A little courtesy, please
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 |
Time for courtesies again.
Life is rushed, people zipping here and there, multi-tasking and, quite frankly, slowly going crazy in the process.
In the midst of this hullabaloo, common courtesies and manners have been lost. No time to say please and thank you, too busy to hold open a door. The worst offenders, in my humble opinion, are people talking on cell phones.
I have a cell phone. I talk on it. But I am conscious of where and when I do it, whom I am impacting, and what I say. I also appreciate the technology that goes into my BlackBerry enough to know that I don’t have to shout into the phone to be heard at the other end.
The height of rudeness is being subjected to someone else’s personal conversation while stuck in a line up. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, one is forced to endure the gruesome details of a friendship gone wrong, a co-worker out of control or the misbehaviour of an errant child. Look, this stuff happens; I get it! I just don’t want to be involved.
I was at a public market recently where a woman was having a long and involved LOUD conversation with someone on her phone. Worse, she was doing it at the service counter, facing the clerk, making it very uncomfortable for anyone else to ask about merchandise or make a purchase. She wasn’t even buying anything – just zoned out on her phone. As a bystander, what is the appropriate thing to do? (Trust me, multiple ideas sprang to mind...)
As we enter 2011, I am on a personal campaign to bring back common courtesy and manners. C'mon, who's with me?
I’m going to start with the irritating people shouting into their cell phones like they were tin cans on a string. So be warned. Take your call if you must. But please have the common courtesy to be aware of your surroundings, remove yourself to a quiet corner, and respect all the hard work that cell phone manufacturers have put into making your phone a delicate communication device.
Please and thank you.
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