Common Courtesy

How did we get to the point where nobody returns phone calls or emails?  Why is everyone driving as if there were a contest to see who could get somewhere first? 

I understand that we are all bombarded with messages and that most phone calls are telemarketers.  But even our “closest” friends seem way too comfortable ignoring our attempts to reach out.

Remember when people would give their seat to a pregnant woman, an elder, or someone juggling three kids and a diaper bag? Now? You’re lucky if they even look up from their phones. The earbuds stay in, the eyes remain down, and we are ignored. 

Courtesy has always been about being polite: showing behavior that is respectful and considerate of other people.  When did this go out of style?  We used to call it manners.  It was a sign of “good breeding” and an essential part of being liked.

Maybe the root of all this is that they simply don’t care any longer about being liked.  It is now OK to offend everyone with their dress, hair color, and general behavior.  Perhaps that is the only explanation for the irony that the same people who now want to focus on being nice to non-normative LGBTQ++ aren’t friendly to the majority of normative ones.

Please note that I did not use the word normal.  Normative means the majority … the center of the distribution of behaviors or attributes … the masses.  Even TV shows now seem to abhor normative, nice, polite, caring behaviors.

Could it be that the root of all this is that this generation no longer sees a future for their lives?  Are they so sure the world is going to end due to global warming that they will never reach retirement?  Are their job prospects so dim that they are deeply depressed?

The statistics about suicide rates seem to point to this.  The fact that our young employees never expressed the willingness to “suck it up” and do what it takes to truly learn a job does make me think they don’t believe they have the time to achieve success.

Please think about all this when you ask your suppliers for proposals or resumes from job applicants.  They take a lot of work to prepare, and you are usually rather picky about how you evaluate them.  Yet, my experience was that utilities have become rude in their treatment of these efforts.  They don’t inform the proposers of the review progress.  Half the time they cancel the proposal process without notifying anyone.  And God forbid we ask for an honest debrief when we lose so we can do a better job of proposing the next time.

The millennial job interview roaming the Internet does seem all too common. Notice that the job applicant feels she has to approve of her employer rather than the other way around.  Where did this entitlement attitude come from?  Is it the result of the idea that everyone gets a trophy and that grades are an antiquated, elitist concept?

Well, there is one thing for sure.  Common courtesy is no longer common!