Tag: considerate

The Inconsiderate, the Rude, and The Flying Fudds

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“The difference between rude and inconsiderate is that the inconsiderate often fail to consider those around them, but when you point that out to them, they’re shocked, embarrassed, and apologetic to those affected by their negligence,” Ms. Carnelia informed me. “The rude. They don’t give a Flying Fudd.”

I enjoyed her distinction, because I never thought of it quite that way before, but it lacked that almost mandatory third logical extension to pound the point home. If I taught a class on providing provocative rhetoric, I would focus on the power of threes. Musicians love three beats, writers love the point, comparison, and an exaggeration, or a little hyperbole, to pound a point home. As much as I loved Ms. Carnelia’s simple distinction, it didn’t have staying power. 

While in the supermarket section of a huge Super box store, Ms. Carnelia spotted something of interest, and she accidentally left her cart in the middle of the store at a diagonal angle to examine it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all left that shopping cart in the middle of an aisle to unintentionally block everyone’s attempt to pass through. We, the momentarily inconsiderate, don’t consider how leaving a shopping cart in the middle of an aisle might inconvenience others. When we hear, “Excuse me, but I cannot get around your cart,” we scramble and angle that cart parallel to one side, as close to one side of the aisle as possible. We apologize, and hope that everyone involved will forget about it soon after it happened. We won’t. We, the inconsiderate, are mortified by how inconsiderate we were. We ask ourselves if this could be classified as rude, but as Ms. Carnelia outlined we failed to consider other people, so we were just inconsiderate. The rude may not intentionally place that cart in the middle of the aisle, but they are defined by what they do after it becomes obvious that they failed to consider other people. When someone asks to get through, they are put off by it. They might huff, sigh, or even offer us a dirty look. “What?” our unspoken facial expression asks. “How am I to blame here?” The rude will move their cart, just not as fast as the momentarily inconsiderate, and the rude will begin shopping again without an apology or anything else that recognizes what they just did.

I flirted with the notion of making the third plank of Ms. Carnelia’s distinction those who would purposely placed their cart diagonal angle in the aisle to prevent passage, but I’ve never known, or heard of anyone doing such a thing. I struggled with it for months, until Ms. Carnelia, the author of this dinstinction, offered it to me months later when she left her shopping cart in the middle of the supermarket section of a huge Super box store aisle to read through the ingredients of the various cereal choices before her. Two customers silently waited for her to recognize her faux pas, but she was so immersed in her reading that she didn’t even notice those two customers, until I pointed it out to her. 

“Oh, if they’re in that big of a hurry,” she said. “They can just go around.” I moved her cart for her while she was saying that. I also apologized for her when I locked eyes with those customers, since being with her made me tangentially responsible her her actions. When she finished her shopping, and we sat in my car, I reminded her of her defintions of rude and inconsiderate. She didn’t get why I was bringing that up, until I reminder her what she just did in the store. 

“Fine, I’m a hypocrite!” she spat, and she said it in a manner that suggested I was being a real PIA (pain in the butt) for calling for consistency from her. This led to my final leg of the three-part distinction scale with her being The Flying Fudd exaggeration of her own distinction. We could even characterize such a character as a Flouting Fudd, or someone who purposely flouts the conventions of courtesies we extend to one another. We could add another level to characterize the openly hostile, extremely aggressive types who can be abusive, but that takes us out of realm of our discussion here. 

Ms. Carnelia is no different than anyone else. She formed her defintion of the human condition based on studying others. She recognized the faults of others without reflecting on her own. That is a universal condition, of course, but what do we do with her interesting distinction between inconsiderate and rude? Most of us attach the philosopher to the philosophy, and when the philosopher violates their philosophy, we forsake the philosophy. My contention is, who cares who broke it down for us, if it’s gold it’s gold. If we can use it, who cares who said it? We can all judge those with inconsistencies, but what are they talking about when they’re talking about it? They’re talking about idealism. They know who they want to be, and whether they can achieve it or not is on them, but that shouldn’t prevent us from using what they say to try to define our ideal self.

***

The moment after I saw this Flying Fudd standing in the middle of the aisle, texting, I thought of Ms. Carnelia. I missed the opportunity for a more incriminating photo of him standing with one foot on the cart and the opposite cheek hanging lazily off to the left for those of us entering the store to enjoy. I wasn’t thinking quick enough to take that picture, but if I was, and a picture says a thousand words, I probably wouldn’t have needed this 1,000 word article to explain it. 

Mr. Fudd either didn’t care, or he didn’t care enough to know that he forced the store patrons who entered the store to snake their way around him. It wasn’t a huge hassle, as you can see in the second wide shot, there was plenty of room to snake, but the whole idea of a fella throwing his posterior up to force others to walk around him irked me so much that I ended up taking about a dozen photos of the man. He’s a large man, as you can see, so my guess is that he was a former high school sports star, probably an offensive lineman, whose job it was to force people to go around him.  

We all need to phone, text, or email people in stores at various times in our lives. Modern technology has made communication, via devices, almost mandatory at times, but this indulgence should come equipped with its own commandments, and that list should contain all the ways in which we inconvenience, confuse, bother, and ignore those around us when we’re on a device. When, not if, but when we need to text, we should all remember to move to a location in which we bother the least amount of people possible. We all make mistakes, and sometimes our adjustments are worse than the original situation, but the more effort we put into avoiding inconveniencing others, the better. I don’t know if Ms. Carnelia would consider Mr. Fudd a one on the Fudd scale, but it was one of those situations where we say, “This is one of those situations.”

As we can also see, in the second wide shot, this man’s stay in the aisle was something of a prolonged one, as he was so comfortable standing in everyone’s way that he switched legs. For the purpose of your entertainment, I waited and watched the man. Was he waiting for someone? It turned out, he wasn’t. My guess was that he was waiting for a text with the list of items he was to purchase. Once he received marching orders, the man proceeded to snake his way around the store solo. 

I probably should’ve dropped a big, old “Excuse me sir, but do you realize you’re standing in the middle of the aisle? Do you realize we all have to walk around you?” on him, but I’m not one of those people. If I dropped that on him, I’m quite sure I would’ve realized he was inconsiderate as opposed to rude, but we have to help these people consider more often, right? Or, is it just me?

***

Our subjective inclination is to think anyone who stands in the middle of any aisle, for any reason, knows what they’re doing. “They knew what they were doing,” we say with a level of impatience. “They knew exactly what they were doing!” I know they don’t, because I remember the times I didn’t. When Starbucks comes out with a new frappacino flavor, it takes us out of our element, and we go to the aisle to read the ingredients before we purchase. We don’t think about the cart, the aisle, or the people we’re inconveniencing with our actions, until they let us know. Some of the times, we get so caught up in our world that we aren’t conscious of our surroundings. Some of the times, we slip up and others write about us our worst day. 

When we’re forced to quick beep that guy who won’t go on a green light, we think they’re either slow learners, far too casual, or hooked on cough syrup. “We got all day here buddy!” we shout from the inner sanctum of our vehicles. “ALL DAY!” When someone offers us that same polite, wakeup beep it drives a proverbial spike into our spine, because we know that polite, quick beep. We’re polite, quick beepers. We’re the ones who are so impatient that we don’t give a guy three seconds to move his foot from brake to accelerator. We’re the impatient, so how can we get mad at quick, beeping impatient types? They’re our people.

“Who cares how fast you get there, as long as you get there,” someone said when they were talking. They emphasized the latter in foreboding tones to give it more profundity. We understand that speed kills and we’re not suggesting anyone speed, we’re just saying get out of the way so we can, while we still have the quick twitches necessary to avoid accidents. We realize we’re putting our lives on the line, and we know we’re more impatient than most, but we don’t want to waste one minute of our life waiting for those who are addicted to cough syrup to snap into the present tense.

My dad trained me to be conscientious, and while I’ll never be as conscientious as he was, my scorecard is filled with plusses. If you’re anything like the yeahbuts of consistency that yip at the ankles of those who try to make a point, you’ll “Yeah, but aren’t you the guy who put a cart out to block people when you saw a new flavor of frappacino?” to dismiss me. Do the yeahbuts do this to intellectually defeat a point, do they want to pull down to their level, even though no one is applying for a level, or do we just enjoy dismissing people. The third point, for those of us who need that third beat, is a question sent to the yeahbuts who seek to expose the inconsistencies and hypocrisies inherent in philosophers, because they exhibit human frailty. The annoying thing about philosophy is that an overwhelming majority of it, outside deities, comes from humans, and humans are so flawed that they usually end up ruining their own philosophies. The yeahbuts wear us down, until they clear the deck of all philosophers and their philosophies, but they have no end game. They just want us to join them in their desert of decay, and the veritable wasteland of idea.  

The Inconsiderate and the Uninteresting

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A show I watch asked the question has America become more inconsiderate? They immediately moved this discussion of societal etiquette to the use of cell phones. Does someone answer a cell phone in the middle of your meal? Do they answer that call without asking to be excused? I don’t know if my lack of interest on this particular discussion is based on the fact that it’s become cliche to complain about cell phone usage, if I still feel like something of an outsider looking in on the whole cell phone world, or if most of the people in my inner circle are not obsessed with cellphones. Whatever the case is, I have fewer problems in the cell phone discussion than most. My concerns are less micro.

Cell PhonesLarry David has an observation he calls being car conscious. Are you car conscious when you cross the street? How quickly do you walk when you cross? Are you ambivalent to the amount of time you have to cross the street, when you have the right of way, and do you walk at your own pace regardless of the amount of time you have to cross, or do you always walk expediently?

The primary influence of my life, my dad, was considerate. Some of the times he was too considerate in my opinion, but the exaggeration shaped me. I have my moments, just like everyone else has moments, but there are some people, and we all know them, that you can just tell are born inconsiderate.  It’s a way of life for these people, as opposed to a momentary slip.

Gene Simmons once said: “Most people are not very interesting.” What Gene probably meant to say, I believe, is that most people are not very attractive. Interesting is, of course, relative. What is interesting subject matter to one person can be dreadfully boring to another and vice-versa. Reading through some of Gene’s books, and listening to a number of his interviews, I’m willing to put money on the fact that Gene finds attractive women interesting, regardless their subject matter… Especially those attractive women that find the subject of Gene Simmons interesting.

On Alec Baldwin’s radio show, NBC News host Brian Williams said that he believes his political opinions have been cleansed from his reporting.  Brian Williams has been known to deliver such lines, in the guest appearances he’s made on 30 Rock and on the Late Show with David Letterman, with such an excellent dead pan that it’s impossible to know when he’s kidding.  For further clarification, some of us wish we were back in the 70’s when laugh tracks were the norm.  We find the fine line between comedy and tragedy too confusing at times.

In a line from Simon Vozick-Levinson’s Rolling Stone review of Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace, Levinson writes:

“Thom Yorke hates being predictable more than anything except maybe climate change.”

YorkeIf the rhythm of this line sounds familiar, it may have something to do with the author of the quote co-opting from those old Superman lines used to promote the corporate sponsorship of that show:

“If there’s one thing Superman hates more than crime it’s tooth decay, and to fight tooth decay Superman uses Crest.”

The only difference is that the author was presumably serious.

Answering questions directly can be a problem at times:

“Does (something) stress you out?”  This is a question that we humans seem to enjoy asking of one another, regardless of the topic.

“Yes, it does,” I answered.  The answer that I provided was so direct, and clipped, that the two of us stared at each other in silence for a second.

“How does it stress you out?”

I then describe for them how this stressful situation affects me.  I am very matter-of-fact in my description, for I know that I’m walking into their net when I do so.

“Well, that’s what happens,” is the smug answer.  “If you didn’t expect that, you shouldn’t have gone down that road.”  They then laugh smugly at my naivete with that response.

“Wait a second,” I say, “You asked me two direct questions that I answered directly.  I knew the answer to the question, but how do you get to be the smug one?  Do I have to qualify every answer I give, or can some of it be assumed?”

Inconsiderate in the Checkout Aisle

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Are you inconsiderate? How inconsiderate are you? Are you one that is momentarily inconsiderate, or do you have bad habits? When you’re at a grocery store, and you need a moment to discuss the needs of your household with your significant other, do the two of you wallow in the middle of aisle during this discussion, or do you create a pathway for any possible oncoming shoppers? How considerate are you? Are you one that waits until the need for a pathway arises, or do you prepare for this eventuality beforehand? How many people have to say, ‘excuse me’ to get by you? Are there moments where this has happened, or is it an event that occurs whenever you’re at a grocery store?

Whenever a discussion of ethics arises on TV, or in literature, the audience is usually subjected to larger questions. How concerned are Americans with the world at large, are Euros so self-righteous that they think they’re better than most other countrymen, and what of the societal ethics regarding cell phones? Are Americans becoming more inconsiderate on the street, in their cars, or in their everyday life? These discussions are all very macro, and as such less interesting to me. I think we can get a better gauge of humanity, and their ethics, in the seemingly inconsequential manner in which we conduct ourselves in a grocery store.

When we’re at work, or church, we’re usually on our best behavior with the fear that the boss might see us at our worst. When we’re in bars, or sporting events, our behavior is usually altered to some degree, but when we’re at a grocery store, we are who we are, and the interactions we have with strangers define us.

The grocery store can be a breeding ground for selfishness and self-involvement, in that the only reason we go there is to satisfy our personal needs. It does require some effort, therefore, to avoid focusing too much on ourselves, and to remain considerate of those around us.

We’re all going to have moments in supermarkets, just like in life, where we slip up and become inconsiderate. When you’re discussing the benefits of beef broth and mushroom soup to your next meal, you and your significant other can get so caught up in that discussion that you momentarily lose track of the world around you. Some of the times, the two of you have to be shaken out of that world by a fellow consumer trying to get by, and if this happens to the considerate they are embarrassed by the momentary slip up, and they quickly move to rectify it with apologies.

There are others, and we all know them, that seem to be born inconsiderate. It’s a way of life for these people, as opposed to a momentary slip up. They’re the ones that walk gingerly through cross walks, ignore a person that’s speaking, and place their cart in the middle of an aisle while reaching for the peas. These people can be immersed in the broth/soup conversation, be jerked out of the conversation by a passerby, and continue that conversation while apathetically moving their cart aside ever so s-l-o-w-l-y.

Even these annoyingly ambivalent and methodical shoppers can be redeemed, however, if they know the regimented process involved in the checkout aisle. We also understand that some discussion is necessary when two people are making choices for a household, but that doesn’t mean that we are any less frustrated with you. It can all be forgiven, however, when you have made all of your selections, and your focus is acute in the checkout.

Anyone that has achieved the age of—to be generous—thirty, knows that there is an order to the manner in which a customer moves through the checkout aisle. Some of us have watched our elders and learned of the considerate order, that allows the consumer to make his stay in the checkout aisle a smooth, orderly, and quick transaction. This order is very regimented, to the progressions you physically make through the aisle, and onto the manner in which you prepare to pay. Those of us that have paid attention to our elders, and all the precedents we have witnessed with other customers, know this order. We may not expect every customer to follow this order down to the regimented progressions through the aisle, but when we see an example of the opposite, we grow impatient and frustrated with their inability to follow the codes and standards of our society.

To paraphrase Ice Cube’s line in Boyz in the Hood: “Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about the standards of the grocery store checkout aisle.”

How prepared are you for the total, when that cashier calls it out? If you’re writing a check, how much of it is written out before the total is given to you? Do you have your billfold in hand, if you’re paying cash, or are you one that waits until the total is called out? If you’re one of the latter, what did you think was going to happen? Did you not consider the fact that you would have to eventually pay, or were you simply not thinking?

I find cash to be the most considerate method of payment available to those waiting behind you, and I usually have a hand in the billfold ready for the total to be called out. I’m also, usually, within one to two dollars of the total. About the only inconvenience experienced by those behind me is the change thing. If I have an opportunity to get rid of some change, I will always do so. Some of the times, I will count my change beforehand, to know how much I have versus how much I may need, but most of the times, I am (unfortunately) totally caught off guard by the fact that I can dispense with some change in this transaction, and I will fish around in my pocket for any change that I have. It’s a minimal inconsideration, but I still have to put a checkmark by this if I’m going to be honest and objective on my consideration list.

I have little to no problem with you debit card people, as long as you know the process well enough to know which buttons you will be required to punch through without too much pausing, or too much instruction from the cashier. Most debit card people are caught off guard by the “change” question at the end of the debit card machine’s algorithm, and I’ve thought more than once that we might all be better off if this question were placed at the beginning of the algorithm, so that people are more practiced in that part of the process.

Other than my personal problems, involving dispensing with change, my progressions through the checkout aisle are honed and polished. My conveyor belt progressions are impeccable. For, not only do I push the items as far forward on the conveyor belt as possible, but once the checker has reached the halfway point in my number of items, I am halfway through the aisle. This halfway point places me in a perfect position to reach any items that the cashier might not be able to reach, and it makes me available for questions that she may have. At the point when she only has a few items left, I am at the little check writing outcropping, with cash in hand. This allows the person behind me to move forward so that they can push their items as far forward as possible, and prepare for their checkout.

Those of us that have studied the protocol, and understand it well, want no praise for our actions. We do not do it for the glory. We understand that as others drift through life, on the lookout only for the inconsiderate, they will accidentally ignore those of us that follow the procedure. If those same people watched us, and learned from us, and copied our procedures, we would consider it the greatest of all compliments, and we believe that it could leave a trail of ease for the rest of humanity that move through the checkout aisle.

We’re all going to experience some problems in the checkout aisle. Some of the times, we’re going to have to have a price check, and some of the times the verdict on those price checks are not going to go our way, and we will have to put some items back, and some of the times we’re going to have coupons that slow the proceedings, and some of the times the unexpected will arise that causes a severe delay in the lives of those behind us. Some of the times, all we need to do is apologize, and all will be forgiven. It may not mean much to those of us that have already reached a pique of frustration with humanity, as it usually does nothing than add an exclamation mark to the swear words we have in our head for them. We will accept their apology, however, and move on, knowing that that person has done their best to be considerate, and they have thus eased the suffering that I think they should be experiencing for their malfeasance.