Couldn’t agree more with #10. Everyone is so angry, so in a rush, so impatient. And I include myself in that, but I’m trying to be better.
Yesterday, I was trying to find some decent new clothes for a funeral — Emotional, frustrated by the lack of stock and sizes, hating what I looked like in the fitting room mirror, etc. My head was pounding, and I wanted the magical McDonalds fountain pop that I splurge on every once in a while (and I may have added some fries, too). The caffeine hit helps. I ordered at the drive through, heard nothing in response, and then the drive-through worker asked me to repeat my order, apologizing and clearly flustered by everything she was dealing with. I told her it was totally fine and not to worry about it, placed my order, she apologized again and I pulled around. She greets me and says “You know what, I changed your order, I’m giving this to you for free” because she felt bad and probably because someone actually treated her with respect and didn’t attack her for getting something wrong. I thanked her, told her again that it was totally fine and that she was doing a great job. It was such a nice exchange, and totally made my day when I desperately needed it.
Re # 10: it’s my habit, whenever I have to call customer service of any kind, to begin the conversation by admitting that I am angry and bitter about something, but that my anger and bitterness is directed at the company and not “you, the person whose job it is to talk to angry people all day. Now I’ll proceed with my tirade and bless you if you can actually help me.” I abhor how these companies always want you to take a survey after your call to rate the customer service representative who is rarely empowered to actually solve any grievance. Customer service representative has to be one of the worst jobs in the world. No matter how mad or frustrated I am I always say..I know this isn’t your fault and thank you for trying to help. And yes, common courtesy seems to have mostly disappeared.
Thanks for #10. As a service industry guy (grocery), I can tell you it really makes a difference. We’re fortunate - we work at a nice store, and even here in Socially Awkward Seattle (“Home of the Seattle Freeze”) people will ask “how’s your day”.
As someone in the service industry I can vouch for a pleasant greeting or a simple thank you being a shock. A little tip: you get better service with more smiles when you treat us like humans
Thank you for your posts! I agree with #10 too. I ride the bus. I always thank my driver. And if there is time I will get their name so I can say Hello to them personally next time. I know they do not get enough thanks. 🕊💙📚🎶
Also, with regard to basic pleasantries, I’m wondering whether it relates to views of abundance and scarcity. I might be going too deep, but I’m thinking of my grandparents, who owned a grocery store in rural Iowa during my childhood and what I learned from them when I worked there each summer.
I’ve often thought that everyone should spend one year working in the service industry.
I'm always stunned when basic courtesy and politeness are treated with such anomaly. Maybe it's the Midwesterner in me coming out, but I really don't get why the majority have started treating eachother so rudely. It's not hard to be kind. It costs you nothing and makes everyone's experience (including your own!) so much better.
We're all just here trying to survive the hellscape of modern capitalism. It's better to do it in a bubble of kindness instead of entitlement.
Yes #10! When Siri/Alexa were becoming popular, I wondered out loud to my husband how these devices would reflect in common courtesy. I mean, you basically get these things to work by demanding/commanding an action. My husband and I were working out in our home gym the other day and he asked Alexa to play a song...something like, "Alexa, please play whateveritwas." The song started playing and he followed with, "Thank you, Alexa." She broke in with a few sentences about how much she appreciated his kindness. We just looked wide-eyed at each other. The implications of Alexa going out of her way to thank us for being polite. Are we doomed?!
I started thanking Alexa when we got the devices. Over time the responses changed. For me the thanks are automatic. When I realized what I was doing, I just kept it up. I often wonder if there’s a human somewhere in Amazon who hears my thanks and is amused by them.
Poor Things was so entertaining and Emma really brought Bella to life in a wonderful way. I LOVED Mark Ruffalo's performance as well. Seeing him go from being the Hulk to a weeping man scared of Bella Baxter was truly amazing to me.
I thought your comment “why are pants so big again?” meant why are pants cool again or why are more people wearing pants again? I wondered? What were people wearing if they didn’t wear pants? Went down my own brain rabbit hole—until I clicked on the link and OH literally BIG. I blame it on the seasonal allergies, brutal this year.
And as the Dali Lama said “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Watching Bollywood movies is the best preparation for long movies (typical length used to be 3 hours): take intermission seriously and have lots of snacks ready.
I've always been polite and kind to service workers, because I've done plenty of those jobs myself and know what it's like being treated like a sub-human strictly on the basis of the job I was doing. My brother-in-law is one of those people who treats wait staff like crap, and it's so brutal. We've just recently rented out part of our house to a polite young man who shook our hands and looked us in the eye, and yes, I was surprised and wanted to treat him like the Pope.
"I felt nothing so strongly as the urge to escape the 'society pant cycle' entirely — to step off the carousel once and for all." Years ago, I decided to wear dresses almost exclusively. Easier to do when it aligns with everyone's gendered expectations of you, so I'm lucky in that way. I still only wear "pants" that are leggings or shorts and while I'd been considering working jeans back into my wardrobe, maybe I won't.
I’m not fond of pants, and tend to consider them different than jeans and leggings, which I like. Dresses are nice, though I have trouble finding ones I like that are also the right size. Skirts are what I tend to wear to work.
I like Steve Jobs’ (maybe he said this) advice about choosing a style you like and having a bunch of them so you don’t spend too much energy on deciding in the morning what to wear. I have a couple of long black skirts and a variety of colors of a top I feel comfortable in.
I love all of this, but wanted to comment on the pleasantries. Just yesterday I was walking out of a Safeway and an older man coming into the store stopped dead in his tracks and asked me if the person stacking carts was my employee. While I was staring at him and trying to understand what was happening, he started yelling at the young man returning carts saying, "is this how you are going to leave these!!! You're blocking the door!!!" The poor kid said, "yeah, that's how we do it." and he kept yelling at him like he was the worst manager ever, but really just there to shop. I see this in small ways every day. More anger, less gratitude. I say thank you a lot and send hand written thank you cards every week for exactly this reason. In my mind, gratitude restores hope.
Couldn’t agree more with #10. Everyone is so angry, so in a rush, so impatient. And I include myself in that, but I’m trying to be better.
Yesterday, I was trying to find some decent new clothes for a funeral — Emotional, frustrated by the lack of stock and sizes, hating what I looked like in the fitting room mirror, etc. My head was pounding, and I wanted the magical McDonalds fountain pop that I splurge on every once in a while (and I may have added some fries, too). The caffeine hit helps. I ordered at the drive through, heard nothing in response, and then the drive-through worker asked me to repeat my order, apologizing and clearly flustered by everything she was dealing with. I told her it was totally fine and not to worry about it, placed my order, she apologized again and I pulled around. She greets me and says “You know what, I changed your order, I’m giving this to you for free” because she felt bad and probably because someone actually treated her with respect and didn’t attack her for getting something wrong. I thanked her, told her again that it was totally fine and that she was doing a great job. It was such a nice exchange, and totally made my day when I desperately needed it.
Re # 10: it’s my habit, whenever I have to call customer service of any kind, to begin the conversation by admitting that I am angry and bitter about something, but that my anger and bitterness is directed at the company and not “you, the person whose job it is to talk to angry people all day. Now I’ll proceed with my tirade and bless you if you can actually help me.” I abhor how these companies always want you to take a survey after your call to rate the customer service representative who is rarely empowered to actually solve any grievance. Customer service representative has to be one of the worst jobs in the world. No matter how mad or frustrated I am I always say..I know this isn’t your fault and thank you for trying to help. And yes, common courtesy seems to have mostly disappeared.
I blame some of this social collapse on COVID. We forgot how to ‘be’ with people.
Thanks for #10. As a service industry guy (grocery), I can tell you it really makes a difference. We’re fortunate - we work at a nice store, and even here in Socially Awkward Seattle (“Home of the Seattle Freeze”) people will ask “how’s your day”.
As someone in the service industry I can vouch for a pleasant greeting or a simple thank you being a shock. A little tip: you get better service with more smiles when you treat us like humans
Thank you for your posts! I agree with #10 too. I ride the bus. I always thank my driver. And if there is time I will get their name so I can say Hello to them personally next time. I know they do not get enough thanks. 🕊💙📚🎶
Also, with regard to basic pleasantries, I’m wondering whether it relates to views of abundance and scarcity. I might be going too deep, but I’m thinking of my grandparents, who owned a grocery store in rural Iowa during my childhood and what I learned from them when I worked there each summer.
I’ve often thought that everyone should spend one year working in the service industry.
I'm always stunned when basic courtesy and politeness are treated with such anomaly. Maybe it's the Midwesterner in me coming out, but I really don't get why the majority have started treating eachother so rudely. It's not hard to be kind. It costs you nothing and makes everyone's experience (including your own!) so much better.
We're all just here trying to survive the hellscape of modern capitalism. It's better to do it in a bubble of kindness instead of entitlement.
Yes #10! When Siri/Alexa were becoming popular, I wondered out loud to my husband how these devices would reflect in common courtesy. I mean, you basically get these things to work by demanding/commanding an action. My husband and I were working out in our home gym the other day and he asked Alexa to play a song...something like, "Alexa, please play whateveritwas." The song started playing and he followed with, "Thank you, Alexa." She broke in with a few sentences about how much she appreciated his kindness. We just looked wide-eyed at each other. The implications of Alexa going out of her way to thank us for being polite. Are we doomed?!
I started thanking Alexa when we got the devices. Over time the responses changed. For me the thanks are automatic. When I realized what I was doing, I just kept it up. I often wonder if there’s a human somewhere in Amazon who hears my thanks and is amused by them.
Poor Things was so entertaining and Emma really brought Bella to life in a wonderful way. I LOVED Mark Ruffalo's performance as well. Seeing him go from being the Hulk to a weeping man scared of Bella Baxter was truly amazing to me.
Mark Ruffalo was so good! I really like how it diverged from the book in all the right cinematic ways, I thought
I thought your comment “why are pants so big again?” meant why are pants cool again or why are more people wearing pants again? I wondered? What were people wearing if they didn’t wear pants? Went down my own brain rabbit hole—until I clicked on the link and OH literally BIG. I blame it on the seasonal allergies, brutal this year.
And as the Dali Lama said “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
I thought of that potential reading when I was editing but then I thought it was funny so I kept it that way
Watching Bollywood movies is the best preparation for long movies (typical length used to be 3 hours): take intermission seriously and have lots of snacks ready.
I've always been polite and kind to service workers, because I've done plenty of those jobs myself and know what it's like being treated like a sub-human strictly on the basis of the job I was doing. My brother-in-law is one of those people who treats wait staff like crap, and it's so brutal. We've just recently rented out part of our house to a polite young man who shook our hands and looked us in the eye, and yes, I was surprised and wanted to treat him like the Pope.
"I felt nothing so strongly as the urge to escape the 'society pant cycle' entirely — to step off the carousel once and for all." Years ago, I decided to wear dresses almost exclusively. Easier to do when it aligns with everyone's gendered expectations of you, so I'm lucky in that way. I still only wear "pants" that are leggings or shorts and while I'd been considering working jeans back into my wardrobe, maybe I won't.
I’m not fond of pants, and tend to consider them different than jeans and leggings, which I like. Dresses are nice, though I have trouble finding ones I like that are also the right size. Skirts are what I tend to wear to work.
I like Steve Jobs’ (maybe he said this) advice about choosing a style you like and having a bunch of them so you don’t spend too much energy on deciding in the morning what to wear. I have a couple of long black skirts and a variety of colors of a top I feel comfortable in.
I love all of this, but wanted to comment on the pleasantries. Just yesterday I was walking out of a Safeway and an older man coming into the store stopped dead in his tracks and asked me if the person stacking carts was my employee. While I was staring at him and trying to understand what was happening, he started yelling at the young man returning carts saying, "is this how you are going to leave these!!! You're blocking the door!!!" The poor kid said, "yeah, that's how we do it." and he kept yelling at him like he was the worst manager ever, but really just there to shop. I see this in small ways every day. More anger, less gratitude. I say thank you a lot and send hand written thank you cards every week for exactly this reason. In my mind, gratitude restores hope.
I came here to thank you for everything you've said about kindness. But actually there was so much in today's email that I also must thank you for.
thank you for reading!