The following real life interaction at Walmart offers a great illustration on how comedy can be improvised and how small moments can reveal a lot about relationships. Their conversation tends to show much more than the difference between the customer’s opinion on grocery bagging compared to the employee’s opinion on it but also the innocent misunderstandings and misinterpretations that could turn into jokes.
When the customer tried to make sure that the groceries would not fall and opened another bag to put the items in it, the employee challenged a debate on why bagging had to be done. The opponent’s critical consideration of the employee suggestion was to use two bags indeed which actually they were trying to avoid by doubling the bags.
It is just about natural that referring to the ‘Common Core math,’ Offred cleverly demonstrates that quite often, the logic behind suggested approaches seems unnecessarily intricate compared to the simple approach. Such type of humor is funny to many people and especially those people who have also faced a similar unfortunate situation.
Eventually, trying to point out the efficiency or the sustainability to the management or even to a fellow employee may not always turn out the way the employee might think, in this humorous exchange, the employee not only demonstrated good communication and also the use of logic but also ensured that some people got to have some fun. It also aggravates one fine point, though: people should be allowed to do things in their own way, as long as there are no major repercussions and whatnot – after all, some levity can even be brought to boring things like going for shopping.
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