Monday, July 25, 2022
Two tellers are on duty in the bank branch, both with customers, and the line is going out the door, as people are still mechanically social distancing.
The customer on the left has a long transaction that finally results with the teller counting out a considerable sum of money and handing it to her. The customer then stays at the window and takes her time counting it again (when she could have moved over a few feet and still been able to protest if she thought the amount was short). The teller looked helplessly at the line and took a drink of coffee.
This level of self-absorption—obliviousness—is around us every day. It isn’t deliberate rudeness, it’s inadvertent uncaring. It’s the person who stops at the bottom of the elevator to look around, and the people who stop in the doorway as the theater exits to discuss dinner plans.
Of course some of it is stupidity, like the guy with ear plugs and a hoodie, staring into his phone, as he walked out between two parked cars in front of my car on the street.
This seems to be the age of the disengaged.