With the continual growth of complexity in society, there are bound to be new roles created in order to account for these new complexities. One of the recently developed roles is that of the server. In this context, the server is not solely defined as the job in which a person serves food to another, but as any position in which a human is hired to interact with others and provide a service that the consumer cannot accomplish by their own means. These roles as they are defined here can include the previously mentioned waiter or waitress, the host, or the main topic of this article, the cashier. Other roles that cannot be categorized as such are mechanics, chefs, or any other similar occupation because the interaction between server and consumer is not a necessary part of the tasks that the worker must complete in order to fulfill their role.

Interactions between the server and the consumer is an everyday activity for all members of a heavily economic society like the United States, but it is not one that is often thought about. The rules of these interactions are so familiar to the two participants that it comes as second-nature; they do not need to think about how they should act with the other person. While there is a wide range of types of interactions, there are three main components that seem to be common to all types of tasks that a server must complete: promptness or speed of service, cordiality, and proper exchange of goods and payment. All three components must be fulfilled as completely as possible in order for the interaction to be considered a good one, otherwise the consumer exits feeling as if the server is not appropriate for their position.

In the service of cashiering, the speed at which the main task (ringing up goods) is completed is one of the most important aspects of success at the job. Often raises and promotions are contingent upon the speed at which a cashier can get a customer through their line. With my own work in the service industry as a cashier, I was lucky enough to find positions which allowed for promotions that were not reflected upon my speed, but even then speed is a necessary part of the social interaction. There is, of course, a variability of speed amongst cashiers and the quicker cashiers are often seen as better at their position by the customers. From what I have witnessed, it looked as if a person is more likely to go to a line where the customers are moved through quickly, even if the line in that aisle is longer than one of slower cashier’s. This along with the various compliments that were overheard about the swiftness of a cashier proves that in a consumer’s mind speed is directly related to perceived goodness and also that speed is much more prized over other beneficial aspects of a cashier.

Cordiality is perhaps least essential to completing tasks, but also the most important for the consumer. While speed is the first impression that a consumer will get of the cashier, the cordiality of the cashier actually lays the base and constructs most of consumer’s opinion on the quality of the interaction. Cordiality appeared as a universal in the interactions that I observed and participated in, but it also seems to manifest in many different forms. This component varies from one cashier to another, but also varies based on the type of consumer that the cashier comes across. In some of the observed interactions, cordiality meant “yes, sir” and “you’re welcome” with very minimal talking, with another it meant telling jokes, and with another still, it meant sharing personal stories. What seems to be evident from this is that matching cordiality with the consumer’s preferences is a very important aspect of the interaction. This helps to build a relationship between the two participants. This relationship may only last as long as the interaction does, but if it is strong enough, the relationship may span much longer as the consumer returns to the store and continually interacts with the server that they find the most to their liking (sometimes even insisting to only interact with that particular cashier).

Proper handling of the economic aspect of the relationship is the most important aspect of completing the particular task at hand and it is also important to finishing the structure of quality that was mostly created by cordiality. Unfortunately for the cashier, this part of the interaction cannot be completely manipulated by them like the other aspects. It is reliant equally on the server and the consumer. The consumer must be able to forfeit the correct amount of money and must also understand the transaction that is taking place. The cashier, on the other hand, must be able to complete the transaction with no incidence. An improper handling of this can quickly turn a previous neutral or good relationship sour. In one of the most alarming examples of transition from good to bad was with customer at a Sam’s Club when a customer was trying to buy products with her EBT card. She did not understand that those card can only be used for unprepared food and rather than trying to understand the issue, she placed all blame on the cashier and verbally attacked him until a manager had to be called. What was previously a good relationship quickly turned into an aggressive one.  It seems as if for some consumers, their finances are more important than the human interaction.

The relationship between consumer and server is a relatively simple one. The three main aspects that were previously mentioned mostly cover all there is to the interaction. Though within the simpleness lies many complexities. These complexities are the complexities of culture as a whole and some of them become more prominent in this interaction. Some characteristics of culture that are questioned in other relationships also come up in this one, such as the appropriateness of touching or the proper handling of words in order to not offend someone. Fortunately for both participants this interaction of cashier and consumer is short and often easily forgotten. This greatly alleviates the pressure of having a good interaction, bringing the relationship back to simpleness.

If it is just one image, is it a comic? Scott McCloud, a famous cartoonist and comic scholar, says no. He expels single panel works, for instance comics found in the New Yorker or works akin to The Far Side. But is this fair? Perhaps under the strict definitions of sequential art…

“Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”

Is this the best definition? Probably not, but it isn’t half bad either. But the key word in the definition is “juxtaposed” In The Far Side, the images are not juxtaposed because there is only one image. Lets look at this comic for example.

Here we see a single panel (at first, we will exclude the captain at the bottom from our reading), with dogs running around, repeatedly exclaiming, “Hey!” In the foreground, we have a man who appears to be a scientist wearing some sort of electrical contraption on his head. As is, we could make a variety of guesses as to what’s going on. Is his contraption making the dogs go wild? Perhaps it is emitting a particular pitch much like a dog whistle. I won’t try to sustain this mystery any longer, because I didn’t photoshop the image to exclude the caption, so you probably already know what is going on.

But with the added caption, we now know that the scientist is listening to what the dogs are saying and I think he is less than ecstatic to hear the mundane word repeated non-stop.

So the caption is critical in the understanding of the comic, yet it’s still not a comic to McCloud’s definition. However, we know for a fact that The Far Side is one of most celebrated comic strips ever, only sitting behind the likes of Peanuts, Garfield, and Calvin and Hobbes.

I propose that the caption is an image in and of itself. Sure, it isn’t pictorial (I suppose you can go into a lengthy debate of why it is, but I won’t do that here for I am unprepared for such a task), but it juxtaposes with the panel perfectly, not only explaining the panel itself, but also adding depth to the emerging form created by the unification of words and pictures. From the caption, we get a glimpse of the past, when the scientist was excitedly building this contraption and the caption along with the picture tells us of the present.

In other words, the caption adds such a unique depth to the singular panel, that it’s hard to suggest this isn’t a comic. Perhaps you can compare this to a photograph with a caption explaining the photograph. But it isn’t, for there are speech bubbles and the specific use of the word “hey” is absolutely crucial to the joke. You are never going to convince me that you can see speech bubbles floating above dogs in un-tampered photographs.

It’s strange to me that McCloud feels the need to define a comic in such a fashion. Perhaps the most critical medium it needs to differentiate itself from is the storyboard, but this definition doesn’t exactly do that, for the differences between those two mediums is far subtler.

To me, comics have always been a very fluid medium. Web comics have incorporated moving images or scrolling effects. Perhaps this definition doesn’t work, for it seems to exclude the masters of the simplest of comic forms – the one panel punch line.

Any college student is familiar with the word ‘procrastinate.’ I’m not going to pretend my habit of procrastinating and doing projects/essays/readings the night or even the morning before they’re due is unique to me, because I know most of my friends have this same issue. But I do get really frustrated with it, and I want to write about it.

Oddly enough, the biggest problem for me is reading. As an English major, most of my classes involve reading, and somehow that’s harder to get done than most of the assignments in my other classes. In the required natural science, foreign language, and math classes I’ve taken, I’ve had no problem getting the work done; I remember cranking out solutions to equations in high school math. There’s something steady and mechanical about getting math or science homework done, about answering defined questions until there are none left.

Reading assignments have similar end goals, so it shouldn’t be so hard. When I’m told to read the first 190 pages of Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, it seems easy. But there are a lot of problems. I tend to underestimate how long it’ll actually take to get through the readings while actually paying attention to what’s going on and trying to understand everything (down to particular words I have to look up). And even though I’m a frequent reader, I’m not a fast reader, so that makes it even harder.

But it’s more than just the logical factors. There’s always something that causes me to think “Okay, this is what I’ll get done tonight—I have plenty of time to get it all done,” then blink 12 hours later and realize I read 15 out of the 190 pages. Or sometimes not a single page at all.

It’s like some compulsion, some sick anti-addition to reading, some sort of reader’s block. I can’t tell for sure what it is. Maybe it’s partly dependent on my enjoyment of the reading—two of the few books I actually finished for class this year were The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, two books I really loved—but it can’t be just that. Back in high school, whenever people said “I would like this book, but the fact that we have to read it for class makes me hate reading it,” I completely disagreed; reading The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men in class made me like the books more, because discussing them helped me learn what made them so special. But something has somehow changed a little in college, and I frequently find myself unable to read what I’m required to.

The worst part is that it’s not just being required to read, though. I haven’t read many books outside of class, either.

At first I thought that was because I was so busy reading for class that I didn’t want to read more when I had time to relax. Again, it is partly that, but that doesn’t account for all of it. I made it a goal for the New Year to read at least one book each month outside of class, but so far, I’ve failed miserably at that resolution. Reading increasingly just has this feeling to me of something that I have to prepare myself to do, something that requires an insanely focused amount of attention that I simply lack. I’m always thinking, always preferring to either cathartically release my stress-inducing thoughts by journaling or just kick back and watch TV or a movie, something that doesn’t require even the typing of keys or the willpower to keep going, because it plays on its own.

I could fix this if I made a conscious effort to just stop watching TV and movies for a while, even a couple weeks. I mean, after all, I still consider books my favorite medium of story. They directly place you in characters’ point of views in a way that most movies and TV simply can’t. I much prefer writing in a novelistic form over writing in screenplay format. And, as large as my movie and TV to-watch lists are, my list of books to read is far longer.

Yet I don’t want to forgo TV (the main medium that takes up my time—far more than movies), because it has something that books doesn’t to the same degree: timeliness. When a new episode of “Girls” airs, I want to watch it immediately so that I can read reviews, talk with people about it online, and generally just take part in the cultural conversation. I like staying timely with TV; at the bottom of my planner, below my daily homework obligations, I have a list of episodes from the week that I plan on catching up with as time allows. There’s a sense that I have to catch up on these various shows as soon as possible, especially when we’re in this period of ‘peak TV.’ There’s less motivation with reading—especially when so many of my friends are TV and movie enthusiasts.

Still, it feels wrong to be in this sad state of reader’s block, especially as an English major. It feels like I’m violating my identity knowing that right now, at this moment in time, I’d rather watch the newest episode of “Jane the Virgin” than read any of the books I’ve wanted to read. Hopefully, once summer rolls around, I’ll have more time to consume all kinds of stories—not just the ones that take the least effort to begin.