Respect Your Elders
A good friend – a middle aged man – recently took a job at a local Starbucks to bring in some extra cash. He’s twice the age of everyone else who works there, which doesn’t seem to bother him or them at all. But, when a young colleague – someone most would consider a “millennial” – tried to coach him on using the point of sale system, she got frustrated with his slowness and...
Upset? Angry? Try Respect.
Right before Christmas, we discovered we had been lied to by a sales rep at our cell phone store and, furious, we went back in January to return some unwanted merchandise we’d been told we “had to buy.” But the “lead” customer service rep who was processing our return – despite knowing we’d been lied to – acted as if we were the liars and refused to treat us with respect. And when we got even...
Respect For Opponents?
Respect can surprise us in interesting ways. How many of us would have the courage to deliberately lose an important race to an opponent who’d made a mistake? In December of 2012, in an extraordinary show of respectful sportsmanship, Ivan Fernandez Anay – a long-distance runner from the Basque region of Spain who was running in second place in an important race – deliberately...
When Does Public Disrespect Deserve A Response?
I’m disturbed by some publicly disrespectful behavior we observed in a department store recently. While checking out, we noticed a little girl – perhaps 2 years old – running around behind the checkout lines while her mother, her aunt and grandmother, paid the cashier. The child ran right behind a store Associate – a girl maybe 18 years old – who was assisting at...
Don’t Disrespect Me, You Multitasker
My good friend, who manages gift shops, was livid: “The next customer who comes in and tries to buy something while they’re talking on their cell phone, isn’t going to get served.” She says people do this to her all of the time and it drives her off the deep end, adding “It’s incredibly disrespectful to me and my staff.” Sure it is. The problem is a person who talks on their phone while...
Practicing “Regular Respect” Is Easy Until It Isn’t
If you’re like most people, you’ll hold a door open for a stranger when entering or leaving a public space like an office building, coffee shop or retailer. And, if you’re like most people, you’ll say “excuse me” when you bump into someone in public. And, you’ll say “bless you” when someone sneezes. These are all typical examples of what I call “Regular Respect.” Others call it “common...