Common Courtesy

Thank you!  Good morning.  How are you today?  Excuse me.  Please.

Is that so hard?  Really?

I can’t remember her name.  People like these I sort of block out of my mind.  What is the point, really?  She was an attorney I worked with at Miller Nash and she bugged the hell out of me. Why you ask?  What was it that she did (or didn’t do) that got my panties in a wad?  She was rude.  RUDE I tells ya!

It was in High School when I first realized that the words:  “How you doing!?” are not a question.  I know what you’re saying:  “Well, gosh-o-golly, Matt, it sure LOOKS like a question!  It has all the elements of a question.”  Well, for some, it’s not a question, it’s a greeting and as the janitor in my High School asked me this fleeting greetquest I stopped to respond and he didn’t stop to listen.  It was at that point I was clear that “How you doing?!”  and any of the sisters of it  (“How are you doing?”  “How’s it going?”  “What’s up?”  “How’s it hangin’!?”) are not questions, too.  They’re a greeting.  For some.  For me they’re still questions because I REALLY want to know how you are doing and how things are going and what’s up and how it’s hanging and I’ll REALLY stop and look you in the eye and wait for a response.  Call me crazy.

But morning after morning I would wander by this attorney and I would say:  “Good morning.”  And she would not respond back.  Not a “hi” not a “good morning” not a “how’s it going?”  NOTHING.  She’d give me a look like I was not worthy of her attention and keep on moving.

After this moment would pass I would enter my office (more a closet really) and I’d be pissed.  My co-worker would look at me and say:  “Did so-and-so ignore you again?”  And I would say “Yes!”

Again the question begs – is it SO HARD to say “Good morning” back?  This isn’t a “let’s talk about the cute crap my kid did this weekend while I pin you to the wall for twenty minutes” it’s just a greeting.  A simple, no nonsense, greeting.

Most recently the same thing has happened.  I will approach someone on a nearly daily basis and say clearly and cleanly:  GOOD MORNING!  And my co-worker will stare straight ahead and continue typing like I don’t exist.  There’s no way to mince the words, there’s no two ways about it:  IT’S RUDE.  It’s as rude as vomiting during a wedding ceremony or loudly farting in a crowded elevator and not saying “excuse me.”

But what galls me is that this same person would be the first to run screaming if I dare did the same thing to them.  When they come and talk to me it’s usually in a confrontational way and they expect, hell, DEMAND that I give them my full and undivided attention.  Just once I would love to have the courage to just sit and type at my computer while they yammer on and on about whatever issue they’ve got and then, after an interminable amount of time finally turn to them and say:  “oh, I’m sorry, were you talking to me?  I didn’t see you there because I completely ignored you like you do to me on a daily basis.”  But I don’t do that because I know that they have worth and deserve my attention (and I don’t want to get fired).

Weird ending to the Miller Nash story was after weeks and months of this attorney ignoring my very existence, when I sent an e-mail out to all staff telling them that I was leaving to go to Heller Ehrman she was the FIRST person to come running into my office and exclaim:  “Oh my God, Matt, how are we going to survive without you?!  You’re so great!”  I guess I really did exist.