Responding to rising rudeness

Caught in the crossfire of rising rudeness in everyday life, Gary Simon takes a lighthearted look at a decidedly serious subject

I don’t know if I can blame the Bush/Cheney ticket, the far right, Tom Delay or the perennial running of the Sopranos. I know I can’t prove it but something has definitely changed. The simple fact is that rudeness is on the upswing and I’ve been caught in its cross-fire too many times. I also don’t know who gave the thumbs up to belligerence and unkindness but I know I never gave my consent and to quote the late Peter Finch, “I can’t take it anymore.”

In fact, I may want to go on the record and declare rudeness at almost epidemic levels. I’m convinced I’m not alone in making this observation. Nor am I the only one mumbling to himself like some berserk yahoo over the decayed condition of the human state. I believe I speak for others when I acknowledge how tired I am of all the snappiness and unpleasantness that has surfaced and continues to do so at the most unlikely moments.

It’s so common and natural to publicly vent one’s anger that I want to grab the nearest staple gun and staple shut all the meanness that’s circling around me. Besides, I’m tired of feeling alone in a predicament that shouldn’t even be a predicament. The fact is I’ve had more than my fair share of impudence and if conditions don’t turn around soon I may start stepping on someone’s toes myself. 

In the workplace, at the health club or behind the wheel, it’s all the same. Admit it, you’ve encountered it, too–haven’t you? Rude waiters, rude drivers, unpleasant cashiers with frowning faces–it’s like wildfire and with no water to douse it.

There’s outrageous customer service (is there a human voice at the end of this line?) or no customer service at all. There are expensive technicians even when they don’t fix the problem (or won’t return to try). There are late and never-arriving services or repairmen. There are individuals in and out of the business world who don’t keep appointments (or call to reschedule or apologize). There are distant bosses who make for disinterested co-workers and last, there are seen-but-rarely-talked-to neighbors whose names I can’t recall.

I have, however, become accustomed to spotting one neighbor almost every morning. He’s well over six feet tall with a huge midriff that would make anybody tire quickly.  His hair is short and his face large and broad. He and his bulldog are the perfect fit and I would probably like both of them, if only he didn’t allow his canine to relieve himself on my front lawn. There have been times where I’ve stood maybe twenty yards away and he would still walk his wheezing canine from across the street to my manicured lawn and plop . . . in my very presence.

It’s this sort of character, the one that ignores me right to my face and commits repeated infractions, that I have no trouble grouping with other unusual types. And within this grouping the possibilities and combinations are limitless. Take, for instance, the man (it’s usually a male in this scenario) roaring down the street playing heavy, loud music and stopping to the side or behind me at a red light. His presence is so audible that the vibrations he’s sending out to the entire world could actually break my car. This is no made-up story or exaggeration because I know you too have gone deaf waiting at this same stop light just like me.

These culprits are typically, but not always, from the younger crowd, the X, Y or Z boomers although I’ve experienced some forty and overs who’ll also up the volume so unmercifully that I fear my Honda doors will fall off. They didn’t, but my eardrums paid the price. I was always under the ridiculous impression that no one had the “right” to inflict physical pain upon another, and yet that’s what I undergo when my ears start popping and I lose my grip on the steering wheel.

The same goes for all of the other varieties of noise pollution we’ve so ingeniously invented. And why is this all allowed to go unchecked? Because not many wish to make an issue of rudeness and begin yelling until they’re red in the face, “I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore.”

Recently, I was behind a car that was burning oil so profusely that I had to pull off the road. A sheet of this black vileness engulfed all the traffic that was moving in both directions. Fortunately, there was a police officer directly behind me who unfortunately didn’t pull the offender over.

Maybe what he saw (or didn’t see) didn’t strike him as a violation because he kept on driving. If that furnace from hell didn’t bother him then he probably didn’t close his windows or shut his vents, but I did. Wouldn’t you? Don’t you?

I’ll say it again. It’s epidemic and if we–you and me–don’t get help soon we’re going to wear ourselves out from rudeness and suffocate from carcinogens. My generation, the baby-boomers, to my dismay, are more selfish and more self-consumed than I would have thought possible. Worse yet, there doesn’t appear to be any let-up in sight.

I don’t know where this “I-don’t-care, get-out-of-my-way, I’m-the-center-of-it-all” attitude began (it couldn’t have been Tom Delay, could it?), but I’m of the conviction that if some of us don’t start changing our ways the bad guys are going to win this War Against Manners and retain their permanent advantage of Rudeness.

I’ll admit that I’ve become a little more crusty and rude myself. But then I know it’s all a reaction to what I see around me, although that doesn’t make it right and it’s just an excuse.

Yet, how can I not be a little on the defensive like the rest of you? My environment has been violated while my government still functions unimpeded with impunity. How can this not have an impact upon me? I, in turn, out of anger, may not go out of my way, but given the right set of circumstances, have been caught in a rude moment or two.

Admittedly, it’s a childish reaction that rarely makes me feel better. So when someone accidentally bumps into me and utters, “Excuse me,” I’m so overwhelmed by those forgotten words that that lovely phrase turns into music to my ears. What a rarity! What a find! I might even smile back or think about running after this person and hugging him. I don’t though since I usually try to act my age.

But then there are times when age makes absolutely no difference. Consider, if you will, a man or woman who enters a building without holding open the door for the next person (me) who follows. It’s all part of some aura that I think I sometimes emanate, which is no aura at all since most doors are usually shut closed in my face. This also leaves me little time to catch the elevator, which again I rarely do, since I’m usually unlucky enough not to find anyone willing to push the button that opens the door. When this occurs I just freeze and stare straight ahead, waiting for the next car to arrive.

It’s a courtesy thing and I hope that in some part in the remainder of my life that someone will start taking this courtesy thing a little more seriously.

On both my cat’s and dog’s lives, I get the feeling that most people don’t believe I exist, although I can be standing right beneath their nose. My presence can’t be more physically apparent and still I’m completely overlooked.  The reason for such temporary blindness might be due to the usual cell phone stuck in their ear. Ah! That marvelous invention.

Now here’s a subject to chew upon because I’m proud to admit that I’ve never owned a beeper or cell phone in my life. That doesn’t mean others can’t purchase them. It’s what they do with them after they buy them with which I have issues. 

Regardless of my whereabouts, whether in a restaurant, hospital, theater or even a meeting, there’s always a cell phone, not feet, but inches away. These compact containers have sometimes been held so close to me that I’ve been privy to hear every word that individual had to say.

I’m more than perplexed why any person would allow me this audience since I would never return the favor. More ridiculous is it when the volume is cranked up and I’m permitted total access to a two-way conversation that is none of my affair.

In just one week I overheard a husband arguing with his wife, a wife making plans to meet (who was she meeting?) someone for lunch, and a middle-aged woman discussing her financial status with, I believe, her broker. Next time, would some of you start using pay phones again, please?

Are we at that point in time where we’re willing to forego all our rights to privacy? I’m certainly not because when I’m on the phone, not even my dog can get in the room until I’m finished. I realize it’s a cliché by now, but I have enough on my own plate. Someone else’s problems and headaches fascinate me as much as my skipping over cracks in the side walk. I would think it would hold the same excitement for others as well.

Maybe that’s why I joined the gym–to get away from all this ridiculousness. No cell phones, no yelling, no noise. Just exercise. At least that’s what the brochure said 20 years ago.

Since that time, the health club has been my home away from home most evenings during the week where all was supposed to be quiet and tension free. To my regret though, my gym, my old trusty exercise facility, has gone the way of the world.

Today if I can survive a solid 40-minute workout inclusive of heavy metal music and some occasional, unbecoming behavior, then I can endure most other disturbing situations. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m relaxed or anywhere near relieved of tension when my exercise routine is finished . . . because I’m not.

The fact is a strong workout should keep the heart healthy. Yet, when people mull around me and talk in one ear while blaring rap or metallic sounds attack the other with “So withdrawn and feeling numb/Watching life come all undone,” my blood pressure is sure to rise and put me in worse shape for having tried to exercise.

Now I’m not implying that everyone who works out when I do is the cause of my frustrated, mental condition. There are good, decent people everywhere, even at my gym. But they’re not the ones in question. It’s the other guys and gals; you know the ones because you see them all the time:

Men and women with large and small muscles; men and women fascinated with pictures and paintings, especially on themselves with multi-colored tattoos or maybe just decorative rings burned around the biceps; men and not-so-young men with shaved heads and not so shaved heads; skinny lanky jocks who love to hang with the women; skinny, buxom women who love to hang with the men and finally, beefed-up hunks who love to hang with themselves and the mirror and their sad but irreversible cases of narcissism.

Any one group at any given moment will typically waste more time prancing than exercising and often spend incalculable minutes staring at themselves near one exercise station. Of course the one station they use for rest, talk and strutting is frequently the one piece of equipment I’ve had my eye set on now for a quarter hour. And I’m still waiting.

For what it’s worth, I’ve tried hard and long to consider the other side. I’ve given it my honest hundred percent but still can’t rationalize loud, metallic music that breaks my concentration any more than I can excuse groups of young and middle-aged persons standing glued to the equipment around me talking while I strain to hold my routine. Occasionally I’ll say something, though for the most part I’ll just sit there and suffer and listen to the grumblings of my insides.

If I didn’t concentrate as hard as I did, I knew something one day out of the ordinary would happen. And it did. I didn’t know when or under what circumstances, but I always had this inkling that I wouldn’t be able to hold it in forever; that one day all my frustration would come to the surface. It was just a matter of time when I wouldn’t be able to take it any more and people other than myself were going to know about it. Then when it finally did break out, no one was more surprised than I was. Now this is the actual truth and here’s what really happened.

This one particular evening was no different than any other evening. I drove to the gym and checked in at the front counter. From there I walked down the facility’s long corridor and climbed about 20 steps before entering the weight and aerobic facilities.

By the 10th or 11th stair, sounds, ugly, nasty sounds that I dismissed from my brain 24 hours ago, came back to remind me that my present and future workouts would never again be the calm ones I used to relish. My hour at the gym these days would now be shared with the likes of “Born To Do It,” “Beware Of The Dog” and “Mmmmm you can find me in St. Louie?/Where the gun play ring all day (nanana).”

And the blaring violence isn’t playing any softer either. Vibrating, boisterous speakers fill strategic spaces of the facility. Wherever I walk, the “Uh-ohh, you then crossed the line/Beware of the dog is right there on the sign” follow my every move. I ask the “instructor” at the desk to tone down the sound, which he does but not enough to dispel the embarrassing, grating sounds. 

This unbroken chain, these specific circumstances, repeat themselves 5 days every week, month after month, year after year. I’ll admit it, I’ve complained to others around me and no one seems nearly as upset as I am. They boast about blocking out the noise which I’m unable to do. It’s too much in my face and even when I wear ear plugs, “Have you ever seen me, I'm the future/I represent how it's gone be” goes right through the rubber and into my brain.

So this one night, and without suspecting what I was about to do, I entered the gym area where the shrill, metallic screeching once again attacked my nervous system. Almost like an out-of-body experience I stopped, glued to the spot. My eyes roamed the weight room without fixing on anyone in particular. Everyone was going about his and her business when unexpectedly I cupped my hands to my mouth, and over the rap blarings I shouted, “Does this noise bother anyone but me? Don’t you want to hear something different? Doesn’t this stuff insult and embarrass you just a little?”

Because everything happened so quickly, I never had a chance to prepare myself for the nasty jeers and booing that I expected to follow. But there were none. Absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s why I looked so immobilized, unable to even remove my curved fingers away from my mouth.

In that instant everyone beamed right back at me while I too viewed myself. Why did I do this? More importantly, why was no one responding? Why weren’t they applauding my courage and bravado?

It was a very long, short few seconds before all activity resumed. Almost instantly, every attendee went about picking up dumbbells and barbells without granting me approval or disapproval. Everything was normal again and the only sounds that entered my consciousness were “Things just ain't the same for gangstas/Times is changing, young niggas is aging.” Those inspiring words followed me around the room and into my first bench set.

Since that time I haven’t attempted any such repeat performance nor have I asked that the “music” be lowered. My wife will do that now and then and even suggest that they change the channel. But it makes no difference. It’s all basically heavy sounds geared toward the 25 and younger crowd so I won’t ask anymore.

There are other situations at the gym that also haven’t changed much lately. For instance, I know I’m not invisible because I weigh 200 pounds, and some of that is actually muscle. I’m also broad-shouldered so it’s difficult to overlook my presence. But still, (and I can’t scoff at everyone), it’s usually a younger group that most often enjoys extended pauses where I’m usually exercising and who’ll afterwards move from one corner of the gym to the next to talk. I would like to say that all this inconsiderateness might be due to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), but that’s just too easy. But maybe there is something to this ADD after all.

There have also been times when I’m on the bench doing chest presses when a youngster sporting more tattoos than I have hair will step on my foot. It’s a little annoying and could be dangerous if I were pressing enormous amounts of weight, but still how did, and why did he get that close, and why didn’t he say, “Sorry?”  An acknowledgement or whisper that I too exist might actually brighten my day next time.

Yet that’s the point because there will always be next times. There will always be misplaced rap “music” to render me into a semi-conscious state. There will always be girls and boys standing so close to my face that I too can read the messages on their cell phones. Which reminds me: why are there cell phones in the gym?

One night I actually witnessed a person squatting about 225 pounds. There is nothing unusual in that but at the same time he appeared to be moving his mouth when I heard distant, faint sounds. Looking closer, I observed a wire under his tanktop and tiny speakers in his ears. Here was a thirty-something holding a conversation in the squatting rack!!

I love squatting. It’s my favorite activity and this is one event where I do go heavy. Having interfering sounds around me is very distracting, if not dangerous. I once squatted 550 pounds with 3 younger persons standing directly behind me. Not only did they break my concentration; they were also in the mirror that I use to observe my positioning. I could hear them as I  tried to repeat my last set. Because their voices were loud and because the “Who Let The Dog Out Of The Pound” was playing for the third time, I was forced to lower the weight, decrease my reps, and in fact call it a day.

I can’t say that that’s the first time I’ve cut my routine short. Sometimes circumstances just get to me where “I just can’t take it anymore.” And I don’t think I’m being overly picky or old-fashioned (there I go showing my age!) but weights left on the floor or on the machine is not acceptable. Towels left on a machine making it hard to determine whether that machine is still in use or not is equally inexcusable.

I’ve made the mistake of thinking that a machine available when I’ve been addressed with, “I’m still using this.” Of course, this could be yelled from another part of the room. I’m not saying it would change my disposition, but it might brighten it some if someone would respond with, “I’m not through yet, but I certainly wouldn’t mind sharing.”

Maybe this has already been said. Maybe I just couldn’t hear it over the “Yo, 'for the nigga mention my name I let him know the deal.” Or possibly I wasn’t listening because I didn’t expect the invitation. But then sometimes I do listen and I listen really hard. I’ll also go around picking up the weights, throw some loose towels in the bin and even try to put a positive spin on things when all the benches have been carried to other parts of the room and not returned to their proper places.

I’ll say maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just getting too cynical and I shouldn’t take everything so seriously. And maybe at work I should also change my attitude as well because if I don’t start changing myself then where does it start? And doesn’t it all begin with me?

So I’ve actually tried to go with the new me. OK, people are different, this is a new century, a different government and nothing remains static. Life is about change so just accept it. And I have. Honest to Pete I have.

But where I work eight hours each day there’s litter in the hall. People are throwing cigarette butts onto the sidewalk and smoking in a smoke-free building. Others are yelling on the floor below and my reserved parking space is filled with someone else’s car. My ten o’clock appointment doesn’t show up or even call to apologize and the check that one of my client’s said was in the mail hasn’t even been processed. I go to my eleven o’clock appointment and have to wait an extra thirty minutes. He’s running behind, of course.

I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 2pm but know he won’t really see me until 3. In the meantime, why don’t I just call it a day and work off some steam at the gym? Maybe things will be different there. Maybe they’ll actually have some good music playing? Some sixties and seventies?

At least I can hope for that. Some things are bound to give some day. At least there’s that possibility.

Note: This article was first published by JUST Response on May 23 2005. Gary Simon did doctoral work at Wayne State University in the early 1970s and owns an advertising agency in New Orleans. Much of his time is spent writing and strategizing for clients although his personal passion is a commitment to a healthy environment and protection for all wildlife.

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