What ever happened to manners?

For the most part I don't like writing about work. You never know who might be reading this and I'd like to keep my job...at least until I start school again next year. However, today I almost lost it on some of my co-workers for a startling lack of manners. The other day our office hosted some clients for an event. As they are pretty big clients and we were hosting them for a daylong event, we of course provided lunch and snacks throughout the day. Our buffet was set up outside the meeting room that they were in, in our administrative area. While there are only two people working in the area, it is an area that is passed through by many staff during the day. I had to stop five...count them, five people from attempting to grab food from the table before and during the meetings. Ummm....hello!!!! Who raised you people? Now of course we do let the staff at the food AFTER clients have left, but it is always moved into the staffroom before we let them at it. But in these cases, they brazenly started picking through, even lifting the covers off of the trays and essentially unpacking items that hadn't yet been opened. If my mother had been here, they would have all been spanked. It is common sense for me to not touch anything until I have been given the go ahead. That means dinner at other people's houses and business meetings. Same etiquette applies to pretty much everything. I thought it was standard for people to teach their kids etiquette and proper manners because my parents were very careful and insistent on instilling me with good manners. If I went over to someone's house it was always "please" and "thank you" and I wouldn't grab even a glass of tap water without asking permission from my host.



I just wonder when people stopped teaching their kids manners. Was it a generational thing? It seems like everytime I am confronted with a lack of manners it comes mainly from two generational groups, those that are a generation before me (baby boomers) and a couple of generations after me (Millenials) have missed the manners lessons. However, this lack of manners really applies across the board and my generalizations about specific generations are just that. I have observed more people from those two groups but it isn't always the case. A decade ago when I moved in with DH a group of friends offered to grab my stuff and move me. I was very grateful as this was a time in our lives when we were living on a very strict budget. As a thank you I put on a really nice steak dinner for everyone that evening and kept them plied with alcohol. Since our budget was so tight we were only able to purchase exactly what we needed to feed our friends. I had potatoes in the oven baking (just enough to feed everyone) when the boyfriend of one of my friends casually strolled into my kitchen, opened the oven, removed a mostly cooked potatoe and started eating it. I was so stunned I just stood there, mouth agape, for a few minutes. Then to my utter amazement he started tearing out a page from the magazine he was reading....my magazine. Now granted it wasn't anything particularly expensive, but holy cow! A that moment I did something that solidified my reputation as the chick you don't want to piss off or mess with and I kicked him out of my house. I explained to him that in my home the very minimum of manners was required and he had pretty much offended the hell out of me. As he was only the boyfriend of a friend and hadn't really even helped (took a few lamps from the driveway into the house) I didn't feel really guilty. He looked a little stunned. Had it been only one instance I could have lived with it but the sheer lack of manners shown in a five minute period was more than I could handle. These days I'd likely have given him heck and allowed him to stay...but as it turns out it was a good idea that I sent him packing. Guy turned out to be a huge L-O-S-E-R...he pushed around and hit my friend not two weeks later when she discovered his illicit mini-grow op in their spare room (what she thought was just his office/workout room.



Okay...so now that I am pretty sure I have taken this in an odd direction, I digress. But I beg of anyone reading this...if you have or are having kids, please teach them manners cuz if they run into me it ain't going to be pretty!