Hi, friends!
Are there situations where you feel like there’s unspoken etiquette? Like not blocking an entire aisle at the grocery store with your cart? Or if you’re in certain parts of the Midwest, waving at least one person through a four-way stop intersection to be polite?
I have this thing with hotel gyms. If there’s only 4 treadmills and you see a lot of people in there, don’t hog the equipment. Recently, there was this dude doing intervals where he’d run for a few minutes, then jog over to a weight bench and do a set, then run back to the treadmill and multiple times (while I was on a different treadmill trying to figure out what was going on. Don’t judge me for being slow, it was 5am because I wanted to go early enough to get a treadmill for 30 minutes.) he had another person walk over thinking he was done only to have him call out from across the room that he was still using it.
If you are walking in a group 3 across taking up the entire sidewalk, fall back in line to let people walk past you from the other direction so they don’t have to go in the street.  Sometimes I just stop to see if they will run into me.  This applies to biking & driving too but more like let people pass, move to the right lane.  We were hiking in Iceland at a good pace downhill & this couple got mad when we were on their ass.  Move to the side so we can go by assholes!
That’s farmers market behavior for the newbs and lookie loos. They’ll mill around in the middle clueless about what they’re doing, or spend five minutes quizzing a vendor about the proper ripeness of the single tomato they want to buy.
Then you get the pros who roll up and grab what they want with exact change ready to hand over.
Same thing applies to running tracks. Back in the days when I was a running machine, I hated it when people didn’t get that the outer lane wasn’t there so they could walk and talk.
There were signs saying it, but morons gotta moron.
I once got someone calling me out because I was running faster and complaining that I was pushing her. I stopped and pointed at the markings on the floor of the indoor running track that said faster/running traffic here. Walking/slower traffic here was clearly marked on the floor and on the walls.
I wasn’t very polite with my response. Something something read the fucking sign something something moron. She complained to the staff who told her the same damn thing.
I’ve noticed people around here are quite good about holding doors for people, and are also very appreciative when you do it for them.
I hold doors for people too. Especially when I see someone carrying a lot of stuff or their hands are occupied, I’ll hold the door for them. I don’t expect much in the way of gratitude because there are some people who don’t care or expect things, but it is nice to get a nod or thank you from someone.
It takes a certain amount of situational awareness to behave that way. There are a lot of people who don’t and I don’t say it, but I know if I was a predator they’d be food.
When I worked at Microsoft I would be carrying a bunch of heavy equipment & the tech nerds would try to close the elevator doors instead of holding them open like a person w/ normal social skills. Â It would piss me off to no end!
I’m goofy, I hold the door way to long and make it awkward for everyone. People start running and I’m like, ” it’s okay, I’m not in a hurry.”
Make sure you lock in the eye contact when you do that….
There was a study done recently saying remote medical interpreting may hinder the encounter as much as it helps, due to things like technology glitches, the positioning of the parties in relation to the microphone, the lack of briefing and, of course, lack of etiquette from the other end of the screen.
Right now, I’m still at work for about another hour, so don’t even fucking get me started on that last point because, as the song goes, if you start me up. . . .
I can definitely believe remote throws all of the cues off. Not as badly as AI, but I’d think a lot of times in person is better.
So many of the usual protocols for etiquette have broken down, I try my best to keep up my end. I’m not joking when I say I try to radiate love.
It’s interesting to me on the odd occasions when I ride a crowded bus that people (including high school kids) still offer seniors their seat. Often a bit shambolically, but they (we) do it.
If everyone could just use their turn signals….