Where have all the good manners gone?(post your own etiquette pet peeves)

The BBQ Pit
81

My colleagues are on the verge of demanding a required course for all college freshmen/persons called “How To Go To College.” Aside from the academic stuff, being prepared, etc., we want to include the following:

*TURN OFF your damned cell phones and pagers! They are incredibly disruptive when they go off in the classroom.

*Don’t let the door slam shut behind you. Just hold it for a second, okay? Is that so hard?

*Don’t go in and out while a film is being shown. It is, again, disruptive. You are not in your living room. You’re in a freaking classroom.

Oh, I might as well throw in the rest while I’m here:

*If you lose the handout you were given, don’t expect an endless supply of them from your instructor.

*Bring your own stapler, pens, pencils and so forth. This stuff isn’t free and I’m not even sure we can still write it off on our taxes anymore.

*Don’t ask dumbass questions like “What are we doing today?” and “What did we do when I wasn’t here last week?” The syllabus was given to you for a good reason.

*Don’t wait until the withdrawal/drop deadline to ask how you’re doing in class. By now, mathematically, some of you will not be able to pass no matter what you do from here on out. Worried about that grade? You should be.

*Bring the textbook with you when the aforementioned syllabus mentions it. What did you buy it for if you’re just going to leave it lying around, forgotten?

*In the name of all that is holy, stop plagiarizing! I use the same damn Internet you do and it’s not hard to locate stolen goods simply by using the basics of Google.

I’d better stop now.

82

You left out the most important one of all:

NO PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS DURING CLASS!!! Your classmates did NOT spend a Godawful fortune on tuition and other expenses so they could hear you flirt with your girl friend or talk about how drunk you and your buds are going to get this weekend instead of the professor’s lecture!

For that matter, SHUT UP DURING MOVIES!!! BE QUIET AT THE LIBRARY!!! DON’T TALK DURING CHURCH!!! DON’T TALK DURING PLAYS AND CONCERTS!!! LEARN WHEN TO BE QUIET!!!

You really aren’t all that blasted fascinating–you really aren’t!!!–and there are lots of times and places when people don’t want to hear whatever trivial thoughts may be floating through your mind.

Oh, yeah–DON’T SHOUT!!! :smiley:

83

Well HONESTLY, I"m clearly not talking about that. I’m talking about people who are talking to you, flip to call waiting and talk to another person. So I’m not referring to people who’s jobs DEPEND on it. And frankly if I ran a business out of my home, I’d get a second line.

84

I’m a little surprised to see call waiting up so high on some lists of dislikes.

If I’m on the phone and another person calls, I’m supposed to simply ignore it? And hope that this person calls back? I don’t know who it is (no caller ID, no real desire for it), and they can’t leave a message on my answering machine 'cause I’m on the phone.

Obviously, it would be extremely rude to leave (generic) you hanging while I chat up the new caller, but I can’t imagine being offended by a person I’m speaking with quickly checking to see who it is - and agreeing to return the call when we’re done.

85

I really dislike call waiting. It’s simply rude. It’s the same to me as having a personal conversation with one person and another person just walks up and starts talking. It interrupts the first conversation, even if it’s just for a second while you “flip back”. And to answer your question, yes, I would expect the second caller to call back. They can deduce that if your phone continues to ring and your machine doesn’t pick up, that you’re on the blooming phone and for them to call back at a later time.

86

I don’t agree with you, but I can see where you’re coming from. I’ll be more mindful of the fact that it bugs some people in the future.

87

Oh, and I forgot another peeve. My mother used to do this ALL the time and it drove me nuts.

When she went grocery shopping, she would leave her cart in the middle of the friggin’ aisle while she was shopping. If anyone was behind her, they couldn’t pass her until either (a) she moved on or (b) they finally got her attention to ask her to move out of the way. I could never break her of that habit.

88

Well, why not do what i did: get rid of call waiting?

That way, the person trying to call you gets an engaged signal, and so they know you’re on the phone and they should call back. Alternatively, get voicemail that kicks in automatically when you’re on the line. This allows the second caller to leave a message.

Call waiting sucks.

89

Why not have two seperate lines?
Mr. Ujests dad needed his own line because - here is a shocker - the teenagers were always on the phone - so a business line was installed and the kids had their own line. They were responsible for the phone bill, too. So there was much hilarity for the first few months after installation.
But, I hate call waiting and have it myself on my cell and home phone. Damned if I know how to use either of them. Yay for being technologically retarded! Can I still use the word retarded in the pit, or is that a faux paux? Cause saying " I’m a technological cocksucking felcher. " just doesn’t do it.

90

But IMHO it’s not call waiting that’s rude it’s people who ignore stop a conversation with no warning and no explanation.

If I was on the phone, and had antoher call from someone I wanted to talk to, I’d say “Could you hold on, X is calling?” and then see what X wanted, especially if it’s likely to be somethign quick, and say I’ll call them back later, and then return to the first call and say “Sorry about that, it was just X.”

That seems to be much the same as talking face to face. If I’m talking to A, and B speaks to him, it’s rude if A walks off without a word to me, but I think “Excuse me a moment,[1] Hi B, yeah, cinema tonight sounds good. I’m just talking to Shade, I’ll speak to you later,” isn’t.

[1] Of course, IRL, we might be introduced, but assume B is in a hurry to make the analogy work, ok?

91

Rather than all that flipping back and forth between callers, why not just tell the first caller, “Oh, there’s the Call Waiting. I have to get this call. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
Then answer the new incoming call.
Having said that, the better option is (as others have said) to get a second line, if you’re running a business out of your house. The option of having a second line has been around a lot longer than Call Waiting.

92

My local supermarket has aisles where two carts can easily pass each other, yet I don’t know how many times I’ve been inconvenienced by two people going in opposite directions who stop and talk, thus blocking the whole aisle. My standard response is “Can you two find a more inconvenient place to hold this conversation?”

There was also the lovely Spanish speaker on the cell phone who was blocking the entrance on a January Saturday where the temp was one degree. I ended up going in the out door while he had his urgent conversation.

93

And whenever I am on the phone with someone and they say “Hold on, my cell phone is ringing” and then take the cell call while keeping me on the line, I am very grateful I’m not in the same room with said person because I would shove that cell phone up the person’s ass. :mad:

94

I’m 9 months pregnant, and will still get up if I’m somewhere and an elderly person needs a seat. For fuck’s sake, people, you’re 20 and able-bodied and just fucking RUDE.

Don’t let go of the door in someone’s face. Let them through.

Don’t talk on a cell phone during a movie. In fact, don’t fucking TALK during a movie.

95

mhendo, you’re right - I could choose either of those options.

I don’t because I see them as “solutions” to a nonexistent problem. Much as shade commented, I do not see it as rude to quickly take an incoming call. I am in no way offended when someone does this while talking to me, and remain puzzled that some are.

However, like I said, I will be more aware in the future that some others feel differently.

96

My two are from the work place, and they’re kinda connected. The big key is taking shit that doesn’t belong to you. I’ve brought three coffee mugs to the station, and all of them dissappeared after a week or so. I even put my name on the third one.

The second big issue is that noone cleans anything. A few times, I noticed someone used my coffee mug but gave it back. Only, they simply dumped whatever was in it out in the sink and then immediately put in back in the cabinet, so I come in to a filthy fucking mug that I’m not going to drink out of. And the fact we never have anything to stir our coffee with is the other thing. Spoons, forks, knives, anything like that lasts maybe half a day, then it’s gone. But while it’s there, it seems the first person will use it, then put it on top of the coffee maker without rinsing it off, so that later on, there’s so much dried whatever stuck to it and the top of the coffee maker, who knows how much bacteria’s been growing on it. It doesn’t take much to run a spoon under the tap water, damnit.

Then there’s the problem of someone who keeps pissing on the toilet seat. I’m not a big fan of crapping in public, but I seem to have become rather regular, and that means around 7:00, it’s time to go. Having to wipe someone else’s piss off the seat really doesn’t make it any less annoying.

97

Shirley Ujest, once again you humor me with the truth. I can’t stand it when someone blocks the lane of a parking lot while waiting 5 minutes for a spot. So help me, this happened to me this weekend - and there were PLENTY of spots equally as close to the store in the adjacent lanes.

:mad:

98

Although I don’t feel as strongly about it as others, I have to agree that call waiting is annoying in the extreme. I dislike the beeping in my ear when I’m trying to have a conversation, and hate being interrupted mid-conversation. I also hate it when people call me again and again when I don’t answer the phone. Sometimes my husband and I don’t answer the phone. We feel absolutely no obligation to do so if we’re trying to have a quiet moment together, and we try to avoid the Pavlovian response of jumping when the bell rings. If we’re eating dinner, for example, and are hoping to do so undisturbed, we don’t answer the phone because we’ve got an answering machine, so if it’s so very important, whoever it is can leave a message. But for some reason, my father-in-law calls again and again and again no matter how many times we avoid answering the phone until we’re finally forced to either pick up or turn all the phones on silent in order to save our sanity. If we do pick up the phone, he’s always just called to chat. Grrr…

Another thing that drives me nuts is when people talk on their cell phones in the bathroom - while they’re on the toilet. It really grosses me out. Last week I was in a bathroom, I think it was in TGI Fridays’, and there was this woman holding a business call while she was in a stall! If I were the one on the other end of that phone call, I can’t tell you how disgusted I would be to hear farts and flushing in the background. Nasty.

99

Funny you should say that. I don’t think this is the norm in the U.S., but in the office where I used to work, I was drawn aside and told not to ask someone to “please” do something because it sounded “too pleading,” and, especially since I was a woman, I was told that it made it sound as though I were being too nice. My manager (also a woman) told me it wasn’t the tone of my voice, but that women shouldn’t use please in the workplace because it detracts from their assertiveness. :rolleyes: This was in a department notorious for bitchiness and regular bouts of drunkenness.

I don’t work there anymore, and I still say please.

100

Yes, indeed! I have both Caller ID and an answering machine, so I feel no obligation whatsoever to answer the phone if I don’t want to. If it’s important, they can leave a message.
I will admit to looking at the readout screen to see who’s calling, but if I don’t recognize the name or number, I’m not answering. Or when it’s my mother. :wink:

Someone called three times in a row yesterday and the Caller ID said “Out Of Area” and the number had a Washington DC area code. I had my wisdom teeth out yesterday morning and I was in no mood to answer the phone, so I let it go to the machine, but each time they called, they never left a message. No great loss, as far as I’m concerned.