pointless rant ahead...
Is it just me or are people getting less and less well mannered lately? It seems as I meet more and more people, the more likely they are to be general a-holes or just don't have the common decency to do something nice.
example one:
I used to work at a restaurant and as soon as I started working there I noticed people that ordered their food were NOT polite. Don't get me wrong, most weren't mean per se but completely lacked the ability to use words like "please" and "thank you" Now, when I was growing up at home I HAD to use these words. If I didn't I was being rude, and to be honest, at first it was frustrating that I had to do it all the time but it soon became apparent that it wasn't much trouble to just say a few nice things and when I would do something that warranted a 'please' or 'thank you' response, it did seem rude when it wasn't given. I wouldn't get too pissy about it but it seemed rude nonetheless. Now at this restaurant I was fed up with the people that didn't want to go out of their way to be nice to someone so I told the people that I worked with that they should come up to me if they serve someone (I worked the kitchen) who said 'MAY I PLEASE HAVE...(whatever food they ordered) ...THANK YOU' or something similar ('CAN I PLEASE HAVE' is fine, I'm not a grammar nazi after all). If anyone did I would pay for their ENTIRE meal. The whole thing! Not one single person did for the rest of the time I worked there after making that promise - more than a year and a half. Is this not asinine? Just some respect for someone doing a favor for you (granted they are being paid but it's not like you have to pay them more if you're nice to them).
example two:
Again when I was a wee lad, whenever I received some sort of gift and the giver wasn't present I would write a thank-you letter. Didn't have to be something huge, no essays about what I'm going to do with the gift, just saying thanks and a few lines about how my life is going and that I want to see them soon. And yes, you could cut corners if you had to write multiple letters: being that the receivers of the letters probably didn't know each other (and if they did, they certainly weren't likely to compare thank-you letter context from the same person), you could write a bit of a template: Dear ____, Thank you for the ___. It will be really fun/useful. School is well. Soccer/football/baseball/etc. is fun. My team is doing ____. An so on... As a kid you didn't want to spend your first days after Christmas and your birthday writing letters! You wanted to be playing with whatever you got, so you took a few shortcuts (mind you, as I got older and matured I phased this out and the letters became longer and more personal). Most importantly though, the letters were HAND WRITTEN. No emails, no texts, on a rare occasion a phone call was okay. Not great but at least you're thanking them.
Cut to the present, I recently got dumped (boo-hoo me right? ...she was HOT too, damn...) after a 6 month relationship. It had turned long distance as she had moved a few hours away and would occasionally come home (I live in her home town). She was actually in town the day she broke up with me, but kept avoiding me when I called or tried to get in touch. So she waited til she got back home and sent me AN EMAIL. She left town when she could have done it in person (she lives about 2 miles away from me too when she's back in town) and sent a break-up email. Can you believe that shit? Not face-to-face, no phone call, but an email!
Anyway, example 2.5: We kept talking for a bit afterwords just to keep in touch because we were together for 6 months. Well when we talked we could normally keep it mature but soon the reason we broke up and general un-merryment we had during the relationship sorta leaked in and we would have pretty bitter conversations. Finally I just said maybe we shouldn't talk for awhile and clear our heads. Two weeks go by and I feel like I wanna catch up, just to make sure things are still okay but instead of a phone call or an email or even a measly text, I send a rather expensive book to her with some chocolate that I know she loves (not trying to be romantic - lets just say her body was doing some monthly, womanly things and chocolate really helps with her discomfort) and a hand written, kind letter (nothing about the relationship just about the book and I hope she is well) as sort of an olive branch. "Sorry for bitterness... I hope you're okay..." is what it was meant to represent. I have heard nothing back. Now I'm not expecting a thank-you note from her, that would be a little corny because we're the same age and she knows me well enough that it would be ridiculous to go through that when an email or phone call or even a damn text would suffice. (I know I'm sorta contradicting myself when I say I don't want a letter but the point I'm trying to make is she has done nothing to recognize I sent her something). But instead I get nothing. Nothing at all. It's not like when we left it we were furious at each other, just a mutual understanding that we would take some time off from each other and catch up when the time was right.
So what's going on here? Are people just losing their respect for their fellow man? Is it too much to ask for someone to have some manners now a days? Someone to have the common decency to not break up a 6 month relationship over email?
tl;dnr: People have stopped being generally nice. They need to start using words like 'please' and 'thank you'. Also, what happened to writing thank you letters or just acknowledging a gift they received to the sender.
Is it just me or are people getting less and less well mannered lately? It seems as I meet more and more people, the more likely they are to be general a-holes or just don't have the common decency to do something nice.
example one:
I used to work at a restaurant and as soon as I started working there I noticed people that ordered their food were NOT polite. Don't get me wrong, most weren't mean per se but completely lacked the ability to use words like "please" and "thank you" Now, when I was growing up at home I HAD to use these words. If I didn't I was being rude, and to be honest, at first it was frustrating that I had to do it all the time but it soon became apparent that it wasn't much trouble to just say a few nice things and when I would do something that warranted a 'please' or 'thank you' response, it did seem rude when it wasn't given. I wouldn't get too pissy about it but it seemed rude nonetheless. Now at this restaurant I was fed up with the people that didn't want to go out of their way to be nice to someone so I told the people that I worked with that they should come up to me if they serve someone (I worked the kitchen) who said 'MAY I PLEASE HAVE...(whatever food they ordered) ...THANK YOU' or something similar ('CAN I PLEASE HAVE' is fine, I'm not a grammar nazi after all). If anyone did I would pay for their ENTIRE meal. The whole thing! Not one single person did for the rest of the time I worked there after making that promise - more than a year and a half. Is this not asinine? Just some respect for someone doing a favor for you (granted they are being paid but it's not like you have to pay them more if you're nice to them).
example two:
Again when I was a wee lad, whenever I received some sort of gift and the giver wasn't present I would write a thank-you letter. Didn't have to be something huge, no essays about what I'm going to do with the gift, just saying thanks and a few lines about how my life is going and that I want to see them soon. And yes, you could cut corners if you had to write multiple letters: being that the receivers of the letters probably didn't know each other (and if they did, they certainly weren't likely to compare thank-you letter context from the same person), you could write a bit of a template: Dear ____, Thank you for the ___. It will be really fun/useful. School is well. Soccer/football/baseball/etc. is fun. My team is doing ____. An so on... As a kid you didn't want to spend your first days after Christmas and your birthday writing letters! You wanted to be playing with whatever you got, so you took a few shortcuts (mind you, as I got older and matured I phased this out and the letters became longer and more personal). Most importantly though, the letters were HAND WRITTEN. No emails, no texts, on a rare occasion a phone call was okay. Not great but at least you're thanking them.
Cut to the present, I recently got dumped (boo-hoo me right? ...she was HOT too, damn...) after a 6 month relationship. It had turned long distance as she had moved a few hours away and would occasionally come home (I live in her home town). She was actually in town the day she broke up with me, but kept avoiding me when I called or tried to get in touch. So she waited til she got back home and sent me AN EMAIL. She left town when she could have done it in person (she lives about 2 miles away from me too when she's back in town) and sent a break-up email. Can you believe that shit? Not face-to-face, no phone call, but an email!
Anyway, example 2.5: We kept talking for a bit afterwords just to keep in touch because we were together for 6 months. Well when we talked we could normally keep it mature but soon the reason we broke up and general un-merryment we had during the relationship sorta leaked in and we would have pretty bitter conversations. Finally I just said maybe we shouldn't talk for awhile and clear our heads. Two weeks go by and I feel like I wanna catch up, just to make sure things are still okay but instead of a phone call or an email or even a measly text, I send a rather expensive book to her with some chocolate that I know she loves (not trying to be romantic - lets just say her body was doing some monthly, womanly things and chocolate really helps with her discomfort) and a hand written, kind letter (nothing about the relationship just about the book and I hope she is well) as sort of an olive branch. "Sorry for bitterness... I hope you're okay..." is what it was meant to represent. I have heard nothing back. Now I'm not expecting a thank-you note from her, that would be a little corny because we're the same age and she knows me well enough that it would be ridiculous to go through that when an email or phone call or even a damn text would suffice. (I know I'm sorta contradicting myself when I say I don't want a letter but the point I'm trying to make is she has done nothing to recognize I sent her something). But instead I get nothing. Nothing at all. It's not like when we left it we were furious at each other, just a mutual understanding that we would take some time off from each other and catch up when the time was right.
So what's going on here? Are people just losing their respect for their fellow man? Is it too much to ask for someone to have some manners now a days? Someone to have the common decency to not break up a 6 month relationship over email?
tl;dnr: People have stopped being generally nice. They need to start using words like 'please' and 'thank you'. Also, what happened to writing thank you letters or just acknowledging a gift they received to the sender.