Seriously, don’t be rude!
Don’t verbally abuse people serving you in shops, or customer services, or cafes, or restaurants, or driving your bus, or taxi, or selling you your train tickets or making your coffee. Yes, you are paying for a service, yes, you should expect good service, but if you are unpleasant, rude, grumpy or just plain hostile, to someone serving you, one it’s not fair, and two it’s frankly, just plain RUDE!!
Just because you are having a bad day, or a bad week, or your coffee wasn’t entirely to your liking when you mooched out of bed this morning, or you had a fight with your spouse, or you couldn’t find your favourite socks, or the cat puked on your bedroom carpet is not a reason, or reasons to give the person selling you your milk in the supermarket a hard time because they have run out of the semi skimmed, organic, from Welsh cows version that you prefer, nor is it acceptable to yell at a bus driver, because there was an accident on the main road to where you are going, and the traffic is hideous, and he was late, and the bus is crowded. It’s not actually his fault, shouting at him, just make you look like an unpleasant person, and doesn’t make his day any easier. We are all going somewhere, are late, or stressed, we don’t need to yell at someone.
If your child happens to want the toy, that my child has, at playgroup, and my child just picked it up, and I have a conversation with them about sharing and taking turns, in your presence, don’t stand there and comment loudly about “sharing”. It’s not only rude, it’s annoying, and slightly neurotic sounding. Your kid has to learn that life doesn’t always go as he wants it. just as much as mine needs to learn how to share.
If I give up my seat for you, in a busy cafe, because I have just finished, but I am clearing up, and packing up my children, and might be taking JUST one more minute than you feel you can possibly wait, don’t be rude and mutter and look at your watch and complain, because frankly I will go slower and make you wait!
Just don’t be rude. It doesn’t achieve anything, doesn’t get you anywhere and isn’t likely to make you any friends…
That is all. Can you tell I have had a bad people week?
Well said! Rudeness is a pet peeve of mine. It denotes a lack of social skill and self-awareness. As the saying goes “Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.” I remember once discussing in a philosophy seminar, whether pulling someone (you don’t know) up about their rudeness, constitutes a continuation of rudeness, or becomes acceptable ‘for the greater good’… an interesting discussion, without, I believe, an answer.