THE ONION

        Throughout the satirical newspaper article in The Onion, the narrator demonstrates how the customer’s social anxiety overpowers his ability to ask the employee for a bit more rice for his burrito. The customer tries figuring out different techniques to see if the employee notices what is wrong with his burrito and what he wants the employee to do about the situation. No where does the customer decides to talk to the employee to solve the issue in a quicker and orderly fashion. This reminds me of one day when a group of my friends and I, went to McDonalds and ordered our meals. While eating and talking about different topics, one of my friends named Malcolm, used up all his ketchup packets. He had the option to stand up and ask an employee for more ketchup at the counter, ask someone around our table if they had spare ketchup packets, or to take all my ketchup packets without permission. Malcolm decided to take all my ketchup since he didn’t want to physically talk to someone else or go up to an employee and ask them for what he needs. Malcolm would of showed passive aggressive behavior as he has in previous situations as the customer from The Onion article “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice”. The Onion uses satire to ridicule social anxiety due to the pointless passive aggressive behavior a customer shows in Chipotle.

         The customer demonstrates passive aggressive behavior towards the Chipotle employee when being presented with different categories of food to include in his burrito. In the Onion article, “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice”, the customer starts “. . . glaring at the employee when he looks away . . .”.  The employee would never notice that the customer has an issue with his burrito if each time the employee looks away, the customer decides to stare at them with a fierce look. If the customer would just directly stare at the employee while the employee was speaking to him, the employee will at least notice something was wrong with the customer. Either there was something wrong with the customer in particularly or there was something that the customer didn’t like about his burrito.

        In addition, in the Onion article, “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice”, the customer also starts “. . . providing somewhat curt burrito-filling instructions, such as ‘Chicken’ and ‘Yes, pinto beans,’ in an apparent hope that your cold tone of voice will make him realize that a terrible mistake has been committed.” For the first part, the employee would just assume that the customer was prepared to order and knows exactly what he want inside of his burrito because of his sharp precise choosing of ingredients. The customer doesn’t double think himself on whether he wants an ingredient or not, he just states it to the employee and the employee does as told. For the second part, the employee would just think that the customer doesn’t really want to be there because of the “cold tone of voice” the customer has towards the employee. When a person has a “cold tone of voice,” it could mean multiple things. For instance, something a person didn’t want to happen, occurred, and they didn’t feel too happy about the situation, the person doesn’t actually want to be in the location/situation they are, or etc. There could be thousands of different events that can cause a person to have a ”cold tone of voice”, like not giving the customer the same amount of rice as the person ahead and behind him. The difference is that the Chipotle employee isn’t going to be focused on how much amount of food they gave to a specific people. They will probably assume that it was another situation that could have happened before the customer even entered the restaurant. In addition, when a person comes and speaks to others with a “cold tone in voice”, the person, in this case, the employee, would just predict that the customer doesn’t really want to be in Chipotle. The customer was in the store ordering because they were told to or they had no choice but to accomplish the favor that was given to them.

        In the Onion article “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice,” the narrator states “. . . birth records indicate that you are a full-grown adult presumably capable of communicating your thoughts and desires to an unthreatening 19-year-old burrito-assembler. Yet you reportedly continue to avoid even the most minor confrontation, despite the ramifications it may have on your upcoming sour cream and cheese allocation.” The narrator mocks the social anxiety the customer is going through because of his ridiculous passive aggressive behavior towards the “19-year-old burrito-assembler”. The nonthreatening 19 year old employee wouldn’t of caused a scene, he would of just listened to the customer’s preference and done as told. The customer is the person who is going to eat their own burrito not the employee. The employee’s job is to serve the customers the different type of ingredients they desire for their burrito. Their job is not to judge nor deny the customer from any of the choices that are being presented to them. Furthermore, the fact that the customer was an adult and not a child, demonstrates that the overall futile behavior that the customer showed throughout the whole situation was unnecessary and unacceptable. The customer already had the capability to communicate with the employee about what specifically bothered him about his burrito situation and how he felt about getting less rice than everyone else who is surrounding him. If the customer would of stopped doing pointless passive aggressive behaviors because of his social anxiety, the issue would have been solved since the moment the customer noticed the employee served him less rice than the person in front and behind him.

        Throughout the Onion article, “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice,” the narrator uses satire to ridicule social anxiety due to the pointless passive aggressive behavior a customer shows in Chipotle. The customer glares, and uses direct answers to agree, disagree, or decide on which ingredient he would want in his burrito towards the 19 year old employee as if the employee will be able to read the customer’s mind. The customer does these actions because the customer believes that he would be making a huge scene in front of everyone in Chipotle, if he just goes ahead and asks the employee for more rice. The overall behavior the customer demonstrated shouldn’t of even happened in the first place because the problem of the customer getting less rice than the person in front and behind him could of been resolved by asking the nonthreatening 19 year old employee for more rice. Therefore, The Onion uses humor to mock social anxiety because of the pointless passive aggressive behavior a customer shows.

Source

Onion, The. “Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice.” Local, Local, 18 Oct. 2017, local.theonion.com/chipotle-employee-just-gave-guy-in-front-of-you-more-ri-1819570502.

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