Some Professionals Hold the Door for Bad Manners
Published August 14, 2008
In his book, Why We Hate Us, author Dick Meyer writes about America's lack of manners and basic regard for one another. Just as the loud-talking cell phone user gets on our last nerve by making everyone around him privy to the details of his last doctor's appointment, so are we all less concerned with (and sometimes less aware of) each other and more concerned with ourselves. Mr. Meyer deftly differentiates between individualism and narcissism.
Long gone, it would seem, are the days when one would call a hostess or return a card to accept or decline an invitation. Instead many just hope the hostess will get the hint. This passive-aggressive way of wiping off of an undesired other, once reserved for the creepy blind date or clingy acquaintance, would now appear to be the norm - a new social order for dealing with anyone and everyone. In what has become a national mindset of every man for himself, even the simplest effort of holding the door for a stranger with a cumbersome load is thought to be a random (if not special and isolated) act of kindness instead of a common courtesy.
We often regard our fellow man as a loathsome creature, unworthy of our time and notice. We do still, however, hold the business world to a higher standard, even as a decline in customer service training seems to rear its ugly head with our every business exchange and corporate regard for others is at an all time low.
It was with some surprise, then, that I received a phone call yesterday from my husband while he was at work. He had been contacted by Blue Browning of The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, and that he wished to speak with me. It is curious how and why the program's researchers went to all the trouble of locating my husband's work number aboard a military installation when my email address is readily available on this, the Blogcritics site.
The program was unknown to me, and it was with some reservation that I returned the call. Mr. Browning had read an article of mine wherein I took issue with stay-at-home wives and their supporter, Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of The Secrets of Happily Married Women.
Diana (nee Gulick) Hartman is the Culture and Tastes Editor for Blogcritics.org. She is a freelance writer, mother of three, and a (Ret.) US Marine spouse. She is a Wichita, Kansas native, having also lived in the California desert, Southern California, and eastern North Carolina. She currently resides for the second time in Stuttgart, Germany. She is a contributing writer to Holiday Writes.
- Some Professionals Hold the Door for Bad Manners
- Published: August 14, 2008
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Business and Economics, Culture: Society
- Writer: Diana Hartman
- Diana Hartman's BC Writer page
- Diana Hartman's personal site
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So who is to blame?
As children, one's parents/guardians are to blame. Adults are to blame for their own social ineptness as they have the ability to choose between courtesy and chaos, as well as do their research into the difference.
I spare any young adult who is willing to make the minor changes necessary when such is pointed out to them (in a civilized manner, of course).
My dear. If you could only answer the phone at my place of business for two hours, you'd see that no one knows how to make a phone call. Yes, I blame parents, and then I blame THEIR parents for not instructing THEM.
Rudeness and self-centeredness appear to be the norm nowadays, and I myself have been subject to any number of instances where supposedly very good friends had agreed to assist me in some task, such as moving or providing me with transportation, only to discover they did not appear as promised and did not have the courtesy to pick up the phone and call me to explain why they would be unable to help me -- uhhh, let's see, how long would that take? Two minutes, tops?
I was raised in a small community in northwestern Wisconsin during the 1960s, where people were EXPECTED to send written thank-you notes for gifts or other similar generous gestures; return RSVPs for wedding, anniversary or birthday parties; and promises extended to help with moving, volunteer work and other chores were ALWAYS kept, except in the case of dire emergencies, in which case a phone call was always dispatched to explain the reason for their absence. Generic thank-you notes which merely said, "thank you for your gift, it is greatly appreciated," were considered the lazy person's way out, and folks who brought unbuttered buns to a church picnic were regarded as cheap or lazy or both!
Although I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to instill such values in my own children, now 21 and 23, they have chosen to go the way of the rest of the world -- They show up unannounced at my apartment at all hours of the day and night, without regard to my personal plans, or do not appear at all as requested on specific occasions for family gatherings or my own requests for their presence. They do not call to let me know if they are planning or not planning to attend, and often promise to appear, but never arrive.
Miss Manners must be turning over in her grave!!
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Ah, yes...... and see my piece on The Painful Art of Blogging..... which details how it is even easier to be mannerless over the internet. I have long decried our basic lack of manners; for years parents would not RSVP to invitations I sent for my children's birthday parties. I would have to phone them to see if the child was attending. Bizarre. But I presume that people are just not well brought up any longer. So who is to blame?