I’m hardly obsessed with cell phone etiquette, but I recently complained about assholes pacing the aisles of crowded locker rooms while talking on the cell phone (this despite it being against the rules which are only meant to be obeyed by nice people).
I guess I should consider myself lucky that the asshole in the gym was not like this psychotic lady in a restaurant:
FLATIRON — A woman trashed a Flatiron diner — smashing glass ketchup bottles against a mirror and TV in a videotaped rampage — after a manager asked her to leave for screaming into her cellphone for 30 minutes, the NYPD said.
Apparently the problem is not merely that only nice people behave politely, and rude people don’t obey rules. Some rude people will go absolutely, violently ballistic simply for being asked to stop being rude.
“She was yelling and very upset and very verbal,” Grimpas, who wasn’t present at the time, said about the incident caught on the restaurant’s surveillance cameras.
“We’re used to loud, but the cursing was very heavy.”
Brown sat in a booth without ordering anything and continued to yell into the phone for about 30 minutes, not stopping when a manager asked her to quiet down, Grimpas said.
When the manager finally demanded that she go, Brown spat in his face, threw a glass of water and tried to hit him with a glass container holding sugar packets, surveillance footage shows.
“When the manager told her to leave if she wasn’t going to order food, she got very irritated,” Grimpas said.
As the manager tried to remove the woman from the 24-hour diner, she punched him in the head and grabbed three glass Heinz ketchup bottles along the way, smashing one against a mirror, another against a wall and hurling one at a flatscreen TV.
Etc.
Little wonder that movie theaters (and gyms) won’t let their staff personnel do anything about assholes. They’re afraid that the assholes will get violent, and someone will sue.
So it’s cheaper (in the short run) to let the assholes have their way.
Perhaps “asshole” isn’t the right word. I’ve already been scolded lately for using it. And to be fair, the asshole in this case happens to have been a women, and women are not normally referred to as assholes. Nor are ladies! So what is the right term for petulant, ill-tempered, rampaging humans? Malevolent feral adults? No, that can’t be right, because they are not real adults.
Perhaps the right word is “uncivilized.” The problem with that word is that it implies that they can or will be civilized. What about those who can’t and won’t?
Comments
9 responses to “Are there no incentives to be nice?”
You reap what you sow. Being non judgemental means never having to say you’re sorry. If you travelled you realize manners are dying, its worse in Europe and the Northeastern US but its a sure sympton that our culture is dying.
Who are we to blame but those wonderful hippies who questioned everything and gave us this in the place of manners and civility.
The proper term is a verbalized acronym that includes Thursday.
@Veritas:
Please come to the northeastern extremes of Vermont. We grok culture up here, even when the Queebs invade.
Evidently some high schools used to teach an ethics class back in the 1950’s and I suppose earlier. It taught public manners as part of the class. The co-host of a TV show I watch mentioned seeing an old film used in those classes and he thought the film did a rather good job explaining ethics, why they are needed and so forth. Perhaps we need to reintroduce classes like this to either primary or high school curriculums.
And not to beat a dead horse, but I think our drug laws have played their part in creating a less considerate culture. Prohibition has taken a huge toll on low income families, especially minority families and this has led to generation after generation of children being raised in less than ideal conditions.
I also think that too many parents treat morality and good behavior as a mere list of do’s and don’ts. Parents often omit telling their children the reasoning behind the do’s and don’ts and don’t teach them to have empathy for others. When people don’t understand the reasons for and benefits of good behavior and ethics, they may not adopt the those practices as they don’t see the bigger picture.
Liar,
New York was a cesspool of incivility long before the hippies.
My guess is untreated PTSD. For which the hippies found a treatment. Not to mention a cure for cancer. No wonder they are reviled by all RIGHT thinking people.
my state is conceal and carry and that is an incentive to be nice right their! I know as I have had guns pulled on me when I was driving! I used to carry myself ;but the state of arizona said I was shooting to many conservatives.
The shootings were only happening in your head. No wonder you are brain damaged.
Civilization doesn’t just happen. And barbarians have a much easier time of it in civilized lands,than civilized people do when living amongst the barbarians.
Termagant
But uncivilized will do fine.
asshole is the right word.