The Controversy Of Mr. Tawney's Pasta Incident

It has been three to four years since, “Mr. Tawney’s Pasta Incident,” has taken place. It was a spring buffet lunch day when Mr. Tawney served himself a plateful of baked ziti from one of the serving dishes. However, before he sat down, he opted to go for the sandwiches he had just seen carried out. Torn between his meal options, he chose to not be wasteful and put the baked ziti from his plate back into the serving dish, grabbed another plate, and served himself a sandwich. After hearing all the details of this controversial story, I have concluded that Mr. Tawney should not have put his pasta back into the serving dish. His actions, while not entirely justifiable, have come to create a distrust in the way people view the dining hall’s food …show more content…
Even Mr. Tawney acknowledges that he would have never done such a thing, had he been in a more public setting. He somewhat shows some awareness that his actions were wrong as he does mention that he would not have placed the pasta back in its dispenser had he been in a more formal setting, such as an actual buffet. Mr. Tawney is aware that there are social norms to abide by. While social norms may not always make the most sense, I think that it is reasonable to abide by these “unspoken rules,” that the public has seemed to unanimously agree on abiding by, in public. At home, we are at liberty to do as we please as we are in our own private spaces. However, etiquette and social norms, when in public, change the actions that we tend to do on an everyday basis at home. For example, we know that we should talk with an indoor voice when out in public because it would certainly not be socially acceptable for you to shout out your private conversation with a friend. The same goes for whispering or talking to yourself in public, as people may often believe that you are insane or mentally unfit. However, we are free to scream or whisper to ourselves whilst in the comfort of our own homes and family. Frankly, the same goes for Mr. Tawney’s actions. He …show more content…
Tawney put the baked ziti back into the serving dish. It could have been that there were not many people in the dining hall in the first place; or Mr. Tawney may have been genuinely concerned that his portion of untouched food would go to waste; or that Mr. Tawney may not have felt comfortable eating both the baked ziti and the sandwich. For all we know, Mr. Tawney may have just been too lazy to throw out the pasta and thought he could sneakily put it all back in, because of the few people in the dining hall, without anyone noticing. He might even be making up this entire story just so he doesn’t have to grade tons of boring argumentative essays with generic topics. Either way, I believe that Mr. Tawney’s actions, whether real or falsified, were not correct and only justifiable to himself. Even in a survey done by Emmett de Kanter, a clear 16 out of 22 students did not feel comfortable with Mr. Tawney's actions and would not even eat the pasta where he had poured his baked ziti back into. The general public has