It feels like a lot of contemporary culture explicitly condones rude and selfish behavior. It's okay to cancel plans last minute because "muh social anxiety." It's Karen-ish to ask people to refrain from any anti-social behavior in public. A lot of people choose to cut off talking to their parents because they're supposedly narcissists or whatever. It seems like a trend. It's something I've been chewing on a lot lately.
Some of Josh's most delightful writing is driven by the fact that he seems to be almost completely drama-free in his own life, while many of those he excoriates (and almost all the NY Mag writers in today's piece deserve to be excoriated) are the complete opposite.
I always wonder whether he’s naturally that way, or whether he has succeeded in an effort to become that way (or cultivated an extremely convincing drama-free public persona).
When I saw the title, I assumed this would be a very silly and unrelatable list. I was vindicated when item number 1 was "You don't have to read everyone's book." As a normie non-NYC-journalist, I'm confident in saying most people don't know anyone who just published a book. Or an article. Or a song. Most people have normal jobs that do not result in publicly available outputs if any sort, and I'm confident that no one I interact with on a daily basis is even slightly concerned about falling behind on their friends' published works.
Putting this as item number 1 was a harbinger of how tiresome the whole list was.
I want to join the chorus requesting an etiquette column or podcast from you, Josh! I agree completely that the purpose of etiquette is to make other people, not ourselves, feel more comfortable.
For that reason, I did want to push back on one thing. You disagreed with the NYMag’s rule that we shouldn’t ask about people’s jobs because it’s “classist.” I agree with you that the “classist” accusation is a bit much, but I do think there are better ways to start off a conversation. In Europe, where I live, it is considered rude to ask about a person’s job when you first meet them, and I wish that was the norm in the US too.
I have been a SAHM and housewife for almost 23 years, and when new people ask me what I do and I tell them, more often than not their eyes glaze over and they look for a more interesting person to talk with, or--possibly worse--they rush to tell me, “That’s ok too!” (Note: I never said I thought being a housewife wasn’t ok.) My point is that unless you have an interesting and/or impressive job, the “What do you do?” question can close off conversation and lead people to make assumptions about each other.
I have a friend who, when meeting a new person, always asks, “What are you reading that is interesting?” Because I live in an international community, a lot of people I know start conversations by asking, “What’s something about where you’re from that most people might not know?” These questions open up more possibilities, and without the implied judgment of “What do you do?” in my opinion.
It’s funny because sometimes the extremely neurotic people are right for the wrong reasons. I’m half Cuban and a lot of times I’ve been told it’s too bad I didn’t learn Spanish as a kid, which didn’t happen because only one parent spoke the language and my mom had better things to do with her time than teach me a 2nd language. People probably consider this a microaggression, but honestly it’s well-meaning, mildly annoying and maybe unintentionally rude like many other interactions in life. Neurotic people are right that it’s probably good etiquette not to ask this type of question for the reasons above (just like it’s good etiquette not to ask someone where they’re from the moment you meet them just because they have an accent or whatever, as opposed to asking more interesting questions and letting the conversation flow naturally). But it’s also bad etiquette to act like someone has committed a violent crime against you if it they are mildly and unintentionally rude, because everyone does this sometimes.
That's interesting food for thought. For what it's worth, I think what I do is the most interesting thing about me, and "what's something about where you're from" (as you suggest) irritates me as though there's a deterministic matter about one's location and upbringing. Where I'm from can piss up a rope; I'd much rather talk about my work, about which I'm excited and passionate.
After moving to NM from CA I've learned the "what do you do for a living" question may be a regional or local culture thing. In southern CA, that was practically the very first question from any person you met for the first time, in any context. Here in New Mexico, I almost never get asked that. Some friends of ours moved here (also from CA) about a year ago and they immediately noticed it too. It's not that people aren't interested in you, it's just that they don't think that's the most interesting or important thing about you. It's awesome.
Its funny, I find people are more likely to ask you where you work and opposed to what you're job is. Now this is the CT suburbs of NYC, so much of this is just finding out whether you commute to the city, or some other smaller city (Stamford or White Plains) or if you WFH, and then commiserating about the commute (or the lack thereof). And work travel in general. But I find most men I'm friendly with don't talk about work when socializing and you will likely learn about their job over time as it comes out in conversation. Compare that to my wife, who immediately asks about a person's job and seems to have all the details about what is going on at her friends' jobs at any given time.
Seriously (pun intended), why do so many people have an issue with the word "partner"? @Josh I'm going to call you out since you just tweeted about it yesterday. There are many reasons a person of any sexual orientation might be in a long-term, non-married relationship, and I'm not talking about "performative reasons" like "resisting the patriarchy". Serious mental illness, large amounts of debt, etc. I hope you don't have to deal with these, but many of us do. These things don't mean you don't deeply and sincerely love someone. As someone past my early thirties, terms like "boyfriend/girlfriend" seem childish and don't capture the significance of the relationshp. "Significant other" is clunky and doesn't flow in conversation. If "partner" doesn't do it for you, can you suggest an alternative? Is your true criticism that you just think everyone should get married?
"Partner" is clinical and makes it sound like you're a virgin. "Boyfriend" is a term of art, it doesn't mean you're a teenager, and declaring yourself too good for it makes you sound pretentious.
lol. i do appreciate the response, but I guess this is an "agree to disagree" situation. I don't find the word "clinical", and I'm not even sure what you mean by that. I think I (and I would guess other people also) identify the word because it encompasses the shared experience with the other person.
I also don't think that I "declared myself too good for it". I would characterize my feeling as "feeling like it no longer accurately describes the relationship." Keep on keepin' on though, I do appreciate most of your hot-takes, this was just a pet-peeve of mine the last few times so I had to pipe up.
i think what is the most baffling about this is that this is not even a case where anybody is asking anybody *else* to modify their language, as is the case with many other examples of recent language-modification ("latinx", "houseless", etc). It is 100% a self-used word choice.
And it's not *about* anyone else, either - it's just about you and the other person who is, presumably, ok with whatever language you're using. Baffling indeed.
There's a real gap in the language here. I think people should get married and that partner sounds silly, but the partner people are right that "boyfriend" makes it sound like you are in high school.
“Boyfriend” and even “dating” are weirdly prudish expressions that evoke high school in the 1950s. Donald Trump proved this with his tweet about how he had “dated (screwed) models”. The fact that we haven’t come up with alternatives that aren’t weird (“lover” - you are having an affair w/ Mr. Darcy; “partner” - you are orthodontists in business together) reflects badly on us
I use "partner" partially because my SO's gender is not your business (if it were, I'd use their name) but also because leaving open the possibility that I'm gay and not the exact boring person I seem to be is all upside.
Totally agree. I was a law firm partner for 25 years, and believe me a romantic relationship is not a partnership, and people who use the term are being pretentious and cringe-worthy. It also seems to be a generational thing.
ah, the internet. don't ever change. Where someone can unironically begin a sentence with "I was a law firm partner for 25 years", and finish it with a blanket statement calling somebody's word choice pretentious.
hmm I guess I would feel like I was deceiving someone with the word "spouse", since at least in my experience, people would assume we were married. The way I (and the people I know) use "partner", we're not intentionally trying to be vague at all, and its pretty much just synonymous with "long term boyfriend/girlfriend", without having to use so many words. I think i'm mainly just slightly boggled why the term "partner" is triggering/annoying to people. Maybe in other regions/circles its used in more annoying ways.
I'll add that in 5 minutes of exhaustive googling, it seems that the terms "boyfriend/girlfriend" are only about 100 years old anyway, so its not surprising we'd be evolving our language with how much relationship norms have changed in the past 30-40 years.
I honestly think this etiquette list should be seen for what it is; New York Magazine's attempt to ape Buzzfeed's style while seeming more highbrow. I'm honestly not sure this list was supposed to be taken seriously other than to get the engagement you were giving it.
I mean some of these I think are designed to make you eye roll a little. "Here’s a good way to handle yourself when being introduced to a famous person." Like how often is this a normal occurrence even for people who live in and around New York City? This one was almost designed to be a Fox News segment and for once I might actually agree with the Fox News host.
I will say, I have genuine questions regarding the tipping etiquette. Tip 20% to baristas and tip 10% for take-out? Wow is this really a thing? I leave dollars in the tip jar at the local coffee shop, but I've given like 5% before on take out. And honestly I thought I was being generous figuring most people didn't tip at all for take-out. I mean isn't that the point of take-out? To save money on tipping? If I'm supposed to tip 10% then might as well just do delivery.
It is classist to ask people what their job is but OK to ask what their rent is?? (Also it is tacky to say straight women should own lube, that's up to them!)
(edit - or a gay woman, women in general are free to opt out of activities that require lube and unless I'm seriously misinformed they mostly do)
I definitely prefer background music in stores and coffee shops to be music without words - I always pay too much attention to the words. And I like for it to be jazz because I like jazz. I don't think I'd call any of this etiquette, however.
It's nice to know there's at least one other person out there who can't tune out "background" music with lyrics. It makes it really hard for me to work in coffee shops. I'm not really a jazz person at all, but I find even some of the more chaotic and aggressive jazz of the late '60s/early '70s to be surprisingly conducive to getting certain kinds of work done.
I think I liked "assume everyone is grieving" because it is a simpler way of saying that you never really know what garbage someone is personally dealing with that day, so it is better to default to being kind.
I can see where you're coming from. I think the other thing that I liked about "assume everyone is grieving" is that it nudges you to give everyone a little grace. Maybe the person who was gruff to you at the coffee shop or was abrupt with you in a meeting is normally a lovely person who is just having an especially tough day. Better to assume that than assume they're simply a rude jerk (though of course there are plenty of those).
The issue for me is that there are a lot of things we do relative to people who we believe are grieving besides extend them grace, which I agree we should do for people in general. I thought it implied assuming a certain delicateness on people's part that often isn't there.
I’ve met people for whom “assume everyone is grieving” is helpful advice, because they are assholes and are incapable of extending grace unless they have a specific reason to do so. Given that this list is about etiquette for assholes, it’s probably good advice for its audience, but for people who actually care about others it’s pretty bad advice and just “extend grace” is more direct.
My longtime grocery store for some reason - how do the services assemble these, is there a simple tradeoff of cost and quality? - played a very limited few lesser "hits" of the 80s - well, except for the inclusion of MJ. Old people shuffled around squinting at labels while Melissa Etheridge hollered much too early in the AM, or Glenn Frey ("The heat is on!") or Robert Palmer ("Your heart sweats, your body shakes/Another kiss is what it takes"). Like, someone *curated* this - why? It seemed so dystopian. Occasionally interrupted by a nervous voice: "Good morning, Randall's shoppers. The folks in the bakery just took our fresh hot French Bread out of the oven. Come and get your fresh hot French bread at the bakery now. Okay." - COME THROUGH MY WINDOW!
Having moved, I now shop at a store so unchanged from when it was built in the 50s, it looks like where Alice would have shopped for the Bradys. To go with this theme, I guess, they generally play 50s/60s, not the cream of the crop (again, cost?) but kind of fun at least. I will text my husband, need anything from ****** HEB? He'll text back: What are they playing? "Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes". In summer, Connie Francis was on repeat: "V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N". If I am singing "Just Walk Away, Renee" all day, he knows I've been shopping.
OTOH I have a like/dislike relationship with the music at the upscale market, which is also kept super-cold so a double whammy of distraction. They do an "indie" rotation, combined with an occasional indie-inflected nod at "Texas!". No screaming, which is nice. She is an officer of love and he will obey her every time. I quickly memorized that one. But all those wan covers. I don't get it. Like, "Strange Invitation", only it's not Beck, just some other dude. Now it's a girl who probably usually sings about her old trailer park or her first tattoo, earnestly warbling "Landslide". There's no call for that.
My thing is - bag your groceries! - i.e. people who stand there placidly idle as the groceries pile up on the conveyor belt, waiting for the cashier to bag them after the ringing up is finished.
In my mind I'm saying: "Unbelievable" (for the hundredth time ;-)).
But then I too am neurotic enough to follow this up with an inner voice saying something like, maybe this person has worked hard all day, much harder than you can imagine. Maybe having someone else perform this service at the cost of others' time is like a treat for them.
You sound like a very kind person. :) I have been trying to think more like that - I frame it to myself as trying to assume the best of people.
As far as bagging groceries goes... I'm 100% with you. And every time I do it with a cashier who isn't already familiar with me, they thank me like it's a surprise, and I'm like "Well otherwise I would just be standing here doing nothing."
Just took a look at those "rules"...oof. It's basically catnip to right-wingers. I mean..."resisting the patriarchy" by not getting married? Who the hell cares?? The virtue signaling was overwhelming.
And that NY Mag article links to related story once again telling us how we're now supposed to tip for literally everything. I cannot STAND being told I'm obligated to tip when ordering food at a counter and picking it up there. My wife has actually had counter staff ask "You're not tipping us anything?" Uh, no. I'm ordering food here and picking it up here. Nobody's doing anything that would justify a tip, so I'm not paying one.
So I clicked on the link after reading Josh's delightful takedown. And.... actually, it seemed like the New York "list" was almost entirely tongue-in-cheek?
Like, generally speaking when the advice sounded like it was coming from a moron or a sociopath, I felt reasonably sure that that was indeed supposed to be the joke. And the frequency of those moments was much higher than I'd expect if the intent was for anybody to take seriously the list as a whole.
That's not to say I personally found it funny. Insofar as it's meant as gentle, laughing-with-not-at satire of the foibles of a certain class of people, it's a class I mostly don't interact with and, to the extent I do, mostly don't like. So I don't actually "get" what any of the humor in the piece was supposed to be about. But did at least seem to me that it was meant to be broadly comic, not an attempt at serious writing about etiquette in the vein of Miss Manners or Letitia Baldridge.
It feels like a lot of contemporary culture explicitly condones rude and selfish behavior. It's okay to cancel plans last minute because "muh social anxiety." It's Karen-ish to ask people to refrain from any anti-social behavior in public. A lot of people choose to cut off talking to their parents because they're supposedly narcissists or whatever. It seems like a trend. It's something I've been chewing on a lot lately.
We're due for your "Dear Josh" etiquette podcast.
Only if Sara actually writes it;)
> “The ways we socialize and date, commute and work are nearly unrecognizable from what they were three years ago,”
As the kids say,
lol
lmao
Signed,
Has Been In The Office Full Time Like Normal Since June--of 2020
Superlike (tm)!
Some of Josh's most delightful writing is driven by the fact that he seems to be almost completely drama-free in his own life, while many of those he excoriates (and almost all the NY Mag writers in today's piece deserve to be excoriated) are the complete opposite.
I always wonder whether he’s naturally that way, or whether he has succeeded in an effort to become that way (or cultivated an extremely convincing drama-free public persona).
When I saw the title, I assumed this would be a very silly and unrelatable list. I was vindicated when item number 1 was "You don't have to read everyone's book." As a normie non-NYC-journalist, I'm confident in saying most people don't know anyone who just published a book. Or an article. Or a song. Most people have normal jobs that do not result in publicly available outputs if any sort, and I'm confident that no one I interact with on a daily basis is even slightly concerned about falling behind on their friends' published works.
Putting this as item number 1 was a harbinger of how tiresome the whole list was.
I want to join the chorus requesting an etiquette column or podcast from you, Josh! I agree completely that the purpose of etiquette is to make other people, not ourselves, feel more comfortable.
For that reason, I did want to push back on one thing. You disagreed with the NYMag’s rule that we shouldn’t ask about people’s jobs because it’s “classist.” I agree with you that the “classist” accusation is a bit much, but I do think there are better ways to start off a conversation. In Europe, where I live, it is considered rude to ask about a person’s job when you first meet them, and I wish that was the norm in the US too.
I have been a SAHM and housewife for almost 23 years, and when new people ask me what I do and I tell them, more often than not their eyes glaze over and they look for a more interesting person to talk with, or--possibly worse--they rush to tell me, “That’s ok too!” (Note: I never said I thought being a housewife wasn’t ok.) My point is that unless you have an interesting and/or impressive job, the “What do you do?” question can close off conversation and lead people to make assumptions about each other.
I have a friend who, when meeting a new person, always asks, “What are you reading that is interesting?” Because I live in an international community, a lot of people I know start conversations by asking, “What’s something about where you’re from that most people might not know?” These questions open up more possibilities, and without the implied judgment of “What do you do?” in my opinion.
It’s funny because sometimes the extremely neurotic people are right for the wrong reasons. I’m half Cuban and a lot of times I’ve been told it’s too bad I didn’t learn Spanish as a kid, which didn’t happen because only one parent spoke the language and my mom had better things to do with her time than teach me a 2nd language. People probably consider this a microaggression, but honestly it’s well-meaning, mildly annoying and maybe unintentionally rude like many other interactions in life. Neurotic people are right that it’s probably good etiquette not to ask this type of question for the reasons above (just like it’s good etiquette not to ask someone where they’re from the moment you meet them just because they have an accent or whatever, as opposed to asking more interesting questions and letting the conversation flow naturally). But it’s also bad etiquette to act like someone has committed a violent crime against you if it they are mildly and unintentionally rude, because everyone does this sometimes.
That's interesting food for thought. For what it's worth, I think what I do is the most interesting thing about me, and "what's something about where you're from" (as you suggest) irritates me as though there's a deterministic matter about one's location and upbringing. Where I'm from can piss up a rope; I'd much rather talk about my work, about which I'm excited and passionate.
After moving to NM from CA I've learned the "what do you do for a living" question may be a regional or local culture thing. In southern CA, that was practically the very first question from any person you met for the first time, in any context. Here in New Mexico, I almost never get asked that. Some friends of ours moved here (also from CA) about a year ago and they immediately noticed it too. It's not that people aren't interested in you, it's just that they don't think that's the most interesting or important thing about you. It's awesome.
I noticed this moving from SF to Denver. People ask about your weekend much more readily that what you do for work.
Yes but it's Denver that's unusual, not SF. Denver is Kansas City with hot people -- there's nothing to do except exercise.
Are these Denver people "hot millennials"? Your perfectly-fine-looking (as opposed to geriatric) millennial reader in Kansas City would like to know.
Its funny, I find people are more likely to ask you where you work and opposed to what you're job is. Now this is the CT suburbs of NYC, so much of this is just finding out whether you commute to the city, or some other smaller city (Stamford or White Plains) or if you WFH, and then commiserating about the commute (or the lack thereof). And work travel in general. But I find most men I'm friendly with don't talk about work when socializing and you will likely learn about their job over time as it comes out in conversation. Compare that to my wife, who immediately asks about a person's job and seems to have all the details about what is going on at her friends' jobs at any given time.
“that’s how you end up writing an etiquette list for assholes.”
This sentence is a work of art.
Seriously (pun intended), why do so many people have an issue with the word "partner"? @Josh I'm going to call you out since you just tweeted about it yesterday. There are many reasons a person of any sexual orientation might be in a long-term, non-married relationship, and I'm not talking about "performative reasons" like "resisting the patriarchy". Serious mental illness, large amounts of debt, etc. I hope you don't have to deal with these, but many of us do. These things don't mean you don't deeply and sincerely love someone. As someone past my early thirties, terms like "boyfriend/girlfriend" seem childish and don't capture the significance of the relationshp. "Significant other" is clunky and doesn't flow in conversation. If "partner" doesn't do it for you, can you suggest an alternative? Is your true criticism that you just think everyone should get married?
"Partner" is clinical and makes it sound like you're a virgin. "Boyfriend" is a term of art, it doesn't mean you're a teenager, and declaring yourself too good for it makes you sound pretentious.
lol. i do appreciate the response, but I guess this is an "agree to disagree" situation. I don't find the word "clinical", and I'm not even sure what you mean by that. I think I (and I would guess other people also) identify the word because it encompasses the shared experience with the other person.
I also don't think that I "declared myself too good for it". I would characterize my feeling as "feeling like it no longer accurately describes the relationship." Keep on keepin' on though, I do appreciate most of your hot-takes, this was just a pet-peeve of mine the last few times so I had to pipe up.
i will also add that if "boyfriend" was a term of art, it wouldn't need such qualifiers as "live-in", "long-term", "summer", etc ;)
The idea that people should care about and judge how other people refer to their important relationships is just weird.
i think what is the most baffling about this is that this is not even a case where anybody is asking anybody *else* to modify their language, as is the case with many other examples of recent language-modification ("latinx", "houseless", etc). It is 100% a self-used word choice.
And it's not *about* anyone else, either - it's just about you and the other person who is, presumably, ok with whatever language you're using. Baffling indeed.
There's a real gap in the language here. I think people should get married and that partner sounds silly, but the partner people are right that "boyfriend" makes it sound like you are in high school.
“Boyfriend” and even “dating” are weirdly prudish expressions that evoke high school in the 1950s. Donald Trump proved this with his tweet about how he had “dated (screwed) models”. The fact that we haven’t come up with alternatives that aren’t weird (“lover” - you are having an affair w/ Mr. Darcy; “partner” - you are orthodontists in business together) reflects badly on us
I use "partner" partially because my SO's gender is not your business (if it were, I'd use their name) but also because leaving open the possibility that I'm gay and not the exact boring person I seem to be is all upside.
Honey there are plenty of boring ol' gay people - we're not all super-fab ;-)
Totally agree. I was a law firm partner for 25 years, and believe me a romantic relationship is not a partnership, and people who use the term are being pretentious and cringe-worthy. It also seems to be a generational thing.
ah, the internet. don't ever change. Where someone can unironically begin a sentence with "I was a law firm partner for 25 years", and finish it with a blanket statement calling somebody's word choice pretentious.
Wow that was harsh.
hmm I guess I would feel like I was deceiving someone with the word "spouse", since at least in my experience, people would assume we were married. The way I (and the people I know) use "partner", we're not intentionally trying to be vague at all, and its pretty much just synonymous with "long term boyfriend/girlfriend", without having to use so many words. I think i'm mainly just slightly boggled why the term "partner" is triggering/annoying to people. Maybe in other regions/circles its used in more annoying ways.
I'll add that in 5 minutes of exhaustive googling, it seems that the terms "boyfriend/girlfriend" are only about 100 years old anyway, so its not surprising we'd be evolving our language with how much relationship norms have changed in the past 30-40 years.
"Partner" is fine...if you're a cowboy.
The “if you’re ugly” one is straight out of an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia bit (S13E4 for IASIP noobs)
I honestly think this etiquette list should be seen for what it is; New York Magazine's attempt to ape Buzzfeed's style while seeming more highbrow. I'm honestly not sure this list was supposed to be taken seriously other than to get the engagement you were giving it.
I mean some of these I think are designed to make you eye roll a little. "Here’s a good way to handle yourself when being introduced to a famous person." Like how often is this a normal occurrence even for people who live in and around New York City? This one was almost designed to be a Fox News segment and for once I might actually agree with the Fox News host.
I will say, I have genuine questions regarding the tipping etiquette. Tip 20% to baristas and tip 10% for take-out? Wow is this really a thing? I leave dollars in the tip jar at the local coffee shop, but I've given like 5% before on take out. And honestly I thought I was being generous figuring most people didn't tip at all for take-out. I mean isn't that the point of take-out? To save money on tipping? If I'm supposed to tip 10% then might as well just do delivery.
It is classist to ask people what their job is but OK to ask what their rent is?? (Also it is tacky to say straight women should own lube, that's up to them!)
(edit - or a gay woman, women in general are free to opt out of activities that require lube and unless I'm seriously misinformed they mostly do)
It can be a somewhat rude question, you just have to play it by ear.
In addition to Lauren Santo Domingo's comments, also found Amy Sedaris' contribution to the article to be pretty good.
I thought Sedaris' was a mixed bag -- "assume everyone is grieving" and telling stores to turn off music because "old songs are triggering" are weird.
Old songs are triggering but somehow jazz is exempt — that underestimates jazz, in my opinion.
I definitely prefer background music in stores and coffee shops to be music without words - I always pay too much attention to the words. And I like for it to be jazz because I like jazz. I don't think I'd call any of this etiquette, however.
It's nice to know there's at least one other person out there who can't tune out "background" music with lyrics. It makes it really hard for me to work in coffee shops. I'm not really a jazz person at all, but I find even some of the more chaotic and aggressive jazz of the late '60s/early '70s to be surprisingly conducive to getting certain kinds of work done.
I think I liked "assume everyone is grieving" because it is a simpler way of saying that you never really know what garbage someone is personally dealing with that day, so it is better to default to being kind.
I like "default to being kind", but "assume everyone is grieving" doesn't neatly map onto the former concept for me.
In fairness, I didn't want to give the source article a pageview, so maybe that argument is made more clearly or explicitly in the original.
I can see where you're coming from. I think the other thing that I liked about "assume everyone is grieving" is that it nudges you to give everyone a little grace. Maybe the person who was gruff to you at the coffee shop or was abrupt with you in a meeting is normally a lovely person who is just having an especially tough day. Better to assume that than assume they're simply a rude jerk (though of course there are plenty of those).
The issue for me is that there are a lot of things we do relative to people who we believe are grieving besides extend them grace, which I agree we should do for people in general. I thought it implied assuming a certain delicateness on people's part that often isn't there.
I’ve met people for whom “assume everyone is grieving” is helpful advice, because they are assholes and are incapable of extending grace unless they have a specific reason to do so. Given that this list is about etiquette for assholes, it’s probably good advice for its audience, but for people who actually care about others it’s pretty bad advice and just “extend grace” is more direct.
TBH I saw it as kind of age-related. When you hit middle age, losses can start to pile up pretty quickly.
Triggering, no, but frequently maddening.
My longtime grocery store for some reason - how do the services assemble these, is there a simple tradeoff of cost and quality? - played a very limited few lesser "hits" of the 80s - well, except for the inclusion of MJ. Old people shuffled around squinting at labels while Melissa Etheridge hollered much too early in the AM, or Glenn Frey ("The heat is on!") or Robert Palmer ("Your heart sweats, your body shakes/Another kiss is what it takes"). Like, someone *curated* this - why? It seemed so dystopian. Occasionally interrupted by a nervous voice: "Good morning, Randall's shoppers. The folks in the bakery just took our fresh hot French Bread out of the oven. Come and get your fresh hot French bread at the bakery now. Okay." - COME THROUGH MY WINDOW!
Having moved, I now shop at a store so unchanged from when it was built in the 50s, it looks like where Alice would have shopped for the Bradys. To go with this theme, I guess, they generally play 50s/60s, not the cream of the crop (again, cost?) but kind of fun at least. I will text my husband, need anything from ****** HEB? He'll text back: What are they playing? "Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes". In summer, Connie Francis was on repeat: "V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N". If I am singing "Just Walk Away, Renee" all day, he knows I've been shopping.
OTOH I have a like/dislike relationship with the music at the upscale market, which is also kept super-cold so a double whammy of distraction. They do an "indie" rotation, combined with an occasional indie-inflected nod at "Texas!". No screaming, which is nice. She is an officer of love and he will obey her every time. I quickly memorized that one. But all those wan covers. I don't get it. Like, "Strange Invitation", only it's not Beck, just some other dude. Now it's a girl who probably usually sings about her old trailer park or her first tattoo, earnestly warbling "Landslide". There's no call for that.
I liked that she said we should all learn to mail a box properly. It’s considerate of the workers and other people in line.
My thing is - bag your groceries! - i.e. people who stand there placidly idle as the groceries pile up on the conveyor belt, waiting for the cashier to bag them after the ringing up is finished.
In my mind I'm saying: "Unbelievable" (for the hundredth time ;-)).
But then I too am neurotic enough to follow this up with an inner voice saying something like, maybe this person has worked hard all day, much harder than you can imagine. Maybe having someone else perform this service at the cost of others' time is like a treat for them.
You sound like a very kind person. :) I have been trying to think more like that - I frame it to myself as trying to assume the best of people.
As far as bagging groceries goes... I'm 100% with you. And every time I do it with a cashier who isn't already familiar with me, they thank me like it's a surprise, and I'm like "Well otherwise I would just be standing here doing nothing."
I've never met you, Josh. But I'm sure you have nice complimentable pants.
Just took a look at those "rules"...oof. It's basically catnip to right-wingers. I mean..."resisting the patriarchy" by not getting married? Who the hell cares?? The virtue signaling was overwhelming.
And that NY Mag article links to related story once again telling us how we're now supposed to tip for literally everything. I cannot STAND being told I'm obligated to tip when ordering food at a counter and picking it up there. My wife has actually had counter staff ask "You're not tipping us anything?" Uh, no. I'm ordering food here and picking it up here. Nobody's doing anything that would justify a tip, so I'm not paying one.
So I clicked on the link after reading Josh's delightful takedown. And.... actually, it seemed like the New York "list" was almost entirely tongue-in-cheek?
Like, generally speaking when the advice sounded like it was coming from a moron or a sociopath, I felt reasonably sure that that was indeed supposed to be the joke. And the frequency of those moments was much higher than I'd expect if the intent was for anybody to take seriously the list as a whole.
That's not to say I personally found it funny. Insofar as it's meant as gentle, laughing-with-not-at satire of the foibles of a certain class of people, it's a class I mostly don't interact with and, to the extent I do, mostly don't like. So I don't actually "get" what any of the humor in the piece was supposed to be about. But did at least seem to me that it was meant to be broadly comic, not an attempt at serious writing about etiquette in the vein of Miss Manners or Letitia Baldridge.