I can agree that most people have good intentions, but only when they are conscious of them. Kind of like the people that stop to let you cross the street when you're waiting for them to just drive by, so you can cross the street. I know to some that may not have made any sense, but if I'm standing on the sidewalk I'm waiting for the street to clear. It's when I'm already crossing the street that I'm more concerned about drivers letting me cross.

Anyway, I'm pretty fed up with the unconcious manner in which people seem to function when in public anymore. Just today, a janitor in a department store who was pushing a dust mop stepped right in front of me as I pushed my cart through an aisle. No excuse me's or pardon me ma'am's, and he went as slow as molasses in January. I know he saw me, as he made eye contact, and the desire to ram his heels with my cart was overwhelming, but I didn't.

At check out, I used one of those self-checkout areas. The machine that took bills didn't accept those pretty new $20's, so I had to go ask the cashier who oversaw the area for an old $20. She was on the phone, chatting up a friend within the store....about make-up. I waited, and waited. Then I waited some more. Finally she gets off the phone. I thought, ok, here's when she says, "Can I help you?" But she didn't. She started pressing random keys, sighed, looked around. I finally said, "Could I get some help please?" To which she replied, "Tsss...of course." No smile, no sorry I was spacing off, no I hate my job and don't care about anoyone. She gave me an old $20 for my new one and I went on my merry way.

People who don't look when pushing a cart and getting in your way. People who can't comprehend that when they leave their cart parked cross-ways in an aisle that it blocks others who want to pass. People stand right in front of a door so others can't get through. People who stand in front of the entire meat counter, with their cart, while on the cell phone. People who talk as if at a loud concert so that everyone in a 100 foot radius knows exactly what they are talking about. Oh, and peopl who use a bus seat for their purse when there aren't any other bus seats for people to sit down.

I encountered them all today. I'm sure they all have good intentions at some point in their lives, but that reminds me of a saying...I can't quite remember how it goes....

It's amazing how common such employees can be. Personally, I think they should be not only fired, but blacklisted from ever working in a service occupation again. They clearly aren't fit for it.

I think it has a lot to do with the perceived urban 'no eye contact' etiquette. When you ask someone to let you by you are forcing them to acknowledge your existence, which has somehow become offensive in public. I have no idea why. I come from a part of the country where, thankfully, people still go to the trouble to nod at each other or throw up their hand at passing cars whether they know them or not. I dunno how this whole prison-chic idea of "Don't make eye contact" slithered into the mainstream, but I hate it.

Actually this is my favorite part of the holidays. I usually go to the mall and mess with this kind of person. Either being overly nice to them to make them realize how silly they are, or soemtimes outright laughing in their face.

Good times!

I like your style JeremyG I try to combat such behavior by saying things to my 3yr old like "Sweetie, see that? That is called being rude. That's not nice. Let's not be rude." People either will look a little emabarrassed when I do that or give me the finger or something

I grew up in a small town so I was raised on waving to passersby. I have always thought, and tell my children that new people are potential friends. Of course we teach them to be careful of strangers. There is a good series of videos called "Tricky People" but that's another subject.

If you just smile and say hi, people tend to do the same in general. There are always the ones that avoid eye contact but I guess I just feel sorry for them. Either that or I laugh at them for being such sour pusses. Fight snarls with smiles!

When I went down to Atlanta to visit my brother and his family two years ago, I went shopping at a mall with my sister-in-law. It was Thanksgiving weekend, which is absolutely insane up here in the Detroit area. In Atlanta, it wasn't nearly as hectic. There were lots of people shopping, but no one was dashing around, sighing impatiently, or generally being rude. The people were a lot friendlier too. I was shocked at first when my sister-in-law started up conversations with people in line with us, or sitting next to us in the food court. Up here, generally the only conversations I get into with strangers while shopping tend to be people complaining about something while they're waiting in line. When the shock wore off, I decided that it was cool.

Messy Buu, if you fired and blacklisted all the people like that, the fast food industry among others would collapse. If you're working as a cashier or something like that at a grocery or in the fast food industry, you're doing it because (a) you're a teenager or a college kid ( you're retired and need to get out of the house (or need the money) (c) you're working a second job or (d) because you can't do anything else. Type A is transitory and the turnover of these kids is high, and they're only there for the paycheck. Type B is less transitory, but they don't really want to be there either except that it's better than staying at home. Type C is already frazzled and possibly feeling bitter. Do we need to go over Type D, or should I just refer you to the articles on this site about welfare?

I agree with Jeremy. The best thing that you can do is provide a good example, and keep your irritation from ruining your day. Bad moods or positive attitudes affect the people you come in contact with. It's something that I could stand to remember more often.

Yeah. Blacklisting is a bit too harsh, but they still shouldn't be working with customers until they're able to be polite. I don't care about their circumstances simply because I'm sure there's somebody else that wants their job that wouldn't be such a jerk.
Of course, if somebody simply just had a bad day, that's more forgivable then somebody that is chatting with their friends when they should be working.

However, for type D, there still is no excuse. They might be unhappy with their current situation, but if they're not going to accept it, then I would much rather have them be on the streets then forcing their bitterness onto others. Besides, maybe a cheerful attitude would make their work more enjoyable.

I worked retail at Staples this past summer and its amazing how many of my co-workers I couldn't stand, yet its also amazing how good most of us were. I mean YOU try working back to school shopping, 12hr days for two to three weeks. Its hard to stay polite to every idiot that wanders up to you asking "Do you have any book socks?" when we had a sign on the door saying "NO BOOK SOCKS" in letters about 3ft tall.

I know I got more compliments than most people do on my manors and politeness while working there, and I was proud of what I did. Maybe I was raised differently but after working there, I never want to work retail again. I can be nice to people but most customers didn't even deserve. All they deserved was a strong kick in the ass. Customers might always be right, but that doesn't mean they have a right to be assholes, always.

Oh I definitely agree that customers need to be respectful as well. I can't stand those customers that have no empathy at all for the employees. For example, one time, at Jack in the Box, they were really busy and were unable to do things as quickly as this one customer wanted, so the customer went out, and got his phone and made sure that they knew he was calling the customer service line.
Why do people like to be rude?

Everyone has some good in them. Modern "society" has gotten so used to the violence that it often times doesn't phase them. Living life in the fast lane has caused a sort of horse race quality to life. Most people have "blinders", they see what is going on around them because they're too worried about themselves and their family. General awareness has fallen so severely it amazes me that people don't walk into walls and doors more often just for not seeing them.

How about people who park their cars right in front of a store (usually a Walgreen's around here) so that pedestrians have to go around them. I suppose it is because they are so much better than everyone else. At first I thought maybe it was an old or handicapped person, but it usually turne out to be a yuppie with an SUV, an Andrew Dice Clay sort-of-a-guy, or an Andrew Dice Clay guy waiting for his bimbo-esque girlfriend....none of which seem to have a reason for blocking the door.

As for employees, I think that people behind the counter get more abuse coming their way from the customers than visa-versa. Perhaps enough of this turns some of them rude. It's hard to smile all day when you are making poverty wages. However, I have a story about a rude employee who has no excuse. I was in a mega-smiley face store where the employees where blue vests which shall remain nameless, and I had my cart sittting to the side of a ridiculously narrow aisle about to put some cases of storebrand water in there. An employee comes around the corner with a large ladder and I try to move a little out of his way, but there's no where to go. He says (no to my face), "with those glasses you'd think you could see to get out of the way!" Now there was a little old lady near the corner he was coming around so he might have been talking to her, I couldn't tell because he didn't have the nerve to look at either one of us. It didn't even occur to me that he was talking to me until later or else I would have said something to him. It was too hard to beliee to register in my mind. I certainly wouldn't say this to a customer, or to anyone!

How about people who park their cars right in front of a store (usually a Walgreen's around here) so that pedestrians have to go around them. I suppose it is because they are so much better than everyone else. At first I thought maybe it was an old or handicapped person, but it usually turne out to be a yuppie with an SUV, an Andrew Dice Clay sort-of-a-guy, or an Andrew Dice Clay guy waiting for his bimbo-esque girlfriend....none of which seem to have a reason for blocking the door.

As for employees, I think that people behind the counter get more abuse coming their way from the customers than visa-versa. Perhaps enough of this turns some of them rude. It's hard to smile all day when you are making poverty wages. However, I have a story about a rude employee who has no excuse. I was in a mega-smiley face store where the employees where blue vests which shall remain nameless, and I had my cart sittting to the side of a ridiculously narrow aisle about to put some cases of storebrand water in there. An employee comes around the corner with a large ladder and I try to move a little out of his way, but there's no where to go. He says (no to my face), "with those glasses you'd think you could see to get out of the way!" Now there was a little old lady near the corner he was coming around so he might have been talking to her, I couldn't tell because he didn't have the nerve to look at either one of us. It didn't even occur to me that he was talking to me until later or else I would have said something to him. It was too hard to beliee to register in my mind. I certainly wouldn't say this to a customer, or to anyone!

This is product of our society it is a social disease created by people who are forced to work in conditions that they don't want to be in serving people who apprantly have all sorts of money to spend and are unable or unwilling to decompartmentalize who is deserving of which emotion.

This was aparant when my father's doctor caused a stroke on the operating table that my father was on. The worse part about it is they didn't even realize he was having a stroke for 48 F'ing hours. These are suppose to be professionals! Then after this almost every nurse who came in felt put out at having to do anything. They completely forget that this is a human and people love and care about him and he is here by no fault of his own to them it's a shitty job and they would rather be home or doing something else. The general apathy of our media driven society makes me break down and just ball sometimes. Not that I haven't ever been that way because as some of you know by now I was no angel growing up. It's just that we treat each other so badly and have been so desensitized by media that we just don't care. I bet if a natural catastrophe took out 75% of the population bastards would be caring. What is going to happen to all those McDonald eating bastards when money is absolutely useless? I am happy I am a trained survivalist and know how to survive in the harshest of conditions. Although people stare at me now like I am some kind of abberation they would be begging me with kindness to show them how to live in a society that was no longer functioning and force a crippled society into the wilderness. The only thing we can really do is track our actions and try to change ourselves. It is a sad state of affairs we live in.