Customer service
Avedon Carol on customers who sass cashiers:
We are now at the point where merely expressing annoyance at anyone in authority makes you a terrorist. And when I say “authority”, they don’t have to have much authority. As with the case of the shopper who said something sassy to a cashier and got tased by – who was it, cops, or just security? – the issue isn’t whether you’re involved in any kind of crime or violence, it’s whether you know your place. You are just acting as a private citizen, and you have to recognize that as such, those who are acting as servants of those in power have greater authority than you. As a mere American citizen, you are not the equal of anyone who is acting for Big Property. And, while it’s true that the cops might beat you up whether you sass them or not, they pretty much will subject you to violence if you suggest, in any way, that they may possibly be overstepping, making a mountain out of a molehill, or simply incorrect in their assumptions. This gets amped up well beyond the Kafkaesque when there is any possibility of employing use of the utterly vague and horrifically overbroad term “terrorism”. In these cases, you don’t even have to express that you are annoyed or upset at them to earn a conviction – you merely have to show some sign that you are concerned with anything other than showing them their due deference.