the crowd here, though.
I’m happy that people are more sensitive today than they were in the past. Sensitivity has lead to a lot of good. You really are much too sensitive if you took this seriously and it offended you.
Woof. I love the Sedaris clan (as much as the next rapidly-graying homosexual), but this is just … groan-worthy. How does something so dumb make it off the paper and onto the tee-vee? I’m reminded of that NYTimes writer from a few years back who trolled a bunch of white folks on Twitter (Facebook? I dunno). Like, yes she was being racist, but her writing and insults were just so bad, thereby eclipsing the aforementioned offense. If I remember correctly, the Times defended her (she was a recent hire), and it must’ve been embarrassing given the quality of her writing, like “uhhhh, yeah, she’s with us.” My takeaway is: if you’re going to come at me with some stupid shit, at least be funny.
i remember going to a candlelight vigil to protest the iraq war and stood next to a couple who complained and then snarked – at length – that the candles we were given weren’t scented.
for some reason, david sedaris’ work always reminds me of them.
Jesus. Just play that out—what would even be an appropriate scent for protesting war?
Napalm?
Smells like victory!
Very few candlelight vigils are held in the morning, though.
Clove.
Not this, I guess.Maybe White Phosphorus?
That does sound perfectly on brand for him. I often find him funny, but mean and petty is kind of his thing.
I can’t understand why. His work would be conscious of the dark dumb joke whereas the couple mentioned will never be. It’s precisely his territory after all.
yeah the biggest insult about that whole incident was not that she was ironically racist, it was that the NYT hired her
Bari Weiss?
My favorite response on Twitter is that retail workers should be allowed to punch one customer per day, twice if it’s David Sedaris.
Looks to me like he was courting the very outrage he’s now receiving, as a way of generating extra buzz. Otherwise why lead with a particularly weak story, if not for the hott taek at the center of it?
I’ve disliked him ever since he made some pretty callous and dismissive remarks about his sister’s suicide.
When a suicide happens in your family, you get to say whatever the fuck you want.
If there’s anyone on Twitter who knows about getting bodied for shi**y takes it’s Charlotte Clymer.
Well he’s white, he’s old, he’s male, and even though he’s gay he’s cis which makes him almost doubly bad. I say we cancel him!
Eh, it didn’t upset me. It’s patently a joke, just a bad one. I like Sedaris, and I have loved many of his books. But I always figured he’d end up an out-of-touch rich guy. He’s pretty much made it clear that’s who he’s always wanted to be and recent books have shown that’s exactly who he is…just, y’know, amusing about it. This one didn’t land.
This sounds similar to Patton Oswald’s skit about being able to murder people on your 100th birthday which when you REALLY think about it is offensive to people who don’t like getting murdered.
?
… in the year 2086.
I heard an interview with him recently that wasn’t whatever this is attempting to do. However there was definitely the older guy getting kinda narrow minded vibe. Nothing damning, just irksome. I figured he’s becoming a typical old person best remembered for when he was clever. Pity, but not unexpected.
This is Sedaris using irony for commical effect, isn’t it?
Reading these comments, I guess a lot of people these days see “unfettered outrage” where I see “relentless, bemused dunking on aging Gen-Xers.” I like Sedaris’s writing, but there’s barely a joke here, and it’s limply punching down from a place of high status. He deserves to be clowned upon, and we deserve to clown upon him.
I’m trying to picture what “relentless, bemused dunking” would look like on a basketball court.
It tends to involve yet another loss for the Washington Generals.
This?
If you look up “relentless, bemused dunking” in the dictionary, it refers you to the ‘92 Olympics.
Picture somebody tall enough that they don’t even have to get on tiptoes to dunk. I think that person could dunk “relentlessly,” but also effortlessly enough to be “bemused” by the task.
Any kind of stated opposition to anything is OUTRAGE no matter what
Ironic that we’re trying to fire him because we didn’t like our free joke.
PEOPLE ARE OFFENDED BY (snarkily rolling their eyes at) SOMETHING I DON’T PERSONALLY FIND OFFENSIVE! THE ANTI-FREE SPEECH MOB MUST BE SILENCED! I HAVE NO SENSE OF IRONY!
Bravo. I have never liked Sedaris, I have heard about his casual cruelty in how he treats people. So do you know what I do? I don’t listen and I don’t buy his books, and so far that’s worked for me.
David Sedaris was born in 1956. He is in no way, shape, or form a GenXer. He’s pretty much at the midpoint of the Boomer generation.
…what a thing, of all things, to take away from the comment. I mistakenly assumed him to be a tad younger due to his coming up in the late 90s.Hopefully you can still manage to hew the spirit of my comment from the grey sludge of this horrendous error.
exactly, thank you. while i like him, this is the truth.
There’s barely a joke in this article, too. I’d be more inclined to celebrate said dunking if they could be bothered to more than quarter-ass the effort.
You’d think pearl clutching must be so much fun, considering how many people seem to like doing it.
That line about “people who have to actively risk death to earn less-than-subsistence-level pay” is a little too earnest for “bemused dunking”. Maybe “drive-by grandstanding”?
You tried to fire someone after watching the video, didn’t you.
it’s a dumb joke, and bad timing given how many people have lost their jobs. but sure, feel free to yell HOW DARE YOU BE OFFENDED, BRO
I’m saying “how dare you be offended that they are offended?” See, I’m one level down in this Inception.
Why is it that so many people in this comments section have picked up a tone of outrage from this article? I ask because it has a distinct air of incredulous, slightly amused detachment. It’s as if people have a Pavlov’s-dog reaction to the words “Great Job, Internet!” and feel a visceral compulsion to heap their disdain on a platform for thoughtfully earnest film nerds, of all things, for embodying the worst of the Internet’s phony outrage/cancel/snark culture.
It’s bizarre. Who’s outraged? The tweets they quote are 1) snarking over Sedaris’s bourgie cluelessness, 2) ironically juxtaposing Santaland-era Sedaris with now-Sedaris, and 3) earnestly expressing admiration for Sedaris before pointing out that this specific bit of commentary misses the mark. So, people ain’t exactly calling for his head. Reflexively bitching about “woke” AV Club outrage has become it’s own genre at this point—and hey, I’ve indulged in it myself on occasion (no Alec Baldwin is not history’s greatest monster for holding up a “you’re welcome” sign”)—but in this case there just isn’t much there there.
Yeah, man – as a Sedaris fan I’m really surprised by this “piece”. ESPECIALLY when the term “you’re fired” is synonymous with the one of the most horrific entities ever to walk the earth (and be allowed to govern).What was he thinking? It’s not funny. He doesn’t need the money. Dumb.I get the gist. You get tired of everyone “being on their break” when you need something; or just plain too lazy to hold up their end of a simple job. I have been in customer service, in one way or another, all my working life. I have worked two jobs, in the last 20 years, just to make ends meet for my family. But I have not blown people off with flimsy excuses ( I have fired a customer every now and then). Most people wouldn’t go for it anyway nowadays, they’ll call you out in a second and demand your supervisor.But, no excuse here, this bit should have been discarded into the ash bin of history. I’m surprised it slipped by him and his editors.
It’s a poor joke, but my interpretation is that it’s less about being able to do something about people in customer service type jobs as it is about the foolishness of believing that you should have the power to cost someone their job over some minor thing.
You may be right – that’s much more his style. I didn’t pick that up though. All I got was cranky Andy Rooney-like sarcasm.I’ll give him the pass – thanks, Doc.
It’s the bit about allowing workers to do laundry at your house or wrap up your purchases in their socks and underwear that leads me to my interpretation. Those are positioned as reasonable expectations on the customer for being able to fire people. They are both ridiculous, therefore the main argument is ridiculous.
Sort of like when Ellen Degeneres did a standup special recently—my sense is that if you’ve lived with wealth long enough, you remember some things about not being wealthy, but it’s like your memories harden into “bits,” and the realities start to fade. Things you start out only saying to other rich people start to seem like valid raw material for jokes or social critiques.
Love David Sedaris. This is very clearly satirizing entitled customers. Sadly, it is done so clumsily that it looks really tone deaf. What’s really too bad is that he does this in several stories in Barrel Fever, and it’s hilarious. Here, though, it’s woefully miscalculated.
Me Talk Shitty One Day
The tweet suggesting retail workers should have the right to kill one customer was much better….I mean funnier
Hey Sedaris, fuck you just for the phrase “go-getters”. Your sister’s a million times funnier and not afraid of the camera.
I think the most charitable explanation would be that he doesn’t want to give away the good stuff for free. A less charitable explanation would be that he knows people who like to complain have more money to spend on books than people who work service-sector jobs do.
So he’s going for like an Andy Rooney complaintertainment thing? I have no opinion on Sedaris, but I get immediately tired of hearing myself complain about banal shit.
Maybe this degree of pickiness works out fine in a major city like Manhattan, where there’s always another store, another pool, another human. But it looks like Sedaris lives in Parham, West Sussex these days, which has a population of like 230 people. Not sure there’s enough human capital to generate the employment churn he’s looking for.
He’s right you know! One thing we need is to give Karen’s the power to fire those service industry workers(and the like) who don’t make their Pumpkin Spice latte’s right! You know, the ones the Karens already harass and terrorize.Seriously though, until a teen kid at a Starbucks counter can emancipate a Karen’s family from her, no civilian should be able to fire someone they don’t legally employ.What? It was all a joke you say? Sorta like the one I heard from that Lawyer who changed his address to his brother’s Georgia address so he could vote in the run-off election? WHAT A LARF!
Logical extension of cancel culture. Not surprised. People have developed a serious inability to cope with mild discomfort and a dopamine-infused reward system for outrage.
Is David Sedaris canceled for endorsing canceling?
My guess is that the outrage is based solely on the headline and not Sedaris’ full content.
I see a lot of “people take things too seriously” and “Geez, it’s satire” takes but the bottom line for me, someone who was once a big fan, is that I just didn’t find this funny. As he’s gotten older and richer, I find him less funny. Perhaps it should be called the “Dave Conundrum” in honor of both Sedaris and Chappelle since both have become kind of boring.
You ALREADY can be fired by anyone. If I wanted someone fired, I’d hand a PI a check for $1500 and it’s done. They can uncover something from your past, or just record you for 48 hours, or lay a honey trap, or entrap you to say/do a thing. Find your nasty behavior, and spend a little time and money spreading the news. Then “confront” the employer until they fire the poor bastard.Social media has made it possible for nearly anyone to be fired from a job.
Years and years ago, I read an article in Vanity Fair or Vogue (I can’t remember which it was) that was about the various live-in maids the writer had had throughout her life and how none of them had ever lived up to her ideal. That was it. That was the whole point. Being rich is bad for you.
Emily Gilmore got published in Vogue?
More that Emily Gilmore is a semi-accurate depiction of the rich and the fact that ASP admires her says a lot of about ASP’s tendency to bootlick and idolize Old Money.
As someone who’s worked a few customer-facing jobs in my lifetime, let me say that Pop Copy’s philosophy of customer relationships is dead on the money.
This depressed me so much yesterday. Seeing all these people on twitter that I thought were smart, just completely misread a dull essay by an ageing humorist. Our culture is truly pathetic sometimes.
You would think the people who make The Onion would understand that not every joke hits like you wish.
The real joke is everyone seems to think that a wealthy and elderly gay man goes to the YMCA… to swim
As is always the case with these things, it’s not unfunny because it’s offensive; it’s offensive because it’s unfunny.
I’ve been retail and I haven’t forgotten it. Better to treat people with kindness and humility imo, you might want some at some point yourself.
I first read The Santaland Diaries when I was 25, and it resonated a lot with me. All my friends were already working corporate, making salary, and here I was resorting to an hourly cooking gig. It also reminded me a lot of Seinfeld, which I still like and will catch the occasional re-run because it makes me laugh even if I already know what’s coming. Sedaris is a funny guy, I used to own a few of his books before they were stolen by friends/acquaintences, but this is so ill-timed and blatantly stupid and humorless that even in “normal” times I’m not sure what his goal is. I’m a professional chef at this point, so to reverse the scenario, if a guest/customer at my restaurant pisses me off, do I get to “fire” them? I may lose money but at least the jerk isn’t being a dick to my servers or bartenders, and especially isn’t making idiotic requests from the kitchen. Fun Protip: Don’t say you’re allergic to gluten/dairy/etc. if you’re not. Just say you don’t like onion, butter, or whatever. That’s cool. But saying you have an allergy to whatever (and I’m mildly lactose intolerant myself, so I get it) when you just don’t like something is putting undo pressure on all my staff. And it also means your food is gonna take a bit longer to prepare.
David Sedaris was an asshole 20 years ago. This is just an artistically bankrupt writer trying to remain relevant.Personally, I never could stand the whiny little shit and never understood his success.
I was given Me Talk Pretty One Day as a gift. I got through about half of it before putting it on half.com for 99 cents.“I did a bunch of drugs! And I’m super gay! Did I mention the drugs? I’m interesting!”
This is hilarious; love it. I’m thoroughly shocked at all of the butt-hurt people who are offended by this. I’m going to work on cultivating this humorist’s calm speaking voice.
Can I fire Jeff Bezos? Kick him out? No?
He’s right, tho.
He’d hate Ottawa. The most half-assed phone-it-in population in North America.
So the general consensus on the writing seems to be that this was not a particularly successful piece; there is no consensus on what Sedaris actually intended by it, however.The consensus of the reactions, both here and on Twitter, basically equates to “no one should ever be fired even if they’re terrible at their jobs” and “the customer is always trash,” which is certainly interesting, pandemic or not.It’s a terrible take, since it actively hurts people who actually DO want to their jobs well (ever work retail or food service with a terrible worker? Does it make you HAPPY that you end up doing the work of two people and also dealing with the angry customers whose day has already been made worse? Oh, yeah, you’ve never actually done those jobs, you’re just super CONCERNED about the ones who do). It also drags all of customer service down to the level of the very worst employees; and negative interactions with people that are surly, lazy, or dishonest are toxic and quite viral; but you know, viva la revolución or something. Let’s defend the right for people to be shitty at their jobs since, as we all know, there are plenty of jobs to go around and I’m sure they’re not preventing anyone else from working.
Most YMCA pools close at 1:00 p.m., and sales clerks aren’t responsible for buying/stocking packaging materials for their stores or departments. This feels like that thing bad legacy comic strips do, where the creator will use it to complain about some petty personal gripe. Like Old Man Wilson from Dennis the Menace will complain that his chocolate croissant didn’t have enough filling or something, and that’s it, that’s the “joke”.I get that Sedaris is a “humorist” and this was probably meant to be “funny”, but woof. Read the room, Sedaris.
So David Sedaris became Andy Rooney almost over night. 2020 is gonna keep on 2020ing
Sedaris has written many pieces about his own extensive history of lousy jobs before he became a successful writer. He also writes in a variety of satirical modes, mocking selfishness, lack of empathy, etc. I’m going to take a wild leap and assume that the recent piece about “citizen’s dismissal” is one of those, and has apparently hit a nerve. Fewer and fewer people seem to have any stomach or patience for satire anymore. I myself seem to have lost my sense of humour over the last several years. I hope it comes back. Until then, though, we do have much bigger fish to fry.