![]() ![]() But I learned how to interact meaningfully with adults. I was by then a poli-sci novice as well as a Keith Richards wannabe, and so the prospect of working at, say, Deloitte and Touche excited me about as much as disinfecting a urinal did. The one job I halfway liked-at a hotel and golf resort near the Jersey Shore-afforded me my first exposure to the professional class: conventioneers, salesmen, and financial service types from Philadelphia and greater New York. I did not like cleaning urinals and emptying trash cans assembling cubicle partitions moving office furniture or scanning groceries on Christmas Eve. I’ll be straight up with you: Unlike Rod, I did not enjoy this kind of work a bit. I, too, worked in a grocery store as a teenager, first as a bagboy, then cashier and subsequently at a handful of other grunt jobs throughout high school and college. I agree with Rod, but from a slightly different angle. It was hard work at times, but I enjoyed helping people. I worked as a clerk in a grocery store as a teenager, and I actually liked my job very much. There is a third option: a culture where people are basically happy and well-mannered. Perhaps that is true in some cultures, where people are trained to be asshats by default. That’s a false choice, one that assumes waitstaff wants to treat people in a surly, resentful way, and are only prevented from doing so by company rules. ![]() ![]() Rod Dreher speaks up for the indispensability of morally formative good manners, as against Peter Frase’s defense of the “sincere rudeness” of Soviet-era food servers. ![]()
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