culture shock at the checkstand

After a long day of working and moving, I was making some soup with my mom, but we discovered the organic chicken broth we had went bad and the non-organic chicken base had autolyzed yeast, a clever way of disguizing MSG behind a different name. So I made a run to the local grocery store for some organic chicken broth.

In the checkstand in front of me was a group of about 3-4 young guys, I'd guess early 20's but maybe even younger than that. The checker lady was probably late-40's and looked like she'd seen a lot of life -- I mean that in a positive way, she was someone whose presence showed both experience and humility. While one would expect that their roles would have been reversed (I've read mumerous articles about older people entering the workforce out of necessity), so far at least nothing is too whacked. Except that at the end, she tore off the recipt, looked at it and said, "Have a good day Mr. Jenkins," to this young kid. She did this in turn for each of them.

I know -- mentally -- that this particular grocery store mandates that its checkers call customers by title and surname. However, in this context, the expression was clearly opposite of the relality. She even called one of them "Sir" -- which really floored me, because I was in ROTC in college, where I'd heard stories of experienced elisted professionals were exasperated by egotistical young officers bent on making their mark, leveraging the enforced rules of respect due to an officer but not understanding the necessity to earn it. The controversy of calling somone "sir" on title alone was one that I was keenly aware of.

This incident in the grocery store smacked of that same controversey. Those kids should have been calling her "ma'am" rahter than her calling them "Mr. X" and "sir." And I think she knew it, and at some level so did they, as they all seemed a little uncomfortable until the whole ordeal was over.