Welcome to this brand new and fresh series, where I'll be posting true, real-life stories where rude, selfish, arrogant, oblivious and mean people get what they probably got coming to them for a long time.
I call it quality control.
Today's encounter: Young woman on the subway
I was on subway on my way home from work, as usual. I took a seat vis-à-vis a woman and her friend (they must've both been in their early twenties).
She had her feet on the seat next to me as I sat down. And it was rainy and dirty outside..
I demonstratively looked down at her shoes for about 5 seconds, then I looked at her face for about 5 seconds, and finally another 5 seconds at her shoes. She did not react to this at all.
I waited another 5 seconds before I took a deep breath, looked her in the eyes and said slowly and explicitly something like;
That's a pretty mean thing to do.. You really shouldn't put your wet shoes in the seat.
She was pretty embarrassed and immediately removed her feet from the seat. She even apoligized.
Quality control complete
Background
I consider myself a good person. I try to spread love and good vibes as much as I can, and I try not to push my occasional bad mood onto others. I also strive to give people (anyone) praise (specific and accurate, not generic) whereever it is due.
I've actually specifically practiced giving feedback for years, and I've gotten pretty good at it with time. I'm now at a point where it's become an immediate reflex for me to give feedback on people's behaviour, be it good, not so good or just plain bad. And almost all of the things I give feedback on is good! Often great even. I think there's way too much negativity in this world for us to only address the negative. But this doesn't in any way mean that I think the negative shouldn't be addressed at all. Not by a longshot.
Some people are just so self absorbed, arrogant or just plain ignorant, that they go through their lives making everyone else feel bad. And most good people (at least where I live) shy away from confrontations with these types of people, and I understand them completely. Why would you want to deal with an obnoxious person?
But these people need to hear that their behavior is unacceptable, because if they don't, they will probably never change. I like to think that if just one person give them some direct feedback on their bullshit, there's at least a tiny chance they might change for the better.
I don't feel that I made a conscious choice to be this person, the quality controller. I honestly just keep finding myself in these situations again and again, and I thought since they seem to happen anyway, I might as well put them into writing. Maybe they can be some sort of inspiration to someone out there. And if not, I believe they're quite entertaining at least. That's what my friends say, anyways.
Call to action:
Go out there and give some feedback! Try to keep it positive and when it must be negative, make sure to be precise and descriptive and as polite as possible. Also try, to the best of your ability not to get angry, because consider this: If you get angry because someone is being stupid, you're actually allowing them to affect your mood (YOU!) in a negative way. Stupidity don't deserve that.
And if you end up with some nice quality control reports, feel free to post them under the tags 'qualitycontrol' and 'truthbetold' (optional). I'd be very interested to read them.