Good manners is a very rare occurrence on the roads these days, although how much politeness do we need.
Yesterday I was walking home along a busy road when a driver (who had the right of way) stopped to allow an oncoming driver to come through a small gap. This charitable act was acknowledged with a wave, a toot on the horn and a flash of the headlights!
So then because I have recently learned to think when I’m walking (who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks) I wondered where this politeness would ultimately end… the oncoming driver getting out of his car and shaking the other driver’s hand, exchanging addresses so he could send a thank you note, going on holiday together, having each other’s…well I had reached home by then so my brain switched into standby mode, so the thought withered on the vine.
Grrr bad manners hack me off more the anything else. I had stern words with my mother a few days ago after she plonked coins on the counter at a shop. Don’t make people scrabble around for coins! Put coins into the shop persons hand. They don’t have cooties.
I hate this. Of course, I also hate it when i hand a cashier money, and then the change gets slapped on the counter, even if I have my hand out. I was always taught that you return the money the same way you receive it.
I might have mentioned in another thread that I am an etiquette consultant on the side- basically, companies and schools ask me to come in and do ‘clinics’ on basic professional etiquette (proper dress, mingling, dining at table, etc. with a liberal sprinking of everyday dos and don’ts)
Quite often I am appalled by what people think is acceptable behavior, even in a professional setting!
I consider people just dropping by without calling to be quite rude, though I’ve had a couple of friends do it. I tend to be doing something pretty much every waking minute of the day, so your stopping by without my express permission basically disrupts that day’s schedule.
Yesterday in Wal-Mart a woman cut us off as we were going to the register. She was already cashed out and leaving, and she was just completely oblivious to our presence, even though we had a cart and everything. She didn’t realize we were there until I laughed at her, at which point she turned and apologized.
Another woman there probably thought we were somewhat rude when we were using the blood pressure monitor and she was waiting for it. My husband had already started using it when she arrived, and I simply glanced back and saw that someone was there but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her presence. Of course we left as soon as the machine finished, but she might’ve thought we (or at least I) was rude for not really acknowledging her. I figured that so long as I was aware of her and didn’t hold her up (which we didn’t), that I didn’t need to do anything else.
I never thought that this was rude, although I usually hand the coins to the cashier. Sometimes the counter is very helpful when you’re trying to count out the coins.
Even if I have to use the counter to count out coins, when I’m done I’ll pick them back up and hand them to the cashier.
While I don’t actually think this was rude either, I think one of the main reasons manners are becoming so rare is because manners are rarely a matter of what is “needed” to be done, and so don’t get done at all. I don’t need to wave a thank you to someone who lets me in, and I don’t need to hold the elevator for someone coming around the corner as the doors are closing, but it would be terribly poor manners not to.
Good for you.
People who throw money on the counter rather than handing it to the cashier really chap my ass, especially because so many people seem to do it even when the cashier actually has his or her hand extended and ready to receive the cash.
Another vote for Judith Martin – she just makes sense.
Just this past weekend my daughter and I went to a movie. We were in line to get some really good movie junk food :o when the counter people opened another register and said “Next customer here.”
There was a man and woman ahead of me who appeared to be a couple and were being helped, so I stepped over to the newly opened register.
Well, it seems they were not a couple and the woman was really “next” but instead of pointing out my error verbally…she literally shoved me aside…not a word…just a full body shove. Everyone noticed and looked kind of astounded.
I made some comment about not “realizing buying popcorn at the concession had turned into a contact sport” and we all laughed…but really…it was obvious to most I was not trying to break in line. A simple “Hey, I’m next” would have worked just fine.
Ugh, bad manners drive me insane. I just can’t handle it.
My personal favorites are people that fail to say thank you when you hold open a door for them, and people who don’t wave thanks when you let them into traffic. I think the door thing is worse, though. Honestly, you’ve got to walk right past the person who’s holding the door for you, why wouldn’t you say thank you?
Oh. Right. You were raised in a goddamn barn.
So sorry. :mad:
When that happens to me, I make a point of saying “You’re welcome” in an especially loud, perky voice.
I’ve always considered myself to be a polite, well mannered kind of guy, but some of your OP has left me scratching my head. (For the record, I agree with everything I haven’t quoted.)
Seems to me like he was doing you a favor by bring the cart back for you. How was this rude?
So if someone says that they will be coming by at around 7, I’m supposed to wait by the door, jumping up to peer out the window every time I hear a car drive by, just so I can open the door before they get to it? My guests are perfectly capable of ringing the doorbell or knocking. Also, most of my friends would not sit around feeling hurt that I didn’t help them with their bags, they would have asked me to help them with their bags.
It depends on what kind of visit this is supposed to be. My friends stop by the house all the time, and if I happen to be in the middle of doing the dishes, I’ll offer them a beer, and ask them if they mind if I finish up (this just happened last week). Now, I don’t expect them to help, but we were still perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation while I scrubbed some pots. However, if I invited someone over for a cocktail party, or if the Queen was stopping by for tea, I would leave the dishes for another time.
My mother brought me up to have good manners. I hold the door, I say “Bless you,” I offer my seat to elderly ladies on the bus, I ask people if they mind if I smoke, and I’m always sure to be downwind of non-smokers. I really don’t find the events described in your OP to be good indications that “the world is going to hell,” nor do I find them “almost shocking,” as PussyCow said.
I do that too. Still pisses me off, though.
And lightningtool, what was rude about the Walmart guy waiting for the cart was that he stood there impaitently waiting for the OP to finish with her bags. Making a customer feel rushed so you can save yourself some time as an employee is just rude, any way you cut it. Now, if he had asked her if she needed some help (that’s happened to me) to sort of not be so obvious that he was waiting to snag her cart, that’s a whole nother thing. That’s polite. But just sitting there impaitently watching her unload her stuff? Not so much.
And the thing about the friends doing housework while she visits. I think it depends on the context. If she’s going to be there for the whole day for no special reason, it’s a little much to expect the host to just stop her routine for the day and entertain. If she’s only there for a few hours, then yeah, the dishes and laundry can wait. What you said though, about getting your guests something to drink and asking if they mind waiting while you just finish up the dishes isn’t rude at all. I’ve enjoyed many a glass of wine standing in my friends’ kitchens chatting away while they finished up dishes, cooking or whatever.
I can see where you’re coming from, but unless the guy was sighing or muttering about how long it was taking to unload the cart, I would see it as someone patiently waiting to help a costumer. Different strokes, I guess.
By the way, it’s lightingtool, not lightningtool. Don’t worry, happens all the time.
On occasion I’ve put money on the counter instead of in the salesperson’s hand. I had no idea it was considered rude - nobody ever told me. On the other hand, when I hold a door open or give up a seat on the bus, people look at me like I’m weird.
Whoops, sorry about that lightingtool, twas not intentional.
As for the rest of your post: I dunno. I think that if a customer is sitting there unloading a grocery cart into her car, and you’ve got the job of collecting carts from the parking lot (which usually also has a "help customers with their things if necessary caveat in the job description), it’d be the more polite thing to offer to help her instead of just standing there, watching and obviously waiting for her to finish. The customer may not want help, but you should at least ask.
IMHO, of course.
Same here. (About the door; I don’t ride buses.)
It’s to the point where I only hold doors open for people if they are right behind me or if their arms are very full. And even then they’ll give me this blank stare most of the time like I’m trying to con them or something. It’s weird. I’ve had people stop, hesitate, and then finally proceed through the door that I’ve held open for them.
Not putting coins in someone’s hand may not necessarily be a sign of rudeness. There are cultures and religions that have rules that prohibit skin-to-skin contact, especially between men and women. In that case, putting the money or change on the counter is the polite thing to do. The same things applies to handshakes. The lack of a response to an offered handshake should not be presumed to be an insult.
- Several years ago, we were buying our week’s groceries and got to the sole open checkout. A woman came up just as we were going in line, with two items. Being a gentleman, I let her proceed ahead of us. She was appreciative – told us she had just finished work and was expecting company that evening, so the kindness was even more than usually appreciated.
Three days later, I got a check from out of state. The bank normally charged a fee of a few dollars to cash such a check, and had the option of having you wait until it cleared to access more than a fraction of it. I expected to have to pay that fee and had hopes they wouldn’t force me to wait, but expected that they would.
The teller was the woman I’d let go ahead of me at the grocery. She waived the fee for check cashing, cashed the check, noticed it was not the first check I’d cashed from that source and that they’d always cleared, and put in some sort of automatic OK so that such checks were not subject to the “float.”
- If we’re buying four bags or less of groceries, we always carry them out to the car by hand, making a point not to add one more cart in the parking lot to the bag boys’ job of bringing in carts. On this one given busy day, the young man who’s usually the senior bag boy was manning the register we were waiting in line for, and the shift manager came over and told him he needed to take his break, apologizing to us (who would have been his next customers) that we’d have to go through another line. He told her, “No, I’ll take it right after I check them out – they’ve always tried to be courteous to me, so I don’t want to inconvenience them. Is that okay with you, ma’am?”
Normally I’d put the money straight in the cashier’s hand, but if I’ve had to count out coins on the counter, I’ll let them collect them from there.
The reason’s embarassing but very simple. I bite my nails (a lot) and there’s no ‘grip’ there at the tips of my fingers for me to pick up coins off a flat surface - especially the rubber stuff they have at checkouts. I *can * do it, sure, but it takes longer and cashiers tend to get frustrated waiting, so I just let them do it instead.
For the record, Aussie coins (5 and 10c pieces specifically - especially the 5c) are quite thin. I’m not sure how thick the small-change coins are overseas, so if you’re reading this post and going ‘say WHAT?’ as you get to the bit about me having difficulty picking up coins off a flat surface, give me the benefit of the doubt here. 