What We Consider Polite
Before the long drive to move out to California from Michigan, I took my car into a dealership for an inspection. Turned out (big surprise!) that it needed a couple thousand dollars worth of repairs done to the engine, so I told them to fix what was needed and I went to the waiting room.
You've been there before: a small, cramped room with a row of chairs, a cheap television, and a carafe of terrible burnt coffee sitting in one corner, next to Styrofoam cups, fake sugar packets, and stirrers. It's the coffee setup they probably have in Hell.
The room was empty, so in the interest of focusing on my own thoughts, I went over and turned off the television that was covering national news. About five minutes later, someone else entered the room, walked over, and turned the TV back on. The person never asked me if I minded.
This has happened to me before. What's interesting is that if I were to enter a waiting room with a TV on, and people were sitting in the room, it would be impolite of me to turn the TV off without asking everyone. But I've never met anyone who thinks that the opposite situation, where someone comes into a room and turns on the TV, is impolite.
We don't even have a protocol for these situations, which is a good indicator of what we consider to be polite. What am I supposed to tell the person who turns the TV on? "Excuse me, but I wasn't watching that." (?)
P.S. If you work at a car dealership, you could almost certainly put better coffee in the waiting room. As a matter of fact, there's lot of things you could do to help people pass the time besides a stack of magazines, burnt coffee, and a TV blaring CNN. If everyone other car dealership jumped off a cliff (and in the US, a lot of them are, gradually, every day), would you do it too?
You've been there before: a small, cramped room with a row of chairs, a cheap television, and a carafe of terrible burnt coffee sitting in one corner, next to Styrofoam cups, fake sugar packets, and stirrers. It's the coffee setup they probably have in Hell.
The room was empty, so in the interest of focusing on my own thoughts, I went over and turned off the television that was covering national news. About five minutes later, someone else entered the room, walked over, and turned the TV back on. The person never asked me if I minded.
This has happened to me before. What's interesting is that if I were to enter a waiting room with a TV on, and people were sitting in the room, it would be impolite of me to turn the TV off without asking everyone. But I've never met anyone who thinks that the opposite situation, where someone comes into a room and turns on the TV, is impolite.
We don't even have a protocol for these situations, which is a good indicator of what we consider to be polite. What am I supposed to tell the person who turns the TV on? "Excuse me, but I wasn't watching that." (?)
P.S. If you work at a car dealership, you could almost certainly put better coffee in the waiting room. As a matter of fact, there's lot of things you could do to help people pass the time besides a stack of magazines, burnt coffee, and a TV blaring CNN. If everyone other car dealership jumped off a cliff (and in the US, a lot of them are, gradually, every day), would you do it too?