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 take it to the nearest trolly (we call them trollies) shed.
**Let someone merge in front of you in heavy traffic? **
Yes. At traffic merges you take turns - one from your lane, one from their lane, one from your lane. I get annoyed when I let one person in front of me and the per…dickfart… behind him rushes in too. (wanksocket)
** Pick up all of the trash from your table at a fast-food restaurant? **
Yes.
** Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you? **
Yes. If I’m parked parked (i.e. I have, you know, parked and am not just stationary at a stop or in traffic) I turn the engine off too. Annoys me when people sit there with their engine pumping fumes into the air I’m breathing.
Jump start someone’s car when they ask?
Never been in this situation. If I have my car manual with me then I’ll learn how to do it and will oblige.
I usually just leave the cart by my car, especially at night when I feel that lingering in the parking lot might put me at a higher risk of being mugged. My boyfriend and I have had some playful arguments over this issue, but my feeling is that since part of the employees’ job is to round up the carts, I’m giving them job security! Now that so many stores have computerized checkouts, they need all the justification they can get.
Sometimes, but definitely not if they’re one of those miserable bastards who tries to merge at the very last second in an effort to cut ahead in line. I go out of my way to keep the late-mergers from getting in.
Yes, even though I hardly ever eat inside at a fast food place.
My car has an automatic on/off setting.
No. There have been cases where would-be good samaritans have been robbed, carjacked, or murdered by criminals who pretended to have a disabled vehicle.
It’s foolish to put yourself in such a vulnerable situation when if the person really needs help they can call a professional/tow truck for assistance.
So I guess you could say I am “inconsiderate”, or maybe just very cynical.
I do all of these things, with the exception of the headlight thing – once I remember blinding some folks pulling into a parking space for the fourth of July fireworks. I turned them off as soon as I realized what I had done. It’s one of those things that happens so rarely it’s easy to forget.
These do seem like very small, basic things that should be done without thinking. My parents had many faults, but one thing they instilled in me is excellent manners.
What does “Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you?” mean? When does this come up?
I do all the other things plus hold doors open, say please and thank you at all times, and make small talk with complete strangers just for the hell of it, etc.
The people on this board are probably not a statistically sound sample of the general pubic. There are a lot of jerks out there and they’re probably not the ones subscribed to a message board that promotes fighting ignorance.
I do all that, and I was given a great suggestion by an uncle of mine…
I turn off my headlights when I’m waiting for a train to go past at a railroad crossing (assuming it’s dark of course) It stops you from blinding the poor guy on the other side, not to mention the horrible “strobe light” effect caused by the passing train cars. Once the train is past, I turn them back on.
I also turn off my headlights (but not parking/marker lights) if I pull into a drivethru and someone is ahead of me…so I’m not blinding them. OF course, I should mention that I’m in a truck, thus a little higher then some of the cars out there.
** Turn the headlamps off on your car when you are parked so you don’t blind people sitting in front of you? **
I don’t get this one. I don’t “park” with my lights on. I’ve never been blinded by the car behind me unless they had their high-beams on. When that happens, I flip the rear-view mirror to Night and I can see again.
If you’re talking about turning headlights off while waiting at a traffic signal, nobody does that. Your taillights would be off too, and don’t you want to be seen by approaching traffic? Plus, I might forget to turn them on again.
Some more considerate things: At the copy machine, do you Interrupt your job if someone else needs to use it? Do you check the paper tray when you’re done to make sure it’s full for the next person? Do you make a new pot of coffee if you take the last cup, or almost the last cup? Do you pick up everything you drop, even if it’s something small that doesn’t make a mess, like a rubber band or a paper clip?
Regarding the carts in the store parking lot; I consider that I’m only responsible for my cart. I will offer to take a cart off someone if they’re clearly finishing putting their stuff away and I need one. Saves them the trip back.
I like to think that I’m considerate in all things, but I admit there’s days when I just can’t care.
While the rest of your questions make sense to me, and I’d certainly do them out of consideration (I find myself often replacing the paper in the printer or the paper towels in the restroom), this one seems over the top to me. In this situation, I’d consider finishing your own job as efficiently and quickly as you can to make the copier available for the next person to be the most considerate course of action. One can be considerate without being submissive, I believe. (Exception being if they have something that’s absolutely urgent that can’t wait for me, then of course I’ll let them use the copier immediately.)
What I meant (but didn’t say) was if the copy job you’re doing is going to take awhile, and someone comes up and just needs a couple of copies, do you let them in?
Another way to look at it is if you’re the one with a couple of copies, do you go back to your desk and wait until the copier’s free, or do you stand and tap your foot and huff and look at your watch while waiting for the other person to finish? That’s consideration too – not forcing someone to accommodate you.
Fair enough. If that was the situation and they asked politely, then I probably would stop to let them handle their small job. If I was the one with the small job, I’d consider the urgency before asking.
Of course, in my office, it’s not the copier but the printer that sees the most use, and it’s chaos. Everyone dumps their print jobs at the same time and then it’s a race to see who can grab their papers first.
Aside from the headlight thing, which I don’t really understand, I do all these things. I try to be aware of those around me and how my actions affect them. I took my five year old to the grocery store the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, and I told my husband, “It was really stressful for me, because the store was crowded, and Chloe doesn’t know how to pay attention to people around her and stay out of the way.” He replied, “So she fits right in with most people!”
At least we are striving to correct that. It often does seem that all the other people at the store arrested at about the age of five, courtesy-wise.
I think people are over-thinking the headlight thing. Like the other night I pulled up to a small restaurant with my HID headlights blasting through the front window into the faces of diners. It’s common courtesy that I turn my headlights off as soon as reasonably possible.
This is what I had been thinking of. I pulled up to a shopping center the other evening and my husband got out to run inside the store. We left it running for the heat, and I didn’t realize that there were people eating in a little restuarant that I was blinding.
Yeah, headlights on while “parked” confused me too, maybe because the OP mentioned “people sitting in front of you”. I took that to mean lights off while at a stop light or stopped in traffic. And then someone else mentioned turning the car off, and I’m scratching my head. I think turning off your lights and engine if you’re just waiting for a traffic signal is a bad idea.
I do all these things. If I’m at the store in the produce section and drop something on the floor (not hard to do with the large stacks of potatoes and onions) I buy it. It’s rude to put it back for somebody else to buy who didn’t know it had been on the floor.
The last few times I’ve flown I noticed something I hadn’t really paid attention to before. When the ticket agent announces that boarding is about to begin there is a big rush to get in line and I noticed a lot of rude people rushing to beat somebody to the line so they could get a better position. I also noticed how the “line” could more accurately be described as a mob as people tried to inch their way ahead of the people in front of them. I always hang back and let the mob get on before I even bother getting in line. This time I noticed many others doing the same thing. Once the inconsiderate people had boarded the remaining people were polite, friendly, and actually stood in line just like we learned in first grade! The considerate people are much nicer to be around than the ones that just cause stress.
