You young ladies are welcome not only to hold the door for me but also to give me a little goose as I pass through.
I’m 37. A wag who is my age once said that the only way I’ll be known as young now is if I die suddenly. 
Or crossing the street, too - go from corner to corner, not wandering diagonally across all the lanes of traffic that are waiting for you. I know we’ve gone around this on the Dope before, but when you are crossing a street and people are obviously waiting for you, I consider it a common courtesy (that I do myself) to cross with alacrity so they don’t have to wait too long.
I hold doors for anyone if the timing works out.
One of my general rules for successful driving is that your driving should never cause another driver to have to do something.
Not never, sometimes you just can’t avoid it. I mean, if I am braking for a right turn, you are going to have to slow down behind me. I’m not taking it at 40 mph.
But you should constantly be aware of what’s going on. Don’t turn in front of the one car that’s coming, wait for him to pass, and go behind him! Don’t meander across four lanes. I got really irritated by someone yesterday because he was making a right without a turn signal. If he had signalled, I could have entered traffic, but since I wasn’t sure what he was doing, I missed my chance.
Don’t sleep at the light. If you are the first person in line, it’s incumbent on you to watch the light and move when it changes, especially if you know it’s a short one.
If you can, why add extra left turns? I’ve known people that go down a busy road making left turns in and out all the way. They should go to the farthest stop first, and then make right turns all the way back.
Look at traffic, and anticipate its flow. I swear, people are so clueless, they just wander through their lives without ever examining anything!
If you are waiting to board the bus, its common courtesy to let people with mobility devices on first. This is because once I get the wheelchair ramp down, everybody can board after the wheelchair. But if a bunch of people bumrush the door, I can’t deploy the ramp until it is clear, taking more time.
And here’s a little secret: If you are short bus fare or dont have change, but I’m trying to let a guy in a wheelchair on, let him on first. I’ll likely be in such a hurry anyway I’ll just wave everybody else on under the honor system because I’m going to be too preoccupied getting the wheelchair secured than worry about everyone has exact change.
If you cut in front of the wheelchair guy and block my ramp, you damn well better have exact change buddy :mad:
I was in the city for a work day with a colleague, and when we got back to the parking garage, which uses kiosks where you pay before you leave, there were a few people waiting to pay. There were several machines, and when one opened-up, my buddy stepped forward to start his transaction, parking stub and credit card in hand. Well, a lady jumped in front of him, then started digging through her purse to find the stub and perhaps cash. She got a tongue-lashing and accused him of being rude.
Okay, I’ll give you that one.
Working in a job involving people queueing up to get/access something, I’ve observed a few things:
1.) People from different cultures apparently have different ‘rules’ about taking turns. The places where its dog-eat-dog will have folks of those cultures just bumrushing to the front, oblivious to anybody else (you snooze you lose! :rolleyes: )
2.) People from different cultures have different sense of personal space. From people that will shove past total strangers/run their carts of groceries over sandaled feet/etc to the people who are so territorial that how DARE you sit next to me even though there are 25 people forced to stand because there are no other free seats beyond the two Ms. Territorial Lioness is angrily hoarding!
I’ll admit there’s one place I can be bad in this respect, and its at the movies. If its a movie I really want to see, and I really want to get good seats, while I’ll patiently ‘wait in line’ once they remove that velvet rope, in my subconscious its ‘open season’ and I’ll break into this goofy walk-sprint, only to get reined in by my wife, who points out how I’m coming off as a spastic Sheldon Cooper while everyone else is just idly strolling through the lobby to the theater 
I sometimes get chewed out for this by my girlfriend but when I buy eggs I find the ones with broken eggs and mix and match them till there is only one bad carton. I am always afraid they will be tossed. As a man, help push a car out of the street, if I see an older person or anyone for that matter struggling with something I will often offer a hand. If someone wants to get over in traffic I try to give them plenty of room. Simply smiling and saying good morning or hello whatever to a stranger I consider a courtesy.
I was raised that one simply never ever uses an elders first name casually.
I was about 40 and at a Wedding reception. My friends, husbands Mom was at the table, a lady I had met once or twice before. I quietly asked her son, what his Mom’s name was, because of a divorce and remarrage I didn’t remember. He said oh just call her Grace.
My and my friend burst out laughing. He was dumbstruck, What? he finally asked. She looked at him and said if I called a lady of that generation by her first name without expression permission, my dead mother would have cast lightning bolts from the sky and killed me on the spot.
For the record I’m a northerner.
A few months ago I was on a train from Brussels to Amsterdam. It was a Sunday, so the Belgians were… I dunno, having fun with rail chaos or something, so the trains were very late and very full. I was standing in the hallway outside the compartment, when two old people entered. They walked into the compartment, so I presumed they would be given seats.
At the next stop, two more even older people entered. The train was now very full, but they moved towards the compartment, where again I presumed they would be given seats. Only I could still see them through the door. I waited awhile, thinking it might just take some time to sort the logistics in the compartment.
Eventually it was too much for me, and I pushed my way towards the door of the compartment. All four old people were standing. The last couple that had come in were probably 80! I couldn’t think of the French, so I said in Dutch: “come on, somebody with young legs can stand up for these people!” They stared at me, dumbfounded. Then some started to splutter “uuuh en francais svp madame…”, but I repeated it in English as I still couldn’t activate my French.
It seemed to take forever and was incredibly grudging, with constant complaints about the language. I couldn’t believe the whole scene. And the bloody cheek to make it about their ridiculous language divide, when we were in Flanders heading north and it was obvious what I was saying and they should’ve stood up anyway! Bloody Belgians (sorry, they’re nice 'n all, but their nationalist bs is just too childish to be true).
When I walked back into the hallway two very nice Palestinian men thanked me, and said they had been absolutely shocked and had been contemplating what would be the right thing to do, as they were of course abroad. They literally said they had not expected this of Western Europe. I felt so ashamed. They were coming from the Middle East and were shocked at the way we treat people. 
Ah. That would be a gosling you want then?
I agree completely, that’s more than 5 car lengths. IME, most people entering a doorway aren’t even really going to be consciously aware of others heading their direction that are that far away.
What? Is it now discourteous not to scan your surroundings in a 360 degree/100 foot area before you make any moves?
Basic common courtesy is dying off in our society.
I teach Taekwondo. One of the fundamental concepts in martial arts training is courtesy and respect. It is amazing how many people bring their kids in and they have not taught the kids a damn thing about how to act like a civilized human being. It saddens me to see this. School’s gonna have him a large chunk of the week, the parents have him the rest of the time. I’m gonna have that kid for 2-3 hours a week. I’ve got a big obstacle to overcome.
Courtesy is the oil on the hinges of daily living. If you don’t use it, life is harder than it needs to be.
It’s because I respect my maids and prostitutes that I don’t stand when they enter the room. It would be patronizing.
People who double park, especially if it blocks a one lane street, should be horse whipped in the town square.
And, how about being in an open-plan office? You know, about 300 workers, out of which roughly 60% are women?
My male coworkers in Palmatraz wouldn’t have needed to go to the gym, if they’d raised and sat back down every time a woman got in view or stood up.
100 feet? That’s crazy. Also that’s a third of a football field. No way should anyone hold an elevator for someone that far away. Hell, I doubt in most instance you’re gonna be able to see someone that far away from the elevator, they’re either gonna be outside the building or on the other side of a wall or around a corner or something.
You mean the thread about someone without the common courtesy to take whatever open seats were available rather than bother other patrons when they didn’t have the common courtesy to arrive on time the way the other patrons had?
There are two lanes at the traffic light. You are in the left-hand lane (this is the US) waiting for the left-turn signal. You can’t go anywhere until the light changes. You are in a big tall SUV or truck with a huge front end and can see over everything. I am in the right-hand lane, and am allowed to make a right turn on red. I am in a smaller vehicle. I COULD make the turn, and allow the people behind me to make their turns, except I can’t see the cross-traffic because YOU have crept up past the line and are blocking my line of sight. I try to creep forward a bit to see around you…and YOU CREEP FORWARD TOO! Stop back behind the line like you are supposed to! My making my legal turn is not gonna slow you down, so stop preventing me from seeing around your huge front end!
You what? If I ever found a broken egg I’d flag down a shop assistant to get rid of it, or at least leave it obviously to the side or something. Where do you go shopping that you can make a whole carton out of broken eggs from the others? And isn’t throwing them out what you’d want to do?
Common courtesy: picking up after your dog after s/he dumps in my yard. Am I a bitch because when I see you start to walk away I yell at you to pick it up?
Not!