Last week, I went to Halal Guys, a middle eastern restaurant to buy delicious Chicken Over Rice for my lunch. As the guy was filling the bowl with a rather shorter amount of rice than expected, I was a bit upset about it. I thought that the guy would be able to notice my sunburned sweaty tan face and realize that I am very hungry and definitely not in a mood for settling for less. But the sad reality was that he did not even look at me more than twice! As he handed me the bowl unfull of chicken over rice, I took the bowl to the counter and paid the bill in full without a protest. I did not even show them my id card to get the student discount, did not even ask for my favorite white sauce which is much like salt to me. I just walked away as I was engrossed in the thought that they could have treated me better but I have realized that the guy did not know any of these. These situations are very common during lunch hours when the customer expects more from the employee in a passive-aggressive way. In the article “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy in Front of You More Rice”, The Onion mocks the ineffective passive- aggressive behavior of customer to reach ricial equality and suggests that assertive way of communication is the way to convey the message to the employee and reach rice equality using diction, the author’s choice of word to develop a writing.
People sometimes try to convey the displeasure with someone about something in a passive aggressive way. As in this case, Onion says, “These includes glaring at the employee when he looks away”. Here The Onion presents customer’s “glaring” and the employee’s “looking away”, two words that are opposing each other to illustrate that this is not a rational way to convey the message to the employee that you are not happy with him. Onion has also mentioned that people hope that “cold tone of voice” from customer’s end would cause the employee to realize the inequality he has inflicted upon his customer whereas it should have been his sacred duty to make every customer feel like royalty albeit being equal to others that are present. In the same sentence, she presents this act of discrimination as a terrible mistake from customer’s end in a dramatic way that makes the situation sounding like the employee has committed a crime. Marrying the adjective “terrible” with “mistake”, Onion created a rather dramatic effect to show how extremely unpleasant the situation is.
Since the employee has made a really “terrible mistake”, the customer expects something higher which is also an empty hope according to Onion as no room for communication has been established. As Onion said, “none of the tactics has caused the chipotle employee to look down at the burrito next to yours, notice the startling imbalance in rice, apologize profusely, and fill your burrito accordingly”. This example from the Onion’s article suggests that, the customer does not only want the employee to simply realize the mistake but also wants him to look at the mistake, ask for forgiveness, and go back to the rice station and make sure that the uneven serving of rice is there no more and it is replaced with a delicate quantity sequentially. Onion’s usage of action verb “look down” along with the adjective of “startling imbalance” illustrates that the customer wants the employee to realize the desire of the customer to gain more rice by looking at the rice distribution of the burrito next to it. Upon realizing the “terrible mistake”, the adverbs “profusely” with verb “apologize” and verb “fill burrito” with adverb “accordingly”, Onion tries to show that the expectations of the customer are over exaggerated as the employee is not able to go inside the customer’s mind and read it like an open transparent book to retrieve the actual message. Therefore, the “tactics”, literally meaning strategy, prove to be very wrong and useless. “Tactic” is usually used in the context of political warfare which is way beyond the petty issue of rice equality. It’s like a cold war and the chipotle store is the battlefield where the employee is the war criminal which the employee does not even know. We are forced to realize that the real culprit is the passive aggressive customer as his ignorance is a major condition for the conflict to exist.
Onion mocks the customer by comparing him to an adult who is acting like an infant to reach rice equality with powerful nouns and adjectives. As she says, “birth records indicate that you are a full grown adult presumably capable of communicating your thoughts and desire to an unthreatening 19-year-old- burrito- assembler”. “Birth records” are used to confirm one’s age and for administrative purposes but here Onion brings the birth record to show that the customer is “fully grown adult” and is able to communicate, unlike infants who do not know how to talk. This is an implication that there is a lack of maturity of the passive aggressive customer. I find it very interesting when Onion uses the phrases “unthreatening 19-year-old-burrito-assembler”; “Unthreatening”, the antonym of “threatening” is often used by military task forces to describe a situation where there is an eminent danger of aggression by the enemy. Here Onion used the word “unthreatening” to highlight that the employee is not a danger. The phrase “19-year-old” implied that the employees are usually very young and hence probably benign corroborated by the fact that they are burrito assemblers and the title of “burrito- assemblers” mercilessly implies that the employee is of very poor quality as a person and hence non intimidating. Since the employee is not dangerous, but a young teenager, an adult must be able to ask for more rice without any fear. However, the customer does not speak up, instead, “avoid even the minor confrontation”. The noun “confrontation” is also a word in the dictionary of warfare but Onion highlights that the worst case to ask for rice would be a little fight or bargaining with the employee but people tend not to do it in spite of having the want for rice equality. But still, the employee might not have an inkling regarding his or her crime as he does not have the situational awareness like Jason Bourne. Instead, the employee might become the victim of customers’ ignorance and stupidity during the surveys of their quality by the customers.
Since all these are ineffective, Onion is now providing a solution to the problem- be assertive.
Onion says that the company policy allows the employee to give some extra rice to the customer regardless of “age, race, or inexcusable cowardice” which means that there is no favoritism in rice distribution. She is addressing people with passive aggressive behavior as “inexcusable cowardice” because people with this behavior does not really speak up to ask for something like more rice, therefore, whatever and however they expect that the employee fixes their mistake, it is not acceptable. She meant to say that it is the customer's’ fault, not the employees. Therefore, Onion suggests that the customer should stop “acting like a little bitch” which I seriously can find no rational for as bitches are loud about their demands. The word “little bitch” used by Onion proves that they might need to improve their own communication. Acting like a bitch is contrary to what she said next- “say something already”. Since there is no favoritism, the employee will surely fulfill the customer’s desire. Conveying messages to others is the whole point of communication. If a channel for communication does not establish effectively, there is no way the other can read one’s mind precisely. Therefore, as Onion would agree, be direct, be assertive. That will resolve the rice inequality issue as well as any other important issues such as racial discrimination.
We often amplify the seriousness of a simple situation to make a more complicated one. The writer’s usage of powerful words that were meant for exaggeration and mocking the passive- aggressive behavior clearly sent the message to the reader that the actual communication will not take place if the individual does not voice his grudge. Victims should convey the message to the employees as the writer is doing it by writing. People must speak up and talk directly without fear to express what they want. In our case, the irony is fear should be nonexistent. Silence is simply not the answer. Speak up and get the thing you desire. Keep it as simple as it is rather than making it a war which no one sees and knows that it exists.
Works Cited
"Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice." - The Onion. N.p., 2009. Web.
14 Aug. 2016.
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