You're Welcome

You're Welcome is becoming an endangered species.

I have heard...
~waiters, upon being thanked for their service state: "No problem!"

~people being interviewed on radio and TV, responding to "Thank you for being on our show!" with "Okay!" or "Sure!"

Valerie Pringle, funnily enough, was featured as host in Where Are Your Manners? , a CBC documentary. What an excellent show!

It touched issues such as worker incivility, inappropriate language at home, on the road, at work and in public. We hear and see rudeness everywhere we turn. To the man who urinated off his boat in the lake in front of our cottage/home, I say shame. Rudeness is proudly portrayed on clothing, too. To young women with 'princess' stencilled on the butt of their pants, to baby t-shirts that say, "Spoiled, The Brat, or The Boss".

She spoke to Lynne Truss (Talk to the Hand), Miss Manners, Dr. Jean Twenge (Generation Me), and Dr. P. M. Forni, head of the John Hopkins Civility Project.

Dr. Twenge feels that children raised in the 70s were raised with a false sense of self-esteem, and an ability to resist rules. These young people are still questioning authority and disrespecting elders. They were raised by children who were treated by their parents as friends, not authority figures. I have worked with teachers who have made these mistakes: treating students as friends and pals. This is a dangerous enterprise.

This professor found that students would argue with their professors, and I found this in my personal experiences as a part-time lecturer at uOttawa working with student teachers.
Miss Manners, in part of the show, cited bigger battles such as those with sexism and racism, during which time young adults learned to rebel against these entrenched ideas, and continue to battle everyone in authority. This, she says, was the basis of civil behaviour, transferred to interpersonal work-related relationships.

I find that rude behaviour can be experienced in stores, both by surly customers and employees. You find such behaviour in all sorts of places: stores, resaurants, at the gym, in a bus or a bus shelter. It is intolerable. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. I refuse to tolerate such behaviour. I ensure that I speak to managers.

Simply walking along the sidewalk I am amazed at the people who will walk two-abreast, on a space that is only two people wide, who walk without giving people walking towards them any space to exist. We often talk in my family about a 'sense of entitlement' in cottage country, where people act as if you were born to serve them. They are very important and must drive around you, passing in dangerous conditions, and showing little respect for other drivers, traffic laws and speed limits designed to ensure our safety. Boaters are similarly abrasive in their quest to enjoy their holiday at our expense. Bonfires, and obnoxious fireworks all pollute our natural world.

The media is full of poor role models and examples abound of characters acting badly. Renzetti, in an article about "Potty mouthed comics", said it all. Poor taste cannot be taught. Media wants ratings, and does not care what messages it sends us as they lower standards of behaviour, while deconditioning us to intolerable messages and acts.

We have to speak truth to power and let a manager or boss, or business owner know if their employees are being rude. We must turn off the TV, and other media, and write letters of complaint. We have to reward and laud those who exhibit excellent manners. Vigilance is required.