Please have more manners, thanks
I WAS worried I was getting old, but – phew! – turns out I’m not: people really are getting ruder.
New research has shown that one in three individuals no longer remembers to say please or thank you, with seven in 10 admitting they are less polite now than 10 years ago.
Bad manners make me properly livid. Recently, someone sent me a present from Amazon and the slip saying who it was from was missing, so I didn’t know who to thank. I couldn’t sleep for over a month (which was how long it took my extensive investigations to unmask the culprit, who was immediately sent a card).
And I don’t want to be overdramatic here but I fully believe not nodding or waving a little thanks to the driver who has stopped to let you cross on a pedestrian crossing should be a crime punishable by the death penalty.
In fact, that might be the way forward... if people aren’t going to automatically have good manners, maybe we should make some extra stuff illegal so there’s no longer any choice. Like...
Not giving someone room at the checkout
Public Service Announcement: Crowding the person in front of you at the till will mean you’ll be served 0000.3 milliseconds faster than if you’d allowed them their personal space. So ask yourself, is 0000.3 milliseconds really worth a curse being placed on you for life?
Snapping your chewing gum
Barbaric.
Bad phone etiquette
Covers everything from not saying goodbye at the end of calls (so the other party is left literally hanging, sometimes still talking for a while because they don’t realise you’ve gone... I imagine), to ignoring people who are there IRL to read the mindless outpourings of people who are there on social media.
Sitting next to someone on public transport
Obviously needs must when the devil drives during the rush hour. But the height of bad manners is doing this when there is any other possible option available.
In other words, you sit on the driver’s lap before you sit next to me.
Sneezing/coughing without covering your mouth
Ugh. Put your hand in front of your face and then I’ll discreetly look away while you wipe it somewhere afterwards – that’s the unspoken deal, remember?
Disrespecting the Priority Seat
If you sit in the Priority Seat on public transport – maybe because the only other empty ones had people next to them – it’s a poisoned chalice. There are certain responsibilities you have to accept.
You can’t just hunker down and get lost in your book/phone/ thoughts, you have to stay alert and monitor all activity.
If someone gets on board who is worthy of that seat and you don’t immediately leap up and give it to them, you are lower than the very lowest scum of the earth (aka the pedestrian crossing non-thankers).
But offering it to someone who is not worthy is just as bad, if not worse, because then you’ve just called them old or fat. In short, don’t take the Priority Seat unless you have nerves of steel.
Letting your kids run wild anywhere that’s not your own home
Despite grudging admiration for your very convincing act of not being able to hear something everyone else in the notthat-immediate vicinity can hear too well – this isn’t on.
Come now, look sharp, shape up and do some proper parenting, i.e. give them your phone for goodness sake.