23 Apr 2009
Logical Techno Manners: The Modern Master is Not Your Mother and the Modern Slave is Not Your Friend
We’ve all suffered below him. The back-slappy, happy manager who calls you buddy, wonders why you aren’t smiling and crawls all up in your bidness. And we’ve all suffered above them. The goofy, flare-wearing worker who believes friendliness is a substitute for competence.
At my job, I was once smoking Dunhill’s Aperitif blend and a co-worker looked at the tin.
“Which one are you?” she asked.
“What time is it?” I replied.
Although we live in a society where we are masters one minute and slaves the next, we have almost completely lost the ability to decently perform either role. I blame the boomers. Their primitive notions of equality have not actually created equality. They’ve simply added a layer of bullshit to our unequal relationships.
It’s no longer enough that you do your job well. You now have to hold your master’s hand while they do theirs. It’s no longer enough that you give an order to a servant. You now have to smile and express interest in their humanity. It’s an utter waste of time.
People have always been uncomfortable being commanded but now they are uncomfortable with command. They either act like blatant assholes or pernicious douchebags. They think they need to shout at you or be your best buddy to get anything done. The sad thing is, given the state of the serving classes, they are often right.
When it comes to master-slave relations, all the trust is gone.
Our forebears were able to trust the system they’d created. It was static, oppressive and simple. Everyone knew their place and they sure as hell better know they knew it. That, of course, had its own problems. But we now inhabit a different sort of hell.
Although our system is oppresive it is not static and it i far from simple. Everyone is a special little snowflake who either expects exceptional effort or exceptional treatment without understanding the conventions. This has left us in a blizzard of incompetence.
In my own life, I’ve spent quite a few hours on both sides of the bar, being served and serving. And if there’s one thing I have come to appreciate on either side, from master or servant, it is formality. Defined as a “rigorous or ceremonious adherence to established forms, rules, or customs”, it is also a way of maintaining respectful distance.
Being an asshole is well understood. Shouting, bullying and molesting the servants is self-evidently an abuse of power and therefore wrong. But what most people fail to understand is that being too friendly is also a form of assholery, an abuse of power and an act of entitlement. Like kissing a whore on the mouth, it is mutually demeaning.
It demeans the servant because they cannot actually be your buddy. Since school, you’ve had it pounded into your head that we’re all equals and, perhaps on some abstract level, this is true. But when money is being exchanged with a wage-earner who has a manager breathing down their neck and a job at stake, it certainly is not. There is no equality there. You are free to be you. They are not free to be them.
Pretending that they are is insulting.
Believe me, you do not want anything except lies from your servants. Nothing ruins dinner like the truth.
I suspect that most people who are too friendly believe their behaviour is not only fine but commendable. Being fundamentally condescending, they are too ignorant to realize that the staff has to pretend to like them. The servants have no choice but to endure. They are not free to say what they want and what they often want to say is: Why are you wasting my time?
When a customer who is not a regular or a buddy calls me buddy – the regulars and my buddies know better— I often think: So tonight I’m going to come over to your place, you’ll serve me drinks and food then I’ll pay you for it? Is that friendship?
When they ask my name, I often wonder what possible reason they have for doing so. That information is irrelevant. Like a stripper, I use a fake one. I have to go home with my name. I do not want it to carry you along like some brain-eating parasite.
Although I can imagine a few situations where a customer might actually need to know my name, I cannot imagine a single situation that I want to be a part of. A major portion of my job is making sure such information remains absolutely irrelevant. If you need my name, perhaps to shout it at me or to lodge a complaint with my superior, then I’ve lost control of the room, made a major error or you’re a simple prick. I have no need to be reminded of these situations.
To be a good master, one must cast off all the conventions of equality. One must understand and appreciate their power without abusing it. They must understand and appreciate the condition of their servant. It is servitude. There is no need to pretend otherwise. Simply respect your position and its incumbent responsibilities. Your job is not to be a friend. It’s to be sensible and just.
Do not get familiar and in time you may become familiar.
Likewise, to be a good servant, one must understand that no one should ever have to care about your personal problems nor hear your unsolicited opinions. They should simply be able to give an order –a reasonable order— and have it followed. You are furniture. You simply need to work.
Just as the master must be just, the servant must be trusty.
Like it or not, we all have roles and it’s best to play them well. There’s no telling when they will reverse.
