(03-11-2019 12:37 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-11-2019 09:51 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  I'm almost positive someone has posted this, but I managed to experience BOTH this weekend.

I'm sitting at a restaurant Friday. Not an overly fancy place, but not one that has a dollar menu either. To the right of me is the SCREAMING brat. Mom was holding the kid, just sitting their oblivious to the fact that the entire place cold hear the damn kid. Her response? Continue to sit there and let the kid wail. Didn't take him outside to try and calm him down, couldn't be bothered to do that. Much easier to make everyone else miserable because she was too lazy, stupid, or incompetent to do anything about it. To the left of me was the cell phone guy. Couldn't POSSIBLY turn it off while eating, oh no, let's have the ringer on full blast THEN have a loud conversation that anyone within 20 feet could hear. Worst thing was it was nothing even close to being important, just complaining about a text not being returned.

WTF is wrong with people? Absolutely NO concern for anyone but themselves and their little world.

And of course, if you say something, you're the asswhole....

I may have talked about this before but it remains one of my most serious pet peeves. When our restaurants all went non smoking the second thing I asked of the management of the restaurants we frequented was to have a no children section. I told them it could be 1/4th of the space but that the servers would earn double the tips if adults could actually dine in peace and enjoy pleasant soft conversation. The owners frequently looked at me like I had a third eye. However, one Mexican Restaurant took me seriously. They don't have such a section, but they have added a few booths to the bar. So we don't even have to ask when we come in the doors. They walk us back to one of those booths and the only thing we have to endure is are the TV sets which are all on different events but with the volume muted. That's not too bad. I eat a lot more soft tacos than I used to eat.

It got kicked off for me on my 25th anniversary years ago when I waited until 9:00 PM to take my honey to an Outback. We figured on a week night that by 9 most families would be at home and things would be peaceful. We were seated in a quiet booth and had ordered when two single moms with 3 to 5 year olds and one infant in car carrier were seated next to us. We asked the management to re-seat us elsewhere and were refused because they were cutting staff. I explained the import of the evening and why we wished to have some peace and quiet and the management still didn't comply. We left and Outback hasn't seen a dime of our money in the nearly two decades since.

The only other time I've been that angry was during the middle of a school day when my wife and I both took off a day to be able to attend the premier of a movie we wanted to see and to do so with everyone's kids safe at school and young folks at work. Again a group of single moms (about 5) came into the theater with infants who started to scream during the show. The theater management did nothing. We got our money back and left. The only movie we have viewed in a theater since was Rouge One which my wife wanted to see on the big screen. Some jerk lost his/her cell phone in the theater at the show previous to ours. When they couldn't find it they called the phone repeatedly trying to find it. It was under a vacant seat. The customers in our show were so outraged, we included, that the management actually stopped the movie, turned on the lights and finally found the damned phone when it went off again. Want to know why theater tickets are so expensive? It's because the vast majority of my generation which faithfully supported them now buy the movies when they come out, have installed Dolby stereo surround sound in our dens with a large HD screen and we own the damned movie for 1/2 the price of tickets and a drink.

Badger we live in the most uncivilized and rude times of my life. It really started to break down in the '80's. As wild as the '70's were things in public were never this rude. The cell phone only added to the rudeness, and now handheld devices of all kinds are breaking down society in other ways. Here in Auburn the number of students who jaywalk, oblivious to traffic, while looking at some handheld device is epidemic. Stupid and oblivious is no way to go through life and one had their life ended when they walked out between two parked vehicles into the path of a campus bus that wan't traveling 30mph.

In person the only time I have responded, perhaps because I did counseling for so long, was when a young couple with a family were seated at a restaurant next to us (and their children were well behaved) and the young husband was pleading with his wife in a effort to save their marriage. She took her third cell phone call in a half an hour in the middle of their conversation which was about what they needed to do to make their marriage work. On that third call (because we were leaving anyway) I took the two steps to get to their table and closed her cell phone and said, "Young woman, there is nothing on this phone right now as important as your family and your husband." And then my wife and I left. My action caught her so by surprise that she didn't have anything to say. And as we walked away I heard her husband say, "Thank you sir."

That is SO true it hurts.

Most of that is our own fault. We've be come so preoccupied with "my rights" we have completely forgotten about the rights of everyone around us. It's "my right" to be on my cell phone and therefore trumps your right to peace & quiet or to not be disturbed. Everyone is expected to kowtow to the "individual" at the expense of the group. It's the fault of the legal system as well. Back in my days of being a club bouncer, if there was a disturbance, it was our job to keep the peace for the majority of the customers. If that meant asking someone to leave we did. If that meant escorting someone off the premises, we did. Now, if you even touch someone, they threaten to "sue" and the sad thing is they'll win. We've used "rights" as a means to be completely rude and act without responsibility and much of society and the court system backs that up.

Hopefully the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way and we can add some respect, civility, and manners back into our interactions.