09.19.07
Posted in rants at 7:23 pm by eighty5original
So we’re all moved in, and come Monday morning I find two notes stuck under my car windshield wipers. Oh how nice, I thought, welcome to the neighborhood notes! Oh no, it was nothing like that.
Two residents had taken it upon themselves to tell me I was parked in the wrong parking spot… Let me give you some background information: Before we moved in, our landlord had told us that he didn’t know which spot was ours (they are numbered and with no relation to the units), and that we should just ask one of the other residents. Since we never saw anyone around, we parked in the parking space that always seemed to be open, and were parked there all weekend.
You must be thinking, “Well of course they don’t want you to park in their spot, why are you upset about that?” It’s not that they wrote me a note telling me that I was in their spot, I’m all for open and honest communication, it’s that they wrote me two notes! There is only one parking space assigned to each unit, ie. one spot = one letter. You would think wouldn’t you? I can’t figure out if they were written by the same person. The first of them was rude, stating, “these are assigned parking spots,” and demanding that I “find somewhere else to park!” While the second simply said that the spot I was in was assigned to one unit, and told me which space was assigned to me. Maybe the person who wrote the first note felt bad and wrote a second, more civil one? Maybe they are from a couple who wrote notes separately?
The most amusing part though, is that to this day the spot has been vacant, leaving no one to receive my note in response. Don’t worry, I was nice.
Thanks for being so neighborly, neighbor.
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07.28.07
Posted in rants at 1:21 am by eighty5original
Apparently “pure”water just means “tap water.”
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07.26.07
Posted in rants at 11:44 am by eighty5original
Remember last Tuesday when you were grocery shopping at Bloom, and you recognized an acquaintance from high school? You directed your gaze towards them, waiting for them to turn your way so you could say hello. But suddenly they realize they need windex, and not ketchup, so they turn on their heel and are out of that aisle in seconds; leaving you in their dust.
Did the person not notice you? Maybe. Did they not recognize you? It’s possible.
But more than likely they are playing the “game of invisibility.” Just one of the concepts that P.M. Forni discusses in his book Choosing Civility. A simple “hi” or a smile to acknowledge that someone is there and they aren’t invisible really isn’t that much work. It doesn’t take much energy to simply acknowledge others, so why don’t we do it? It’s simply a lesson in civility. “A greeting is a minimal yet meaningful conferral of honor on a person for just being a person. With it, not only do we acknowledge and validate, but we also put at ease and wish well. We announce that we intend to do no harm and express our concern for the well-being of others. As we do so, we invite others to look upon us with the same benign disposition we have toward them. This is the stuff civility is made of.”
I have been searching for this book without even knowing it! This is the kind of thing that people need to work on. There is no reason that we should be acting uncivil towards people. Interpersonal relationships are what make us human, so let’s start being better at them.
Choosing Civility
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