If I could choose to have one social skill among many that I don’t have, it would be the magical ability to shut the hell up before I say something stupid. I call it a magical ability because it is elusive and invisible to me. Given enough time, I will eventually say something profoundly stupid. I do not default to polite or courteous or quiet or even benignly distant. My interactions with the world lead me invariably down the primrose path to saying the most mind-numbingly stupid thing I could possibly say in a situation.
Maybe this is true for everybody, or maybe the degree to which it’s true for me is within reasonable limits, and it just feels like a defining struggle in my life because I place too much importance on not appearing stupid. There’s merit to that line of thought. But: people who know me will agree with me when I say that I have an above-average tendency to say very stupid things when it would have been just as easy for me to keep my mouth shut. It gets me in trouble with the world in ways I don't even fully comprehend.
So. I may be exaggerating my own importance here, but I have reason to believe that as a result of a recent me-saying-something-stupid-instead-of-not-saying-anything misunderstanding I am now considered in some very small circles to be the biggest racist pervert in the history of this one Potbelly’s sandwich shop that’s inside of the building I work at. So that’s what I’m dealing with today and any day from now on that I’m hungry for a sandwich.
What did I say?
Well, Potbelly’s introduced a new line of sandwich products recently called “Bigs.” “Bigs” are big sandwiches. By way of promotion the manager of my local Potbelly’s encouraged employees to decorate themselves with the paper bags that say “BIGS” on them. So a lot of them did. They wore little signs that said “BIGS” on them. On their aprons. In the chest area. Which created, in my mind, an accidental double entendre in reference to the chests of female employees that I found charmingly inappropriate.
So far I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s a totally benign passing thought unless you open your mouth like the biggest idiot on the planet and actually mention this to a Potbelly’s employee. Guess what I did.
And I mentioned “racist.” The Potbelly’s employee I stupidly opened my mouth to on this subject is a young black woman, and I think there are at least racial undertones anytime a white dude says or does anything disrespectful to or in front of a black woman. Is that thought, in itself, racist, in the classic condescension of white liberal
I mean, it said “BIGS” right there on the chest. What am I supposed to do, quietly chuckle about it through my nose? YES. THAT IS WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO.
I should probably back up at this point. I realize that I’m sounding like the biggest loser on the face of the planet right now. I’ve run out of patience for myself at this point. First of all: who cares, and second: that’s not even that bad. I’m being hypersensitive for no reason other than to make myself feel bad in the hopes that self-imposed guilt will help to stop me from acting like an idiot in public. Which it probably won’t. And in the meantime I’m slinking around with my tail between my legs like some kind of snakebitten sex offender because I said something a little bit weird in a Potbelly’s once. It’s just Potbelly’s.
But this Potbelly’s, I swear, seems different. I honestly believe I would enjoy working there. The employees seem to get along great. It just has good vibes. There’s no other way to describe it. And I ruined it by opening my stupid asshole mouth about somebody’s “BIGS.”
The thing I actually said was not that bad, really. I don’t know a direct quote but it was more in the vein of “I find those ‘BIGS’ signs to be charmingly inappropriate in a way I'm not sure you'd considered” than “HA HA, YOUR CHEST SAYS ‘BIGS’ ON IT. FYI, I AM TALKING ABOUT YOUR TITS RIGHT NOW.” Maybe that’s a very fine line, but this is my entire sense of dignity I’m talking about here, I feel like I should be able to draw a fine line or two if it keeps me from blowing my brains out. I already feel bad enough about this.
So I ruined forever what was a perpetually pleasant Potbelly’s sandwich buying experience. One that included polite but detached joking and small talk about what book I’m reading or what kind of music the Potbelly’s guys are into. It doesn’t matter if I ruined that experience forever because I actually was offensive, or because I said something borderline offensive and the Potbelly’s employees, who I’m pretty sure are younger people and therefore more likely to be persistently upset by a perceived slight, got offended, or because I am hyper sensitive myself, or because of a combination of all of these. The point is: I could have just as easily kept my mouth shut. And I didn’t. I had every opportunity to think “talking about this is inappropriate” but I didn’t.
And you know why I didn’t? This is another source of shame. I didn’t because I temporarily forgot the cardinal rule of the service industry. “It’s not a real relationship.” God, that is like the oldest one in the book, and I broke it. I thought that joking about one thing like two weeks ago meant that I could joke about “BIGS” later. That’s not true. It’s not real joking if one of the people involved in the joke is under some kind of economic pressure to smile and laugh at it.
How do I know this isn’t all in my head? I don’t. Not really. I probably just shifted from an “oh, that guy” customer to an “oh, THAT guy” customer. People at that Potbelly’s have not been smiling at me recently. Maybe it’s not even about me. Then today when I was walking down the stairs after eating my sandwich, the one Potbelly’s person who I’ve seen go the furthest in the direction of “sassy” with customers was, I think, making a face at me, then turned quickly to my foot-in-mouth victim as if to say “that’s the guy?”
I’m probably imagining this whole thing. But I still feel bad. The fact is, instead of a fun zone, Potbelly’s is a shame zone for me. Because of me being an idiot. Again. And it’s not even that egregious. I have other shame zones that are so shameful I know I will never speak of them again in my life, and when the thought of that thing I said or did one time to one person crosses my mind, it triggers some kind of an emotional response that makes me feel like I’m swallowing a hot coal. I think that’s normal, though. I only really have to worry if I cease to feel that.
Anyhow, my Potbelly’s is a bummer now, either because I have a pathological inability to just stay pleasant and polite, or because I have a pathological inability to stay pleasant and polite and a pathological inability to forgive myself for it. I’ve got to either stop being insecure or stop being a jerk. And preferably stop being both.
Mostly I think I should just suck it up and go to Chipotle for a week. I read much less into my interactions Chipotle. The way the Chipotle guys ask if I want black beans or pinto beans before speeding me long the assembly line is comforting. Apparently that’s the only level of service-based interaction I can be expected to handle. Because I am an idiot.
Posts
