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National and Global, United States

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

In this lifetime, you don't have to prove nothin' to nobody except yourself. Really?



The headline is a quote from "Rudy", the movie about a single soul who played one play for Notre Dame University football. "Rudy, Rudy, Rudy"...they would scream from the stands. Today, it rather seems to be about RUDE RUDE RUDE. I wish it were Rudy. It ain't. Slammed doors, things stolen off desks, a dearth of thank-yous, cell phones going off in the middle of meetings, messy restrooms and cubicle mates who screech. That ubiquitous e-mail or job application that seems never to get a response. The phone call that never gets returned. I call that rude to a point of being unprofessional.

The workplace is more full of rudeness than ever before. Unprofessional behavior in business and in social life. I just read where a man wants to be deported from the United States. Yes, deported. He can't take it any longer. Wow-ie. Hope he's not going to France!

When I'm in the middle of meeting with someone to discuss a project and some jerk picks up the phone to talk to someone...anyone. And I'm standing there waiting, I have a problem. When I post on Craigslist and someone talks to me like they already own 'it'. I gotta a problem with that. Or when I phone the IRS, and get a person on the phone, who thinks I'm not from the same planet. I gotta a problem with not returning a phone call or e-mail. I gotta a problem with selfish opportunists. I have a probem with Rude.

But the worst offender might be just around the corner. No, your corner. It might actually be you. It might be me. Sometimes they call themselves "free spirits". I don't think so. I meet a lot of those types. Self-indulgent and selfish.
Quiting a job or getting fired from one, via voice mail or texting. Now, that is class. And rude. I received a fax once from a client on Christmas Eve who did just that.

"Incivility has diminished morale, reduced efficiency and loyalty and, let's not forget the bottom line, profits," Giovinella Gonthier, president of Chicago-based Civility Associates, said. "It's a big problem, and it's permeated the business and personal world, as well"

Not holding a door open for other people; not greeting or acknowledging greetings from people in the hallway; people who don't wait for others to leave an elevator before entering themselves; and people who leave public restrooms in complete shambles. That's rude.

In the last 15 or 20 years, the corporate world has spent millions of dollars on training people to work with machines and software, but humanware skills have been totally neglected. People can work effectively with machines but not with each other.

It is protocol of behavior in business and personal life. It's not the BMW. The latte. It's not your hair-stylist. It's nothing but you. Rudeness abounds. I see it everyday. And it abounds with the exact people who take the stand that "they don't have to prove nothin' to nobody". Nice. Sensitive.

People are late for appointments, deceptive, cluttering up other people's physical and personal space, leaving on cell phones, and speaking too loudly. The demogods of demagoguery. The denizens of the stupid.

New South Wales, Australia, considered a law that would require politicians to pass a breath test before voting on legislation. Recently, one apparently inebriated state lawmaker pushed a female colleague during a debate, and another was seen dancing in his underwear at an office party, shortly after helping to craft the state budget.

In my opinion people are rude because they can be. We let them. Remember this also from Rudy, the movie:
"No one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around."

Time to stand up.

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