Here is a list of things that have pissed me off this week:
1 – people who dont say thank you or look you in the eye and nod when you do them the courtesy of holding a door open for them
2 – recently put in a wheelchair to leave the hospital due to a bad fall at work, 4 people not only cut me off, or wouldnt allow me a smidge of extra space, but one even JUMPED in front of me in a doorway.
3 – People who cut into lines as if they didnt know they were doing it
4 – drivers with road rage (this isnt a bitch, they actually make me chuckle)
5 – people who dont know HOW to drive.
6 – Coffee Slingers who say hun or love at the start of EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE!
7 – bicyclists whith a sense of entitlement and indestructability.
To all of the above, I submit to you that you all suck.
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2008.
Right on! Re bitch #2, my disabled spouse who uses a cane and is very unsteady at the best of times was knocked flat on his ass TWICE at Costco a couple of weeks ago – both times by women pushing their way past – they didn’t fucking stop, apologize – they just kept walking. I was so pissed, had I been with him, I would have decked both those thoughtless, self-centred cunts. Not one person in that fucking store helped him as he struggled to get up. I cannot believe how rude people are these days.
I wholeheartedly agree that this is one of the rudest places I’ve ever lived. I guess you get desensitized to it over time, but that still doesn’t make it right. It’s like all of Halifax failed kindergarten: take turns, don’t be greedy and selfish ie. share, respect your elders, treat others as you want to be treated, when you’re standing in line behave in an orderly fashion and the list goes on… Come on, people, have you forgotten the basic fundamentals of coexisting peacefully in society? Is it worth killing someone just to get one car ahead? Why is YOUR grocery order so important that you would knock down someone with a cane? PS-to you same women, why do you bring your 5 screaming brats to the grocery store in the first place? Are they HELPING you get the groceries? I think not; and at the same time they are traumatizing the rest of us. I can’t even buy cereal anymore b/c that aisle is just off limits due to the temper tantrum ratio at any given time due to the sugar withdrawl your kids are having. Yet I still don’t cut YOU off in line, even though you probably deserve it. Hell, I’ll even let you go ahead of me just so my shopping experience can be a little more peaceful.Today’s world is hugely lacking in civility. The few people who are courteous to me get duly thanked, since they are the only ones keeping this place from being more of a shithole than it already is!
Bob … clearly you haven’t lived many places. Specifically the United States, or Asia in general. So … yeah. Keep the unfounded generalizations coming!Maybe you have an air about you that people don’t like? Whenever I’m out I find people fall all over themselves to open doors for me (and eachother), graciously give up seats on buses, wait patiently in very long lines, etc. Maybe it’s just you?
I think when you encounter dozens to hundreds of people in a day you are bound to run into a few people whose manners may not be up to par. If you are a negative Nelly about life all you will notice is the handful of times that people annoy you in a day. If you have a more positive outlook on life, you will be overwhelmed by the number of nice people out there. It’s kind of like if you ever had to work with someone with an annoying habbit. At first you don’t really notice it, but after a while you become fixated on it until you want to wrench that pencil-tapping, nostril-whistling, finger-nail-clipping-at-the-desk-leaving weasle’s neck. For example. Sometimes you only see what you are looking for.
Hellakitty,Just to clarify, I grew up here. Yes, I HAVE lived in the United States (9 years total in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Mass, and Rhode Island), and have worked/lived on all of the continents (everywhere from the Middle East to Micronesia to Antarctica), thank you very much. I have known what to expect from most of the cultures I’ve been immersed in, and was neither surprised nor disappointed. I’ve kept things in perspective, ie. “when in Rome”… I recently moved back to Halifax, and was comparing the behaviour here to the Halifax I was accustomed to. It is obvious that this city has changed drastically since I last lived here, but that’s all I have to compare it to. Yes, I did make generalizations in order to keep my post under the length of a textbook. Unfounded, I think not.
Oh yes, people in Halifax are just soooo rude, it’s unbearable. I just can’t believe the nerve of some people. Makes my fanny glow bright red.I have a job that involves communicating with customers on the street and while I’ll agree there are a lot of fucking idiots out here, there’s also a lot of nice people, you just got to slow the fuck down and actually look at people from their perspective.
People are odd here. When it comes to etiquette it’s almost like they have a passive-aggressive thing going. They are reluctant to confront others when they do stupid things — nobody ever SAYS anything when people jump a queue, and god forbid you use your car horn in traffic when someone does something dumb — but then they go out and do all those breaches of social etiquette constantly. I suspect because people can get away with everything without fear of retribution, they just continue to do it.
Bob, thanks for the clarification. While I still don’t agree that Halifax is all that generally rude (I have lived in Asia, nothing will top that), I will agree with you that it is getting worse. However, I am inclined to think the ruder of the bunch are not in fact true Haligonians, but transplants from “away” (such has been my general experience).