Restoring my soul.

I am in sixes and sevens about writing this blogpost because what I say may be construed as being not politically correct at all and possibly lacking in manners.

Then I decided that it needs to be said:  Manners, one would think are a part of a normal conscience, please and thank you, excuse me, may I help you etc. basic right? Apparently not.

In this world of “I want’s” and “I deserves” and instant gratification manners have disappeared.  I work in a Retail Liquor Store so all of my customers are over the age of 18 therefore presumably should understand basic manners.  Nope. They come through my register talking on their phones, scrolling Facebook, answering texts that seriously must be about the Refugee crisis and how to solve it; the amount of attentiveness it gets.  Rude people, just rude.  I am a person too, a smile and a hello costs you nothing and it makes my day just that little bit easier too.  Who knows it may even be reciprocated and wouldn’t that make you feel good?

Now one may presume that the above are the teenagers (18-25year olds) I am describing.  One would be incorrect the biggest offenders of this behaviour are the 30something “business” people who believe that they are all so important and the rest of the world should bow and scrape to them.  Usually they are single or ‘dating’ with no kids (my observation research suggests this to be true).  The next biggest offenders would be the 18-25’s purely because they just don’t know any better.  As a worker I am not allowed to tell them that they are being rude to their faces because I may offend them.  So I’m saying it here.

LISTEN – When you are walking up to a register in any shop mid conversation HANG UP or put your call on HOLD until you have purchased.  Make eye contact with the assistant, smile, say Hello, answer her/his questions politely and say Thank you when you walk out.  This creates a much more pleasant interaction for you and them.  How difficult is that?

Outside of Retail this epidemic of impoliteness manifests itself in the HR department of many businesses.  Especially when hiring season occurs.  HOW difficult is it to create a mail merge word document that can be sent via email to all of the unsuccessful applicants?  HOW difficult is it to make a phone call to the five out of six unsuccessful interviewees to explain why they were not successful? The avoidance of conflict is not a mature way to carry out your business dealings.  What it does create is a group of disgruntled people who are bad mouthing your companies rudeness and makes them question why they wanted to work for your company in the first place.

Manners are not difficult.  Manners are the backbone of society and when we allow them to be eroded out of the need to please and not offend we are causing a disservice to humanity.

Thank you for your time today in reading this blog post.

(see not difficult at all)