More on door etiquette
Posted on April 21st, 2012
I covered this once before. But yesterday at Powell’s, Pea held the door open for about a dozen people at the NW entrance. We were in a hurry to go to pick up Gman, but she’d been taught to hold the door open, and so she did.
One person said thank you.
One person out of twelve or more.
Unbelievable.
I realize that most of those people were busy staring at their smart phones and couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the sweetness of her gesture, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to kick them all in the shins, or secretly hoping Pea’s grasp on the door might slip and slam a few of them in the face.
So again, for the sake of the declining civility in our world, I ask you (and by “you,” I don’t mean anyone reading this, because I’m sure you already do) to say thank you when someone holds a door for you, even if that someone is 44 inches tall. It would make her day.
That is disgusting. She is a little girl. A CUTE little girl! And she’s holding open what is probably a very heavy door for someone her age. Civility shouldn’t be a lost skill, folks. I’m sorry for her.
It normally isn’t that bad. But most of the people were in their 20s, and, well, I want to say something snarky about people in their 20s, but that’s not fair, either. I think it was the phones. We were almost run down by a half dozen people staring at their phones, too.
*Especially* if someone is 44 inches tall!
I have a question about door etiquette. The larger classrooms on the lowest floor of my law school have a double set of doors (go through one set of doors, take two steps, go through another set of doors). We are always holding doors for each other and everyone says thank you on the first set (hands too full to be looking at phones). Do you say thank you on the second set of doors?
Not that this is a life-altering problem. Just curious what other people do. I would like a fun way of saying thank you the second time that acknowledges that it is sort of awkward to have a quick succession of “thank you, you’re welcome, thank you, you’re welcome.”
I was going to say the same thing as Kate, especially if she is 44 inches tall!
Re: second set of doors, I don’t say thank you again.
Ugh. How rude! We often insist that nate say thanks before we even move!
I, as a person in her 20s with a smartphone, am really starting to hate my age group for this. Shameful that whatever you are doing takes precedence over the basic human interactions. Whatever it is just isn’t that important that you’re ignoring a little girl holding the door open for you (without whom, I might add, you would have to wrench one of your hands away from your phone in order to open the door yourself…).