I’ve read David Sedaris’ books for years. His earlier books – mostly collections of essays – are the best. Sedaris made a name for himself as an essayist and human-foible-lover with his appearances on NPR, years ago. He’s worked a million odd jobs, including seasonal work as an elf in New York over Christmas. Many of his essays are about those odd jobs and his eye for detail and humor in any situation will always make those early works really readable and enjoyable. But as he gets older, he’s just a rich American who lives abroad (France, mainly) and he’s lost touch with a lot of the slice-of-life humanity he used to mine for writing gold. Now he’s exactly the kind of older dude who thinks he should have the right to fire people from their service jobs because they displease him:
Imagine calling this idea “citizen activism” or “citizen dismissal.” Imagine being so out-of-touch that you think this thought will “land” with an audience in the middle of a pandemic. People who are at work out in public right now, in the service industry, in retail and in gyms or public pools, are there because they need that paycheck, and that paycheck isn’t much. Does Sedaris not remember that? I’m not saying that every person currently working in retail or service is an amazing person or anything, but the pandemic has shown us that there are a lot of thankless jobs which should have better pay, and rich people running around “firing” those people is nothing but institutionalized Karening. Besides, there are already outlets for retaliation if your service was that bad or whatever – speak to a manager and try to get someone fired, leave a bad review online, complain to the Better Business Bureau, etc.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
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