After I wrote Tuesday’s Joe to Go about being judgmental, I drove to the airport to pick up Robbie. I arrived a bit early and got in line at a fast food place to get a piece of pizza. A young black kid was at the cash register and was having trouble with it. A well-dressed middle aged white woman in line ahead of me was in a hurry, and I watched her growing increasingly impatient while she waited for the kid to clear the transaction from the previous customer. He should’ve looked up at her, apologized for the delay, maybe explained the problem. But he didn’t (probably hadn’t been trained properly), and he kept his head down, kept punching buttons, saying nothing to her.
She got exasperated and tried to get the attention of one of the other workers, saying loudly twice, “Excuse me, can you help over here with the cash register?” Finally, a supervisor showed up and fixed the problem, the woman paid, and as she gathered up her luggage and pizza, glanced directly at me and gave me one of those smiles that said “Can you believe the incompetence?” And I automatically acknowledged her smile with a smile of my own that essentially said, “I know, unbelievable, isn’t it?”
As I sat down to eat, it occurred to me how insulting it must have been for this kid to have someone pointing out his incompetence to others right in front of him. Yes, he should have acknowledged her, but she should have spoken directly to him, “Hey, looks like you’re having trouble with that thing” and eventually “Is there someone here you could ask for help?”
I wondered whether it was because he was a kid, because he was black, or what it was that was the factor for her. I couldn’t imagine her doing that to a middle-aged white woman struggling with the register. But I don’t really know.
And then I realized that I’d reinforced her seemingly judgmental attitude with my own return glance. I’d chosen to publicly join with her, instead of publicly join with the kid. I could have ignored her glance and made small talk with him when I paid for my pizza. But I didn’t. I was on automatic pilot, acting superior along with her, and not even aware of what I was doing. It occurs to me now that she probably was on auto-pilot, too. Am I judging her now?