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I’ve been noticing that this is a thing at work – not saying “please”. I get emails that say “Send me the report on x. Thanks “. It really grates. Is it some sort of willy-waving power thing?
There's a difference between assertive and rude (and passive aggressive too). We were actually told to stop being overly polite in business communications and just ask for stuff.
Not so much omitting please and thankyou, but a lot less phrasing of instructions as questions. Tell someone what to do rather than asking them to do it.
E.g. omit the bit in brackets." [Can you] write a summary of that report for next week [?] "
It’s probably more a lack of time to think about being polite. Or perhaps a bit of a pecking order to it – do they grovel when they’re asking their seniors to do something?
Might be time. As you say, probably they adopt a different attitude to their boss, so it seems like a form of bullying.
When i used to walk the dog in the morning we passed a guy and i would say good morning/hiya to him, in the ten years and many times this happened i never had an acknowledgement or reply from him.
Can't say it was a problem to me, maybe he was deaf and had poor eyesight.
I was out on an evening road ride around Leamington Spa last week
That's where I reside. I'd have said hello and waved to you if that's any help. Yeah, even though you're a roadie.
I wonder if this is due to multi cultural Britain. We have a wonderfully diverse population from many different backgrounds and cultures where the 'English politeness and manners' is different to their native cultures. This then spreads to those they come into contact with (the opposite also happens) and we end up with some people are polite and have manners through to others that display none of either. It's the modern world, treat others how you would like to be treated and dont worry about others as you wont change them.
My missis told me off for not saying Please to Alexa yesterday morning 🙂 I always say thank you though, but by that time I think she's stopped listening, (Alexa, not my missis, (she never listens to me)).
I was brought up to be polite,I can't help myself,my kids are the same.
I also say "excuse me " when I sneeze,even if there is no one else there 🙂
That made me smile fasthaggis ..I do the same after sneezing ..
I drop the whole Hello, goodbye stuff from work emails and just treat it as a skype chat thread. As long as the work gets done and you're not explicitly rude, I don't see a problem.
Lots of people just state what they want, sometimes whilst talking on the phone or with ear phones in.
Doesn't happen often, but all of my staff are trained to ignore such types until normal manners can be resumed.
🙂
I have recently noticed that customer service in the UK has improved incredibly, people are very nice and friendly in shops, suppliers at work are all very friendly, it's infections (and I am in West Sussex which in theory is nearly as bad as Surrey). In fact my wife told me off for being patronising for thanking this lady on a work call that was on speaker in the car - lady advised on the procedure and product they offered, pitfalls and technical merits, costs, how to get best value etc. Could not have been more helpful and I told her so. Wife thought I was being weird...
Just keep being nice OP, and be even nicer if you are next in the queue after the grumpy gits, the world will get better an inch at a time.
Argh, Serif font!
I was born in London, have lived in darkest Shropshire for 12 years and Manchester for 15 years, so I've seen the full north/south/rural/city spread of the UK.
I don't think it's a north south thing, I think it's a busy urban thing versus the opposite. London of course gets stick, and rightly so, but it's because it's the biggest city in Europe not because it's full of southerners. Manchester city suffers from the same, but not nearly as bad, but small towns and villages do appear far more "friendly".
Vague rambling, but I think you'll get the same reception in a village in Surrey that you would in Lancashire and that it would be roughly the same in, let's say Birmingham, Manchester or Glasgow.
Out of interest, in the Middle East if you say hello to someone you always get a hello back, even in a big sprawling city. Out in the boonies it's far more reserved, but that's probably a cultural thing....!
While brought up working class in a council house, I was taught to at least behave like a gentleman, mind your manners, say please and thank you, hold doors open for people regardless of gender, etc. It’s only polite to do so, and at 63 I continue to behave like that. I will say loudly “thank you” to the retreating back of anyone who looks down their nose at me for having the gall to do something like hold a door open, often women of a certain age... I usually add “bitch” under my breath, in the accepted British passive/aggressive manner... 😋
The thing that really used to wind me up was when my wife and I, plus our kids and my in-laws, would go out for a pub or restaurant meal. When food or drinks were brought to the table my mother-in-law would never say “please” or “thank you”.
Even when the kids were at their sulkiest and rudest (only with us, naturally...) they were always polite to everyone else - I can remember our daughter telling her grandmother “ Nan, when we were younger you always taught us to be polite and say please and thank you, so why don’t you practice what you preached to us?” The reply was “well, they’re just doing their job and they’re getting paid for it - I can’t be saying thank you to everything”.
It’s not as if she’d had some sort of privileged upbringing - far from it, in fact. Brought up in Wakefield, left school at 14 to go and work in a shirt factory until she got married. And she’s a lovely lady, to be honest. So sometimes it’s just a thing, I suppose.
I get corrected all the time in Greece and told that I’m being too polite - in shops or bars, for example I’ll say “may I have?” or “can I have have?” but Greek friends will often say to me “why are you asking, of course you can - it’s a shop/bar/taverna and you’re the customer and you’re paying them. I always think what harm can it do though?
*edit* I’m pretty much like CountZero ^^^ and I’m a similar sort of age. What made my day recently was when I was in a local hardware shop buying a box of woodscrews and an elderly (like 90+years old) lady said to the assistant “please serve this young man first, he’s only got one item”. But then, I suppose, to her I am. Young, I mean. I insisted that she went ahead of me, if only because she’d called me “young”...
That’s where I reside. I’d have said hello and waved to you if that’s any help. Yeah, even though you’re a roadie.
Oi! I'm not a roadie, I'm a fat bastard who likes to scare people by wearing lycra in public 😀
I'm also an MTB'er if I ever get chance, but other than a few bridleways, railways and towpaths there doesn't seem to be much around Leamington. So, for the sake of fitness, the road bike makes an appearance. When it's long light nights I might make to effort to get up to Cannock a few times.
A simple hello may not be ornate enough for some.
This morning at the dentist I was the first customer/victim in & watched as virtually everyone after me followed this same lack of manners; no hiya/good morning/hello, just "Mr X"/"Miss Y" to confirm who they are & then wander off to sit down.
Amazes me that people can't even say 'morning, I'm Mr X, here to see dentist Y at Z o'clock.....'
My Wife used to work in the evenings at a chip shop to earn some more money alongside her full time job.
People she knew or was acquainted with, would fail to recognise her in her uniform & treat her completely differently in the chip shop, compared to the rest of the time when they would see her. She said it was quite an eye opener how rude people could be to a 'lowly girl in a chip shop' compared to 'electronics engineer' in her other job or just when out and about in the street.
It's Brexit innit? We've got to practice hating each other for the glorious day when there are no more foreigners to hate.
There’s a difference between assertive and rude (and passive aggressive too). We were actually told to stop being overly polite in business communications and just ask for stuff.
Not so much omitting please and thankyou, but a lot less phrasing of instructions as questions. Tell someone what to do rather than asking them to do it.
E.g. omit the bit in brackets.” [Can you] write a summary of that report for next week [?] “
To which I’d be tempted to respond, “Have you forgotten the magic word?” Good manners cost nothing, and help the machinery of human interaction run more smoothly; it’s a pity there are those who fail to realise this, and who just come across as rude, arrogant or just plain ignorant.