Waiting For Miss Manners

man·ners [man-ers] (plural noun) - 1. social conduct. 2. a socially acceptable way of behaving.

“It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.” (Author unknown)

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[A big thanks to my good friend, Cheryl, for this topic. --Ed]

Picture this. I’m at church, attending first service with my wife and children. We arrived about fifteen minutes before the service started so that we can get a good seat, since our church tends to get very crowded very quickly, and end up in the second row (first row is for the bishop and his family, his wife, children, pastors, and honored guests). So as we’re waiting for the service to start, one of the pastors walked up to us, smiling as she approached, and gave my wife a big hug while greeting her. And then she walked off (cue scratched record), ignoring me.

What the f***?

It wasn’t the first particular incident that something like this happened, but it was the most prominent for me because of how blatant it was. But I can speak of several instances where I was suddenly the Invisible Man and ignored. The youth at the church are real good at this. They can literally sit in the same room as you and not say one word to you while they are chatting with someone else.

Growing up in a Haitian culture (and I think that a majority of Caribbean cultures are like this), I was taught that elders were always to be respected and heeded. Boys were expected to greet all the female elders with a kiss on the cheek and all male elders with a handshake while girls were supposed to kiss any elder on the cheek regardless of gender. Then, unless they had questions for you, you were to go and join the other kids in whatever room they happened to be in. Under no circumstances were you to be in a room where adults were congregating and speaking unless called to that room by one of those adults. You were not allowed to give any adult an attitude, since that was seen as disrespect. Also, interrupting a conversation without starting with “excuse me” was a guarantee that you were going to get a whooping.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My culture has its issues (for example, in an argument between a child and an adult, the adult is automatically right, even if they are wrong) but I think it gave me a good foundation for dealing with the world in general. I was a good student because I respected my instructors, even when I was in college. Every adult I met took a liking to me, to the extent that I was easily welcomed into many of my friends’ homes like any of their children (I have a lot of “Moms” who adopted me). Even now, I’ve been told that if someone doesn’t like me, it must be because something is wrong with them, not me.

Yet, too often nowadays, I see children disrespecting adults as if they lack home training. My daughter is very strong-willed and opinionated (like her old man), which tends to get her in trouble with my wife because she still has that immature mindset that tells her that she knows everything. I am constantly reminding her that while she might have a point, saying it with an attitude will get her nowhere. She’s a good child overall, but like many of our youth, has a lot to learn.

And I can’t leave the adults out of this. Many of them could go a long way to make this world better is they knew how to treat other people with courtesy and respect. Some people think that having a title or some authority entitles them to treat everyone else like grade-A crap, but it doesn’t. A kind greeting goes a long way. A pat on the back, a reassuring word, a simple thank – these are things that can uplift someone who’s down. All of us are dealing with a tough economy, loss of income, lack of faith in our own government and life in general. For all you know, a hello and a smile might be all that stands between you and someone ready to climb up to the roof and take a dive. God made us all unique, but that does not give you the right to be an asshole, much less a unique one.

I have no easy solutions to this. Maybe we need to introduce an etiquette class in school so that kids know how they are supposed to act. Maybe parents need to get their act together and teach their kids that disrespect in any way, shape or form is not acceptable. Maybe every person should be required to do one year of military service (now that’s a place to learn discipline!). I know: we can add a Department of Etiquette and Manners to the government, with Miss Manners as the Secretary.

Once upon a time, I worked at BellSouth as a customer service rep. Of all the things that I learned from there (many of them bad & demoralizing, by the way), I did keep one thing that my trainer taught me, and that was this: “It’s never about how the conversation starts. It’s always about how that person feels by the time the conversation ends.”