It takes $0 to be a good person. With little effort it is possible for anyone to be a decent human being.
I cannot stand when I go to a store or restaurant and the person being paid to help me is rude. I understand that they could be having a bad day, but is that at all my fault?
I thought that people in the service industry were required to be nice to the people they’re serving. Do they realize that they work for tips?
The other day my friend had ordered a sub from Jimmy John’s and was blown away by how rude the girl who was working was. It was as though she was being inconvenienced by having to do her job.
It’s your fault that you applied for a job that you dislike, and that you had to go to work on a Sunday morning, hung over from last night.
It has become a very normal thing in our society to just be rude. Rudeness is glorified in our society. It is common to see discussions about how someone “totally ripped them a new one” or “threw such good shade.”
Being a good person has been brushed off to the side. There are still some people who always do their best efforts to show respect to every person they encounter. But, sadly, their efforts are often unnoticed because someone else’s rudeness stole the spotlight.
Why is it that rudeness is so paramount in society?
I cannot understand why our society has determined that we are all supposed to be nice, unless we are going to be funny about being rude. Many comedians have made wonderfully lucrative careers off of bashing people, and their fans encourage it.
Being rude is entertainment for us. Our favorite people on reality TV are always the ones with the most sass and the worst things to say about the other people on the show.
There are other ways to be funny without having to demean other people. But saying something rude about a person is cheap humor that is almost on the same level of bathroom humor, only bathroom humor doesn’t hurt anyone.
I have learned from many different people who have been in the professional world for years that being nice is a very important asset in finding a career. Networking is key and if you are rude to people that will get around the corporate world and will end up hurting you in the long run.
Today it seems to be more ingrained in people’s minds that we should be nice, but at the same time those who are rude get praised for standing up for themselves.
In a society that is trying to embrace self-love and banish bullying, isn’t it contradictory to glorify rude behavior and bad attitudes?

SARAH BARTKOWIAK
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