Spokane7
49°
August 16, 2010 in Opinion
Rude and getting ruder
Can we be candid here? Can we just say this plainly?
The public is a bunch of rude, obnoxious jerks.
OK, so I overstate. A little. Yes, there are exceptions. I’m not such a bad guy and you, of course, are a paragon of civility. But the rest of them? A cavalcade of boors, boobs, bums, bozos and troglodytes.
So it is small wonder the tale of Steven Slater, a flight attendant for JetBlue who got into it with a woman who cursed him when he asked her not to stand up to retrieve her bags while the plane was still taxiing. At some point, Slater was apparently hit in the head; his attorney says the woman slammed the storage bin on him.
This much is certain: Slater went on the plane’s public address system and, as quoted by one witness, addressed the passenger with a string of obscenities before declaring, “I’ve been in this business 28 years and I’ve had it.” He then grabbed himself a beer from a service cart, deployed the plane’s evacuation slide, slid down to the tarmac and drove home. He was arrested soon after.
To concede the obvious: Yes, it was a dumb stunt. He’s lucky no one on the ground was injured by the slide.
But still, it resonates, doesn’t it?
Some people are framing what happened as a cautionary tale of workplace stress. It seems to me, though, that the episode speaks more pointedly to something larger: the growing incivility of all our daily lives.
If the initial account stands up, we’re talking about the incivility of the passenger. If an alternate account turns out to be true – some passengers say Slater ignited the confrontation with his own brusque behavior – we might find guilt on both sides.
But either version vindicates a belief that simple courtesy has become a lost art. I’m reminded of how, when we kids would ask my mom for something, she would prompt us: “What’s the magic word?” The magic word was “please.” And when you’d received what you’d asked for, there was another magic phrase: “thank you.”
In the olden days, we thought manners mattered. Apparently we no longer do. And while that observation can’t be quantified, it is one many of us share. A number of surveys, including one from Rasmussen Reports in 2009, find that an overwhelming majority of us (75 percent, according to Rasmussen) think Americans are becoming ruder.
I certainly do. The other day I’m at the cable company and there’s this guy whose service has apparently been shut off for nonpayment. He’s paid his bill and the woman at the counter says she can have someone out the next day to reconnect him, “if you wish.”
“If I wish? That’s a stupid-ass thing to say!”
“Well, sir, we need to make sure someone will be home.”
“You didn’t need to make sure I was home before you …”
Those of us in line pretended not to hear the obscenities that followed. But if that woman had gone Steven Slater on that guy and shoved his cable box where the sun don’t shine, I think she’d have gotten a standing ovation.
From that cable office to Rep. Joe Wilson hollering “You lie!” in the middle of a presidential speech to the banal meanness of the average Internet message board, people seem to have gone utterly bat poop. So on behalf of you and me, let me tell the boorish public this:
I don’t need to hear you on your cell describing your skin rash. Don’t curse at me when I’m crossing the street on a green light. That thing next to your steering wheel is called a turn signal. I paid $7.50 to hear the movie, not you. Obey your flight attendant. Other people have feelings, too.
Please remember those things, and nobody gets hurt.
Thank you.
Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. His e-mail address is lpitts@miamiherald.com.
Editorial: Workers’ beer routine undermines public trust 
gailandmarshall on August 16 at 6:40 p.m.
As an employee of a credit card company’s call center, I get to listen to people in their worst of moments on a daily basis. You think people behave badly in public? You would be frightened to realize the depths to which people sink to when they are upset in their own homes with no one else to judge them on their behavior.
Many people seem to believe that they will get what they want by yelling and throwing a fit. That type of mindset has been largely influenced by companies with customer service employees using the “the customer is always right” attitude.
Spokane_Citizen on August 16 at 7:09 p.m.
Actually, gailandmarshall, you’re reaping the face-to-face ramifications of a corporate world that knowlingly extended credit to people without the ability to pay the onerous fees associated with easy credit. It’s not your fault. You’ll labor like a stooge, while your bosses will award themselves fine bonuses, despite the necessity of government bailouts. You can rant about personal responsibility all you want, but you’re just another cog in their machine. And they’ll throw you under the bus the minute you falter and join the growing ranks of the unemployed (which you should applaud, since it will improve the bottom line). Take that to the bank.
gailandmarshall on August 16 at 10:10 p.m.
Spokane-Citizen:
You have no idea what you are talking about. It’s true that some credit card companies are shady, but I don’t work for a bank that does anything like what you are saying, and oh yeah, the government forced all the banks to take the bail out money, and the bank I work for paid it back in full as soon as we were allowed to.
Also, the card company I work for only charges fees to people who don’t pay their bills on time or goes over the credit limit or otherwise handles their account irresponsibly. As far as interest charges, well, you agree to that when you sign up for the account. Don’t blame the card companies for wanting to collect on the money people agree to pay back and then don’t. So please don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about and generalize all the banks in America as the same as those who screw people over.
Spokane_Citizen on August 17 at 6:09 a.m.
As an MBA, I probably have a better understanding of financial shenanigans than do you. The great majority of bank credit card utilize the most complicated and confusing credit ‘arrangements’ possible in order to extract the greatest possible profit from people who should never been extended credit lines in the first place. If you want to suck up to your corporate masters, that’s fine, but don’t think for a moment that we will ever include you in our ranks.
Spokane_Citizen on August 17 at 6:28 a.m.
And one other item, gailandmarshall, in a truly capitalistic world we shouldn’t have bailed out your bank in the first place…it should have foundered, been liquidated, and then you could actually live out the theme you prescribe for other people….of complete and absolute personal accountability (for taking employment with a bank that willfully overextended itself) in the unemployment line. Then we’d truly see what song you’d sing.
Ed Byrnes on August 17 at 6:17 p.m.
Thank you to the authors of the preceding thread for confirming Mr. Pitts’ observations in such an exemplary way.
Spokane_Citizen on August 17 at 6:42 p.m.
And ebyrnes, thank you for your superior attitude and exemplary courtliness.