What Happened to Good Manners?
by A plain, old-fashioned rant about the lack of basic good manners today.
It makes me laugh when …
… we are ever so politely advised not to use capital letters when writing emails, letters, documents etc … yet the very same people who are ever so careful about their ‘netiquette’ are sometimes the nastiest, most ignorant, foulmouthed people to work with on a daily basis. Does anyone else find today’s world a wee bit back to front?
Rudeness in many forms, and in some very subtle guises, on a day to day basis now seems to have become acceptable to a lot of people. We have a whole host of excuses and aliases for it too.
I’ve even recently heard ’shyness’ used as an excuse for someone’s rude attitude, speech and behaviour. And ‘lack of people skills’ is also a term I’m fast becoming bored by.
Let’s just call it what it is – IGNORANCE. And let’s use capital letters for good measure eh?
Sorry, the excuses don’t wash with me. I’m sick of convenient labels being attached to such people’s behaviour because quite clearly some recipients of this behaviour are either too afraid to deal with these sad excuses for adults; too ignorant themselves to even recognise appalling behaviour; or are afraid to speak their mind so they’ve allowed their own standards to drop so as to become aligned with the rude ignoramus’ they’re having to rub shoulders with on a daily basis. Let’s face it – it’s often easier to just put up with it than actually do something about it.
Sorry – I don’t do avoidance or excuses. I do honesty. It’s IGNORANCE not shyness. It’s RUDENESS not hormones. It’s DELIBERATE not inexperience.
What HAVE we done to children with our tippy toeing around them, bribing, cajoling, molly coddling, unconditional loving?
Have we on the one hand given them the subliminal message that no matter how badly behaved they are – we’re their elders, we’ll continue to love them. No matter how obnoxious they are we’ll continue to care for and about them expecting nothing in return? Not even expecting respect.
I see a generation of children who are now young adults – the girls wearing their cosmetic masks, faces set like concrete as they bulldoze in your direction determined to own the pavement that a hundred other people are sharing – pretending they didn’t even notice you were there. No eye contact. You’re invisible. You feel the blast of air as they strut past you totally oblivious that perhaps they’ve just knocked you into the middle of the road.
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