I’m just curious how people will respond. Do you put your shopping cart back after you’ve taken your groceries to your car, or leave it in between two parking spaces? Let someone merge in front of you in heavy traffic? Pick up all of the trash from your table at a fast-food restaurant? Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you? Jump start someone’s car when they ask?
I like to think I am pretty considerate, but I realize sometimes that I have been inconsiderate without even thinking about it. I think I am kind almost always, but sometimes I don’t take the time to make things easier for another person.
I suppose I’m considerate to a point because I would do all of the things that you mentioned as well as any other tangible form of help that I’m able to provide to other people and I treat people as decently as I can. To me, those things are simple. I think that I can be very inconsiderate about people’s feelings sometimes because I’m if something seems so trivial that it doesn’t bother me I tend not to notice or understand that it bothers someone else. I have to resist the urge to say ‘FFS just get over it’ on a regular basis.
I try to be very considerate in situations such as you describe to the point that at times my family members have criticized me for - uh - being inconsiderate to them for the purpose of not inconveniencing a stranger.
One area that is always in my mind concerns taking up more than a reasonably proportionate allotment of space. In the grocery store, I move my cart to the side of the aisle and do not stand blocking the aisles. On sidewalks, I stay to the right, and do not stop abruptly at choke points. When driving I try to be predictable in my actions, and desire that others not have to unnecessarily change their speed/path because of me. I’m not a fan of “seat-saving” at events. That sort of thing. Also applies to being louder than necessary when it would adversely affect others.
Thinking of how my actions impact others is so much second nature, that it sort of seems odd that so many others do not seem to feel similarly.
This is one of the things my mom insisted upon. I don’t think I was nearly as considerate when I was a young person, but I think I do well these days. I do live in a place which puts a high value on manners and social graces, so that may be part of it.
I’m surprised at how many people aren’t considerate at home. Fer cryin’ out loud, the home is supposed to be our safe haven from the world. My sister drives me crazy with this. She will bend over backwards for a perfect stranger, but she never says ‘please’ once when ordering her husband around. So rude.
I have done all those things. I have also given up my seat on the subway, stopped to help people whose cars have broken down in traffic, and I say “thank you” when the busboy refills my water glass.
**Do you put your shopping cart back after you’ve taken your groceries to your car, or leave it in between two parking spaces? ** I do that *and *I take one *in *with me on the way in.
**Let someone merge in front of you in heavy traffic? **Usually. Very rarely would I not. Pick up all of the trash from your table at a fast-food restaurant? I don’t eat at fast food places, but if I would, I would bus my own table.
**Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you? **I’m not sure where this would happen, so maybe I don’t when I should.
**Jump start someone’s car when they ask?**Absolutely. I just did this a few weeks ago. She would have had a long wait until someone else came along too.
Most of the time I follow the “do unto others” rule.
I am so freakin’ considerate. I do all of those things on a regular. And! I have raised the conciousness of my best friend…now she tries to remember to be more thoughtful too.
The letting people ahead in traffic is just common sense. It benefits no one to not let folks merge.
I have many faults that I have to work hard on. Legion. But consideration of others is not one of them.
My husband always laughs at me because when I return my cart to one of the little cart-collecting places in the parking lot, I stop to straighten up the ones that are already there so that they are easier for the workers to collect later.
I agree with Dinsdale that it seems second nature; I get so aggravated when other people are rude.
Well, out of those examples I do everything except sometimes the merge thing: I think it should be done and actually in Spain traffic law requires it, but it’s as a part of “aiding traffic fluidity” and sometimes my having to brake and make others brake would hinder fluidity, not aid it.
I don’t think of it as being “considerate,” more of a “living together is fine so long as we all shower,” it’s common sense. I like finding clean tables, carts in their spaces and being able to merge into traffic; I also like having a short queue because the waiters and cashiers aren’t having to go clean tables or put the carts back into their proper place.
Sometimes I take abandoned carts to their spot while on my way into the supermarket. Needing to put a coin in the cart to use it (as it’s common in many supermarkets in Europe) cuts down on abandoned carts a lot.
*Do you put your shopping cart back after you’ve taken your groceries to your car? *Always.
*Let someone merge in front of you in heavy traffic? *Always for someone who is signaling, and usually for someone who is not signaling. I am never an asshole about it, but someone who is not signaling is not going to get as much courtesy from me. Pick up all of the trash from your table at a fast-food restaurant? Always. Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you? Like Khadaji said, if I noticed; I don’t know if I’m ever in this situation. Jump start someone’s car when they ask? I have the cables; the other person would probably have to know better than I do how to do it. I’m pretty apprehensive. But I would absolutely offer the use of the cables and battery.
I do my best to not get aggravated by rudeness/cluelessness, because it seems to the the default setting for so many people. At times I wonder the true proportion of inconsiderate folk. It may well be that they are actually few in number, but their negative impact on you causes them to appear more prevalent. Meanwhile, you just don’t notice the majority of folk who do not adversely affect you.
Instead of aggravation, I’m sort of bemused, as it generally takes no more physical or mental effort to be considerate than in-. Just a different mindset, not more demanding. I find it curious that inconsiderate people do not choose to behave in a manner that minimizes the inconvenience imposed on everyone around them.
Do you put your shopping cart back after you’ve taken your groceries to your car, or leave it in between two parking spaces? I put it in the appropriate spot or, if someone’s looking for a cart and I don’t need it, I’ll ask them if they want it.
Let someone merge in front of you in heavy traffic? Usually, though sometimes it’s only to avoid getting cut off. It annoys me when someone is trying so hard to get in front of me that they’ll cut me off, so I usually grudgingly let them in, if only to avoid having to slam on my breaks and potentially get hit by the person behind me.
Pick up all of the trash from your table at a fast-food restaurant? I haven’t been to a fast food joint since last March, but yes, I do bus my own table.
Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you? Yes.
Jump start someone’s car when they ask? Unfortunately, I don’t have jumper cables in my car; otherwise, I would gladly do so if someone needed a jump. I should probably get some cables.
I’m usually considerate, but sometimes not to be nice. Sometimes, as with driving, it’s just to avoid future inconvenience.
I don’t really think of myself as a very considerate person, but I do all of the things in the OP. Seriously, whoever doesn’t is more than just inconsiderate, they’re jerkish. Maybe it’s just the way I was raised, but the only one of the those examples that actually might cause someone inconvenience would to be jump start someone else’s car. That’s the only one where I wouldn’t consider someone a jerk for not doing.
I do all of those things and more of the same. As I’ve gotten older I try to arrange my life so that I’m rarely in a hurry. It’s easier to be considerate that way.
I do all of the stuff in the OP, and I’m trying to raise my boy to be considerate too. Although sometimes it’s difficult to explain to him how to find the hand-off person to take the door so he doesn’t wind up holding it for a herd of people for ten minutes at a crowded event.
I’ve gotten into some situations that made me do the “whatever was I thinking?” thing afterward, assuming the best of people when it’s not necessarily true. Like stopping to check on a vehicle that looks broke down and offer help but winding up in someone’s drama fest, but I still stop and offer generally.
I think of the headlights thing as almost exclusively being neighborly. I work nights, and I don’t really need my headlights on to pull into or out of my own driveway, and I’m sure my neighbors don’t need the giant light invading their bedroom in the wee hours, so I always turn them off.
One thing I have to really work on at home is using “please” more regularly. I sincerely thank my family for doing things, but often forget to ask nicely and use please, it’s more just “go do that thing” and that’s suckier than it needs to be.
I consider myself to be very considerate. I do all those things listed and some of the others people have mentioned. I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to just about everyone and sometimes get odd looks from my companions when I do. One thing I do that annoys a friend of mine is clean up after myself in stores and restaurants. Things like wiping down my table to get all the crumbs and stuff, and if I knock something over in the store, picking it up. She never does because “other people get paid to do that and we’re just giving them job security” Umm…yeah no.
I have done all of that. I even put away an extra cart at a store the other day. I used to work as a checker, and had to go fetch carts in the winter, and know what a PITA it is, so I took two inside, instead of just one for me. I have also been a waitress, so I always leave my table fairly neat, to the point of almost busing it myself. Hubby gets embarrassed sometimes. I even get down on the floor and pick up after my son if he was messy.
I guess I am pretty considerate. But I also consider most of those things second nature. I have also had to ask for help on several occasions, so I know how it feels. I had a lot of car trouble in college, and had more than one stranger help with changing a tire, pushing my car, or jump starting it.
I do all the stuff in the OP except return the carts. If there’s a cart depot nearby I’ll put it there but if not, I leave them at one of the ‘4 corners’- at the intersection of the lines where 4 parking spots meet. The stores employ people to collect them, so if I return them to the door I’ll be taking food off some employee’s table. Plus, I usually have my kids with me and I’m not going to walk across the vast parking area and leave my kids alone and buckled in their seats in the car.
But I don’t see that as inconsiderate- I often get my cart from the middle of the lot after somebody’s left it there like I do.