The Collapse of American Service

Symptom of a National Illness

A food delivery order I recently placed to my office arrived without utensils, sauce leaking into the bag, left on the floor in a public hallway outside the main door to my practice. The instructions printed on the order (and stapled to the bag) read, “Leave on table in waiting room inside suite. Utensils requested.” Is the delivery worker illiterate?

He may well be. But widespread illiteracy is a separate problem born of the disappearance of grammar, books, and handwriting in the American school system, coupled with the rise of cell phones and thumb-typing as the sole method of receiving and transmitting information among the under-30 crowd. I suspect the reason for the piss-poor performance of this worker is much simpler: bad character.