Open letters

[resonant]

Dear counter employees,

When I arrive at the front of the line, you've got about ninety seconds to acknowledge my existence.

If you'll make eye contact and say, "I'll be with you in a moment," I'll wait humbly in line for quite some time. But when I step up to the counter, I start, well, counting. If you go on with your work and ignore me, in a minute and a half you will have lost a customer.

I wish I were more confident that most of you cared at all, but at least it makes me feel better.

-----

Dear people in waiting areas:

Chairs are for people to sit in. They are not for you to put your towels on at the pool; there are hooks on the wall for that. They are not for you to pile your coats on at the skating rink; I realize there really is no satisfactory place to put coats at the skating rink, but it makes a lot more sense to put the coats under the benches and the people on them than vice versa.

If all the seating places are occupied, I will move your stuff so that I can sit down. I will move it as gently and respectfully as if it were my own (and you'll notice that my own stuff is under my chair or hung on a hook), but I will not stand up for an hour and a half so that your worldly possessions can have the comfortable chair. Sorry if that bothers you, except not sorry at all.

-----

Dear people in public places in general:

As the loudness and annoyingness of your ringtone increases, so should the immediate accessibility of your phone.

-----

Dear acquaintance:

It's lovely that you enjoyed that book, and that you think I might enjoy it, too. But I hate it when people lend me books that I haven't asked for. I mean, you do realize you've just handed over (1) a significant object for which I have to be responsible and (2) a task that I have to perform, whether I want to or not? Seriously, if you want to just recommend a book to me, go for it; I'll write it down and get to it when I'm in the mood to read whatever it is. But if I wanted to borrow a book, I would have asked for it.

-----

Dear parents,

If you come to a cafe, and you bring a child too young for school, you are going to have to entertain him while he's there. If you expect to have a conversation, you're going to have to bring along toys or books or art supplies or whatever else will keep his attention, and you're also going to have to expect frequent interruptions.

If you bring nothing for him to do, he's going to try to talk to you, and if he says, "Are you ticklish?" and you ignore him, he's going to say it over and over again, louder and louder.

If the mild-mannered woman in the useless headphones has to come over and whack someone upside the head, it won't be the kid. It will be you.

Comments

[reginagiraffe]

Yes to all of these. Especially #5.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I see this so much! Like it's so hard to bring along a pad and some crayons?

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

LOL - you are so right, especially about people lending books!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I feel bad being irritated by this, but usually I have my reading pretty well planned out for the next month or so, and usually I'm in the mood for one thing (only novels, only comedy, only fantasy, whatever), so the odds that I'll get around to reading this one book before I forget who it belongs to are ... slim.

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

# 3 is a massive pet peeve. I've actually said to people "You can move or I can sit on it, but I'm not standing."

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

People will actually get snippy with you if you move their stuff! Like you were supposed to give their purse and their coat the same consideration you'd give an actual human being! Look, if you don't want me to touch it, don't put it where it's in my way!

[vickita.livejournal.com]

My way around the book-lending issue is, if I really, really think someone should read a book, I *give* it to them. "Here, have a book!" And then I probably forget all about it, and so there's usually no stress involved on the other end, either.

My new thing, though, is gifting iTunes store audio books to people that I know listen to audio books whilst they are traveling. That's a rockin' way to get people to read books that I want them to read. *eg*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

At least both of those spare someone the necessity of remembering who they're supposed to return it to!

[ecaterin.livejournal.com]

I swear I've been tempted to walk over to parents in public situations and drop a business card on their heads :P (I teach positive discipline :P)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

People seem to expect both too much and too little of their kids. Like, they act like the amount of television a six-year-old watches is this immutable fact of nature that the parents have no control over, and yet they expect the same six-year-old to sit for four hours in a laundromat with nothing to entertain him but a copy of Ladies Home Journal.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

On #1: yes, yes, yes. The pharmacy where I get my drugs is staffed with otherwise-nice people who cannot for the life of them follow the instructions written in GREAT BIG CAPITALS on a sign customers can see that tell them how fast they need to respond to waiting folks (fast) and what to say if they're otherwise occupied (roughly: "I'm otherwise occupied, but I'll be with you as soon as I can be"). Grr argh.

On #3: remind me to tell you some time about the wedding I sang at my last long-term church job wherein another singer's cellphone rang eleven times during the vows. If she hadn't been 65 and brittle, I'd have physically dragged her ass out of the nave and thrown her down the steps to the undercroft.

On #5: I think parents like this think we're the village it takes. Would that they troubled to discover how few people actually live in their neighborhood...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I think parents like this think we're the village it takes.

made me laugh out loud. And think of a bumpersticker I once saw that said, "It Takes A Child To Raze A Village."

[toyniffler.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit puzzled about peeve No 2, If I put a towel/jacket/purse on a chair in a public seating area this means I've only gone to fetch something/to the bathroom/to buy tea. It's a territory marker for "I'll be back in this chair in a few minutes,please don't sit on it" Isn't that the norm? If someone moved my stuff then I'd be a bit miffed admittedly.
I agree with all the others though, especially No. 5. I have friends who do this regularly and it drives me up the wall.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

At the pool and rink I mentioned, people will pile all their stuff on the benches and then go skate or swim for several hours! And then they'll come out, get their stuff off the chairs, and go home.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm with you, only that with (4), be glad you're living far away, cause that's me. Ok, me with very good friends and family (as in 'read this, now! *dumps book on struggly victim* 'cause I'm dying to have a conversation about it with you. What d'you mean, you're not done yet?'

I know it's annoying, but on the upside, if I hadn't done it with HP, I'd not now have an excellent plot/character beta ;).

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

The only person I tolerate this from is the spouse, and that's because he genuinely does say, "Look, I know you have other things to read, but I need somebody who can talk to me about this."

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Grrr. I was just working up a head of steam over the book-lending thing the other day. Sometimes I don't mind having books pressed upon me; in between obsessions, I'm always willing to try something new-n-different. It really depends on the method of the lender, though. My father just mails me stuff he's read that he thinks I like, and his interest in the book ends when I call him and tell him it got here safely. My mom, on the other hand, makes kind of a hairy deal of loaning me two (always two! rubber-banded shut and presented in a jaunty bag!) books and then pestering me until I read them. And always, ALWAYS, I choose the one she's LESS anxious for me to read to tackle first.

Regarding the little-kid-asking-the-same-question-over-and-over issue, I like to count how many times the kid repeats the same exact phrase before his mother/father finally acknowledges him. My best record is 17 repetitions, and the mom wasn't even talking on her cell phone at the time.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I could live with your dad's way of doing things, but your mom's way reminds me of that old joke where the mother gives her grown son two neckties, and he goes into the bedroom and comes out wearing one of them, and she says sorrowfully, "So you didn't like the blue one?"

One of the cooks at my coffee shop has the most awful, whiny son you can imagine, and I totally believe it's because when he was little and tried to talk to her, she wouldn't pay attention to him unless he whined or cried. And, I mean, I have no problem with a parent saying to a child, "I can't talk to you now" or "Don't interrupt" or whatever, but you can't just pretend you don't hear them.

(Also she would bring this kid to the coffee shop when he was three or four and sit him at the bar with a glass of milk and a cookie and nothing else and then think she was going to get a normal shift's worth of work done!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

In re: the last letter, this is only really a problem in cafes that aren't attached to bookstores, as parents sitting in bookstore cafes tend to abandon their kids in the children's department after saying to the underpaid, unknown-to-them staffer on duty there, "could you look after him, please? We'll be in the cafe if you need us."

>:O

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear!

I once saw a coffee shop with a sign that said, "All unattended children will be given four shots of espresso and a puppy."

[cjedwards.livejournal.com]

You're far more patient than I re:(1). 90 seconds? I'm annoyed after about 20 :). Also, the children thing- when I see these two parents with the one kid whom they cannot control I just want to smack them. My mother frequently took six girls out to restaurants, and woe betide any one of us who was irritating- that being said, we always had the crayons/books/toys to keep us occupied. Definitely one of my pet peeves.

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

You're far more patient than I re:(1). 90 seconds? I'm annoyed after about 20

I was going to say the same, except I start to growl and make "acknowledge my presence" noises after 15. If someone ignored me for a minute and a half I'd be asking to see the manager (who might not care either, I suppose!).

[kalimyre.livejournal.com]

For #1: I work in customer service. And no, they really don't care. Perhaps 10% of customers are whiny, stupid, and filled with undeserved entitlement. They ruin it for the rest of you because they make the service people hate you all. I'm sorry but it's true. Which is not to say ignoring you is okay, but I must admit I understand it from the service person's view.

[coreopsis.livejournal.com]

This is unfortunately true in most cases. I haven't been at my job long enough to have my soul completely destroyed yet, so I still treat customers as I like to be treated when I'm on their side of the counter. But some days it is really a challenge.

Ignoring them is never acceptable, of course.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Re parenting... I just spent four days in an environment that is unusually gentle to kids under 12, and the difference from, say, average at-the-mall behavior was kind of amazing, and terrifying. It was an SF con that is largely run by parents. There are activities for kids that were fun enough that some grownups and teens also attended some of them. Except for a few activities (private parties and a few "the discussion topic is sexual, for legal reasons we don't want people under 18 in the room" panels), kids were welcomed anywhere the grownups went -- not just tolerated, but welcomed as attendees and volunteers and artists and gamers and costumers. The parenting I saw was also notably gentler than average. Maybe I was just in the right places at the right times, but it was a lovely place to be.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow! That sounds great. There's a big difference between a place where the planners have said, "OK, there are going to be kids; how can they participate?" and a place where the planners have said, "Well, if any kids show up, that'll be the parents' problem."

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

WORD

[frog4.livejournal.com]

Oh, worlds of YES on #2, and that goes double for people on public transportation: No, really, your precious purse/bag/briefcase/entire set of luggage* does not have more of a right to take up that seat than I do. And yes, I realize I am quite broad in the beam, but hey! maybe my ass wouldn't be hanging so far out in the aisle if you didn't have your bag wedged between yourself and the window, taking up a good six inches of seat space.

No, seriously, I saw a woman on the train the other day with no less than four (4!) bags of varying sizes and functions, and from the set-up, it was very clear that this was what she took to work with her on a daily basis.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I hate that. Worse yet is when it's not a bag but just a man with that sprawling posture like he feels he needs one seat for him and another for his testicles.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

I particularly like #4 because I've been feeling horribly guilty for the last - oh, 3 years now? - for not returning a book that someone on my dissertation committee lent to me. For the first year I even kept trying to give it back under the proviso that I wouldn't have time to read it, but after that I just kind of gave up and resigned myself to returning it in maybe 5 more years. But now I no longer have to feel guilty - The problem wasn't me, its her - I prefer that on the whole.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

See, that's the other thing: in my experience, when people try to lend you a book, most of them won't take no for an answer.

Unless maybe you were just rude to them -- I mean, they'll ignore you if you say, "I won't have time to read it" or "I'm afraid I'll forget to give it back" -- wonder if it would work to say, "This doesn't interest me"?

One of my experiences with involuntary book-borrowing was The Bridges of Madison County. Which brings up a part of the whole experience that I forgot to mention: the part where you give the book back and the lender says eagerly, "So how did you like it?"

[jack-pride.livejournal.com]

I *love* you for that last one. It should be posted in every cafe, everywhere. WORD.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's amazing the number of parents I want to spank on a daily basis.

[retrofit88.livejournal.com]

re #1 - in the library, even when there is someone sitting in front of me that I'm doing in-depth reference with, if there are people who are having to stand in line for more than a few minutes (1-2ish), I triage (first excusing myself to the person with the in-depth question): "Do you have a quick question?" And since 60% of them want to know where the bathroom is, that does a _lot_ to keep people happy.

There definitely do exist the obnoxious (and/or, in a library, demented or extremely smelly) patrons, who are very difficult to work with, and librarians often get paid little more than Barnes&Noble staffers. But somehow, a professional calling makes it feel different.

Come to think of it, maybe the fact that they're not _paying_ for the services makes the other 85% of the patrons enough more openly grateful that we get quantitatively greater amounts of positive feedback than retail workers for similar volumes of customers. That might actually be a _big_ part of it feeling better...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

demented or extremely smelly

bwah!

The other reason you get better patrons may be that for some reason people will frequent a bookstore even if they don't care anything about books. I don't think the library gets as many of those people.

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

OMG, 4 and especially 5, you read my MIND.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Evidently annoyance knows no boundaries.

[pushdragon.livejournal.com]

If you keep the book indefinitely and do not read it, I find that at least that person will never force another loan upon you. And word to the others too!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee! I may have to try that.

[tevere.livejournal.com]

Ack, I go out of my way to avoid lending people books, let alone pressing them upon unwilling and/or (possibly) unappreciative people. My issues with book-lending are legion. For a start, book lent = book lost. I'm attached to my books. Secondly, if I lend/give/recommend one of my favourite, most cherished books to someone, I irrationally feel deeply upset (and possibly offended, on the book's behalf) if the other person doesn't like it. Yeah, I know: I shouldn't, but I do.

The whole "no lending" rule is becoming difficult here, though, where I have one of the largest English book collections in town (if not the largest, which is a bit sad), and there's somewhat of a moral obligation help out people desperate for new reading material. Sigh.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Well, maybe it's less personal that way? "May I please borrow this book, and possibly some deodorant and a can of fruit?"

[bruinsfan.livejournal.com]

When I arrive at the front of the line, you've got about ninety seconds to acknowledge my existence.

I am so with you on this. I'm a reasonable person, I can understand when people are busy and need me to wait a bit before they can see to me as a customer. What I can't understand is going out of their way to avoid eye contact and pretend they don't see me waiting. "Be right with you" takes about two seconds to say and yet would earn several minutes of patience from me.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!

There used to be a restaurant in town that was entirely staffed by the very young and painfully hip, and the spouse and I (neither young nor hip) went there once and were seated and ignored for nearly an hour before we ran out of conversation and gave up. The spouse writes for the newspaper, so the owner knew him, and afterwards sent him a note of apology and a coupon -- but we kind of looked at it and went, "So we're going to take this and go back and get ignored again?"

[elsie.livejournal.com]

I'm so with you on that last one. Once when I was on a plane, sleep-deprived and headachey, there was a woman in the row in front of me with a toddler. The little boy kept standing up in his seat and looking over the back of it, and he was yelling. Into my face. While I was already miserable and just trying to sleep.

So I said something to the mom along the lines of, "Excuse me? I'm sorry, I know it's hard to keep a child quiet on a plane, but would you mind just keeping him down in his seat so his voice isn't directed straight at me?"

And the woman just flipped out, saying she couldn't make him stop talking, that's just what kids do on planes, and I tried to explain that no, I wasn't asking her to make him stop talking. But then the two or three women around her ganged up on me too (they didn't even know her! They were all just bonding over the cuteness of their loud toddlers!) until I actually cried (silently, mind you) from exhaustion and shut my mouth and gave up on sleeping.

For a woman who really really dislikes children, I think I was pretty nice about it. If I hadn't been overemotional I'd have sicced some flight attendants on those bitches ...

[flintthebeggar.livejournal.com]

Not only is this true in every which way.. but it also made me giggle
Ellen Degeneres does a stand up called .. um... Here and now.. i think and she has a bit about cell phones that is hysterical and very accurate.. well done.