How Did It Get Like This? Part 2

Just got off the phone with Rush and he asked me when I thought it was going to get better.

I told him that it will get better when the people who go into Starbuck's begin to understand that selling water to "help starving children in Africa or wherever" (the Starbucks "Ethos" water), is all about things OTHER than helping starving children in Africa.

I also told him that that it will get better when people finally get it that the "green movement" is really the "Green $$ movement".

~Seneca

Ugggg

A few months ago I read a great piece by the Sage of the North, John Bachner, Executive Director of ASFE, regarding how it really does matter how you present yourself to your clients.

He ends his article with something along the lines of :

"So, before you go in to meet a client, duck into the restroom and check to see that you don't have spaghetti sauce stains on your tie .... because having lunch on your tie says a lot about what attention to detail you will be paying to your client's jobs ... and the client knows it."

So then, here I am sitting in a Starbucks in Katy, Texas, and whom do I see asking me for my order???? Some dude who looks like he just stepped out of Deliverance. My God man, do you really think that I want you and your foot-long, scraggly-ass beard to be leaning over the ice container to get the ice for my "sissy-man" Java Chip Frappuccino drink, and do you really think that I want to have your beard-stroking cigarette-smoking crudded up mits handling the cups, and the syrup, and working the blender? I mean, I like those clumpy chip things in my drink, but they are supposed to be chocolate chips, not chopped up beard hair. And I wondered why I was having trouble sucking the stuff thru the straw.

How to be Rude

I go to the local Sbucks almost every day and I am constantly amazed at what I see that is a microcosm of what the society is becoming. Here is one instance. My daughter and I go in and see old dude just sitting there in his "its all about me" world. Hey dimwit, din't yo mama never teach you no manners? Or, as my German friend once said "What? Were you raised up in a barn?"

Now, do not think that he was oblivious. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. Especially as he had to pull the chair from the table across the aisle, and then, into the aisle, and, as he looked up from time to time and saw people snaking around his sorry ass.

Psychologists have a term for this - it is called "passive aggressive", you know like when you are walking down the sidewalk 4 ft wide (and of course, being NOT raised up in a barn, you are walking to the right side), and approaching you are 2 "youts" walking side by side taking up the entire sidewalk. They see you, you see them. You shift to the right indicating that you see them them - they keep walking abreast (and yes, you are in their vision field), but with NO subtle shift to indicate that they see you and thus indicate a forthcoming compensation and queing up on their part .... and expecting YOU to give them the whole freaking sidewalk by stepping off to the side.

Well, after having this happen a few times, and after discerning that the frequency of such rudeness was increasing, guess what? I don't move either. Why? Because I know they indeed see me. Thus it is that I keep going straight ahead. Men, women, children walking abreast on sidewalks, or in grocery stores, if your parents won't teach you manners then here is some pushback for you. My arms are strong and if you need a body block to teach you some freaking manners and that this world is not "all about you", then here is your schoolmaster. Thus, if you see me and you make no compensating indica after I have done my initial movement, then neither will I. Nor will I turn sideways for you to pass. HINT: This world is about cooperation and getting along. On the sidewalk, and in life, you are supposed to que up so everybody has space enough. And parents, if you let you little pukes run down the aisle in the grocery store, then they better not run into my path cause I ain't moving aside. Here is a parting tip for you - If you are wondering why your kids show no respect for you, it is because you have taught them that it is all about them by your having never taught them respect for others.



Oh yeah - and here is how he left things....

That's right buddy...it's all about YOU, you MORON. Put the chair back where you got it from.

2/9/09
Update
The dude is here again. Unfreaking believable - how long before I have a conversation with him about his boneheadedness? What do the readers think? What would you do?

Go to the poll at the upper right of the blog and cast you vote.