For a while now I have noticed a trend among the customers I deal with at my day job.  It would be one thing if these incidents were sporadic, only happening every few days or less, but they happen many times every day.

Every day I receive unsolicited apologies from customers because they have failed to bring in their eco-friendly reusable bags to bag up the items they purchase from the company I work for.  Some of them will even punish themselves by refusing the offer of a bag (we have far more than enough for every customer) and carry all their items to their cars in their arms.  Others will digress into a confession about their failure to recycle at home.  I hear this sometimes six or eight times a day if I happen to be working the registers on a given day.

For my part, I never ask anyone if they have brought their own bags, I never deliberately engage them on the subject of recycling or in any way reference their own perceived crime. They just start talking and this stuff comes out. Mostly it is women who engage in this self flagellation, but I hear it from a fair percentage of men also.

It has become so tiresome that my standard reply is, “Don’t have ‘bag guilt.’ Paper is a renewable resource.”

I hear whispers of other kinds of politically-correct guilt in conversations among my customers and co-workers.  Owning or driving a big car or truck is high on the list of things people are ashamed of.

Maybe it is because I live in California that I am exposed to so much of this stuff.

I find it ironic that the secular culture often imitates the worst guilt inducing ‘motivational techniques’ of the evangelical church and some of its more colorful evangelists.  If you don’t believe me, listen to a pledge drive for a PBS radio or TV station.  They have taken a page out of the old tent revival playbook.

The list of sins is relatively new.  The guilt is the same old stuff though.  It is amazing to me that people so easily and willingly take on this kind of guilt and feel the need to confess it to a total stranger.  Our news and entertainment media groom people to accept this guilt and then use it as a handle for their advertisers or to affect political change.

Next time you are out in public, listen closely to the bits and pieces of conversations that you overhear, and pay attention to your interactions with strangers, and see if you can pick up the same thing.  I would be interested to hear your comments.

By Pat K

Posted in General