On my Employment at a Bagel Shop

"What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes."

~ Cook Ling, from The Zhuangzi


The difference between an unskilled job and a skilled job is that, if you stop working at an unskilled job, no one notices. If you stop working at a skilled job, then, people will notice. At an unskilled job, if you take a forty-five minute bathroom break, you won't be fired. Your friendly co-workers will commend you for being paid $7.50 to take a dump, and the rest didn't even notice you were gone.

There is a skill curve, of course, but without much effort, you can punch in an order in less time than it takes the faulty scanner to read a debit card. Give it a good twenty hours, and you'll be flying high with one hand on the receipt dispenser and another hand sucking your vape. Transcend into the flow: an unconscious smile, an empty greeting, a few quick pecks, and a request for payment. The most gratifying part of your day will be using your good reputation to skirt your employment obligations and winking at the chick with a cute smile who always wears black headphones as you pass her a greasy, paper-wrapped high-cholesterol "Farmhouse" bagel with three slices of ham, two eggs, four bacon strips, and one slice of cheddar cheese. If this sounds depressing, it isn't. It's the nothing that begets money, and a bittersweet reminder that with none of the power comes none of the responsibility. 

Accordingly, no one cares. Your "managers" don't care-- they're more underpaid and overworked than you are. If the customers cared that much about quality, they certainly wouldn't be coming to your location. But of all interested parties, the person who cares least of all is you. You have other things on your mind: you've got an exam, a child, a hobby, or maybe even another job. While your hands are pumping the cheap syrup of the sixth iced caramel latte with almond milk, light ice, and whipped cream of the past hour, your brain is watching from a nearby hill, falling asleep as it basks in the mid-afternoon sun as it counts misanthropic, black sheep. While smoothies and cold brews charge at you from the flanks, you're rewinding back to that philosophical movie you watched some months ago or some annoying song from your childhood.

I once asked my boss what the meaning of life and everything is. A career fast food worker, she said that the universe is a spider with strabismus, each of us one of its eyes, looking outward in whatever direction we please and occasionally at each other. After brief interrogation and a pause, she then corrected herself and said that, perhaps, a better metaphor would be an infinite-legged octopi where each of us is a brain in one of its tentacles. A Hobbesian nightmare: we have constructed the leviathan, but forgotten its brain. Each tentacle flails at will as great waves ripple forth from each monstrous splash. They tangle, cut, and rip at each other, draining the whole body of its hemocyanin blood. Ink splatters as the agonizing leviathan smashes whole oil tankers in its spastic fit. Chemicals seep into the sea, blackening each salty droplet of ocean water as the flailing beast gasps for water. Its gills become coated with slick, black petroleum as its internal organs begin shutting down and its ravenous appetite disappears. It becomes disoriented even more than before as some sort of aquatic vertigo overtakes it. It cries out as it sinks, its limbs crashing into the sea for one last wave.

It's Friday, 7:30 AM. I woke up in earnest forty-five minutes ago and ran to work from floor ten of a dorm tower about a quarter mile away. I forgot my cap, but I clocked in exactly on time. I've had my morning banana, and I'm pondering whether it'd be worthwhile to eat a morning bagel, even if I know my fitness tracker will frown upon me. A gentleman, a regular, walks into the shop. He's light skinned with a mustache, a hint of beard below his lip, and chic black dreads that are bound in the back. He's not a student, but he's still young enough to appreciate an eighteen year old's humanity. I respect it: I can hardly appreciate a sixteen year old's humanity. He greets me like an old friend, and he reminds me of an old friend. I almost wish I could know him better, but I've decided that this relationship would be best if left cordial and transactional. I smile, authentically, and just as I'm about to click down on the button to charge that dumb bagel sandwich to his card, I shift just enough to smash a small gray button labeled "COUPON." The cash drawer opens, and his charge drops to zero. "It's your lucky day, Lamai. I've only got five days left at this silly job." I mischievously pop my eyebrows. The receipt prints. "I don't care enough to charge you. Next year, I'm getting a job that pays me. Have a good one, homeslice."


"In that day, the LORD will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea."

~ Isaiah 27:1