Rudeness: Please Stop - Citizen of the Republic

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Citizens of the Republic,

Today, in the news, we hear about the Great Resignation.

The mass migration of people away from their former jobs as astounding numbers of Americans simply up and resign.

Now, life is complex. There isn’t simply just one answer for this development. The Pandemic gave many of us a chance to reflect on our lives, and what is important to us. Priorities change.

Many are seeking better pay, and better benefits – for let’s be honest, can you really afford a median rent of $1,500 per month on minimum wage with no benefits? For some of us prefer to eat, keep the lights on, and heat our homes upon occasion.

Others are opting for hybrid work schemes, as they struggle to find childcare – or simply have discovered that avoiding that unproductive Monday morning ‘team meeting’ makes them more productive and allows them to spend more time with family, and friends.

Yet the issue that I want to focus on today is not better pay, better benefits, or more flexibility (all of which, I do concur – hardworking Americans need), I want to focus on the rampant rudeness plaguing our country.

Think about it.

How often have you come home from work after a long day feeling like you were run over by the proverbial steamroller because of the battering you took from your clientele?

Furthermore, rampant rudeness is widespread across industries. Restaurant patrons are being rude to their waitstaff. Shoppers are being rude to cashiers at the grocery store checkout line. Passengers are being rude to flight attendants.

Moreover, the abuse does not simply remain verbal, which is bad enough, it gets physical as well – as workers now contend with the shocking reality that they might get physically assaulted for simply doing their job.

Add in low pay, long hours, feeling like a hamster on a wheel going nowhere, the toll that these jobs take on both your physical and mental health, alongside zero respect – it is little wonder so many people are up and leaving their jobs.

To be honest, we as Americans should simply be grateful that so many of our “essential workers,” are showing up for work.

So where does this rampant rudeness come from? How did we get to this point?

It is difficult to say, but by way of observation, I would suggest that it comes from a false sense of entitlement that has arisen in our culture – which to be frank, finds no grounds for justification in the foundational principles of our country.

What do I mean by that?

On August 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress signed The Declaration of Independence, a social contract between We the People, and our newly constituted government, the United States of America – which provided:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, amongst these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.”

See, The Declaration of Independence, para 2. (U.S. 1776)

Now, I know that this specific provision has a somewhat tortured past – which to be fair could cover an entire book, but again – as I mention in the About section of this website, one of our goals at Citizen of the Republic, LLC – is the realization of American democracy. We are trying to realize an ideal.

Think of it like a New Year’s resolution – it’s there, we may have not lived up to it in the past, but we can always pick it up, and see it through to fruition.

Thus, in the plain contractual language for the foundational document of our country – we clearly see, that we were founded upon the idea that “all…are created equal… [and we are endowed with] certain unalienable Rights.” Id.

Going back to rudeness, here I think is the problem which I will explain by way of example:

There is a couple sitting next to you at a restaurant. One of them clearly has money, which they are flashing about – trying to impress their date and being rude to the waitstaff. What gives that person the impression that they are somehow better than their servers, and that they are somehow entitled to treat them poorly?

A false sense of entitlement based upon material wealth.

Somewhere, somewhen – along the way (and we have all seen this in various industries), the person making $500,000 a year started to feel that they were somehow better (more than equal) than the person making minimum wage.

Now, as I used to say to my clients in the legal profession (and this is not legal advice, please see my Disclaimer. It is just a general catchphrase I developed to make a point): Equality of access does not equate to equality of arms.

Basically, we all have a seat at the table (that is what the Declaration envisions) but we don’t necessarily start at on the same starting blocks in the race. The trust fund baby whose parents bought them a yacht, is decidedly further along the track, then say, a struggling first-generation college student, who is a single mother.

But how to address this sense of entitlement?

By reminding ourselves in our daily lives, that whilst we may start, or end, at different places in the race – the very foundational document of our country envisions that we all have an equal seat at the table.

You can’t treat someone in this country as your servant. Your wealth. Your salary. Your flashy car. Does not give you that right.

So, where do we go from here? As I mentioned in my November 9, 2021, speech: “Not the Enemy. Not the Other.” Democracy begins at home. It begins with small steps. Small steps back to health.

It begins by asking your waiter their name. For they surely have one.

It begins with looking at the nametag of the cashier behind the register, and saying as you pick up your bags, “Have a nice day John/Jane Doe.”

It begins by recognizing that your flight attendant has likely been up since dawn, on their feet, and may have just been dealing with an unruly passenger on their earlier flight.

It begins with a please and ends with a thank you.

For whilst you don’t have to engage someone for long when they are busy working, you can be nice, you can be respectful, you can treat them as a fellow human being.

For if “all…are created equal,’ you can either treat people equally well or equally poorly – please, choose to treat them equally well.

For a society that chooses to treat one another poorly cannot live in harmony with itself, and a democracy in which fellow citizens treat each other as servants, cannot remain true to its principles.

Rudeness: Please Stop.

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