Search This Blog

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Social Manners Lessons


I have been thinking of writing this post for a while. I did not write it so far for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to be sure that it’s not just a co-incidence or a behavior encountered by me repeatedly; demonstrated by a relatively small bunch of people. 
2. I did not want to write it in a way that offends certain people.
3. I do not want to be judgmental.
4. To give myself some time to know if there are other people around who feel the same way—and the answer is: Yes, of course, they do!

I like many others around have observed certain traits by lot many folks around; especially at public places, residential societies, office premises and where not, that kind of bothers me. And believe me; it’s not just me. I know a lot of people who show a lot of agitation & opposition towards such behavior of people around them.

Now let me jot down a few of those experiences here:

Just another day; me and a friend of mine; inside an elevator waiting to reach the ground floor; and then we were finally there; the automatic door slid. Before we could step out of the lift, we noticed a bunch of people, around 4 or 5, right at elevator’s exit, so impatient they were; that they just rushed in without letting us get out of it. Maybe they were running out of time and wanted to reach somewhere quickly. But wait a minute … would it have been possible for the elevator to take them to their destination without we getting out of it…food for thought for such people
Similar thing happens while trying to get down from a bus, train and so on.




Another encounter at fast food counter at workplace. We wanted to order something to eat. But there were so many people at the counter that it was certainly not possible for us to even reach there. I could see three groups of people waiting at the counter for the take away.  The one out of the first group finally got the burger and the juice he ordered, but he was still there chitchatting with other five people in the group. Then the other person in the group got a juice after a halt of around 10 minutes, till then these people spent their time at the counter, certainly making it impossible for someone else to penetrate the mob to reach the counter and order something. As soon as this second person grabbed the juice, the bunch of 6 people simply walked away. Did they really need company of four other people to spend 10 minutes at the counter?

Another group had around 3 people, a gal and two guys. It seemed that the gal had ordered something, guys were just there to give her company. Then she got the milkshake and was waiting for something else and busy talking with other people in the group. Finally, she grabbed the sandwich she ordered but she was so very lost in the conversation, it took her 2-3 odd minutes to go away and while she was on the way; she spilled over the milkshake on me.  Above all she did not realize that she needs to apologize for that and was smiling rather laughing for the great job she did.


Another plot: This is an everyday scene at/near all tissue roll holders near a washbasin. Even when people know that there are other people out there waiting for their turn, some people just forget that they are at a public place and there are other people in the queue. They would grab a tissue paper and would stand there till the time they have finished gossiping with someone else near an adjacent holder or would simply cherish using that great piece of paper. Believe me, this behavior certainly irritates a lot of people around you.

These are just few examples and there is a long list to go on. The only reason I finally wrote this is it highlights the need to have those basic social etiquettes which are not taught along with table manners in school but it’s a must to showcase them. Do not annoy people with your carelessness, it’s not that difficult to be a little more responsible about what you do and how you behave..!!






No comments:

Post a Comment