A button for rude people

On January 8 2008 · 5 Comments · In Cambodia, Diary

I have spent quite some time thinking of a suitable instant punishment to mete out to rude people. Years, literally. And I was reminded of the need for this this evening when, sat talking with friends, a self-satisfied looking tosser shouted “OI!” at one of the bar girls to get her attention. It’s not just him. People in this town treat the locals disrespectfully all the time, maybe thinking that the ubiquitous Khmer smile is attached to skin like a rhino, or not giving a monkeys in the first place. I’m thinking mainly of tourists here – local expatriates mostly seem to understand that to get along in a small community, they need to play nice, whereas busloads of Korean tourists sometimes have all the manners of a herd of stampeding buffalo in bad trousers.

People are rude everywhere all the time, so I’m thinking of a one-size-fits-all punishment. It’ll do for the smug tosser, it’ll do for idiots on late night trains, it’ll do for taxi drivers who can’t be bothered to take you South of the river, it’ll do for bouncers who look at you like something they just scraped off their shoe, up-themselves celebrities, people who don’t say please, people who don’t hold the door open for you, people who belittle others through word or deed, people who think the whole bus wants to hear them play drum and bass out of their mobile at top volume, people who don’t understand how to queue, and many many others.

Some unfortunate dogs have had collars attached to them that gave them an unpleasant electric shock when they barked – I’m thinking of something similar. I’d like to deliver a quick, painful electric jolt to rude people just when they commit the act. The shock, surprise, and a momentary loosening of their sphincter muscles would all serve to condition them out of their rudeness and maybe encourage them to employ some basic civility next time. Pavlovian conditioning works on humans just as well as dogs.

By far, most of the people I know would never get the jolt. My friends are pleasant people who know how to say please and thank-you. For all the others, I’m already imagining a red button in my pocket that I can squeeze at free will, to give all of the unpleasant cretins I encounter a reminder to just… be… nicer.


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  • http://theanswers42.blogspot.com/ Margaret

    I’ve worked in bars where I perfected some great put-downs, but I didn’t care enough about the jobs to worry about the sack. I’ve deliberately poured a pint over one particularly obnoxious tosser. It was very satisfying. People applauded.

  • Iain

    I think that working in any sort of customer facing role turns you into a better customer, if onlty because you know how badly most people get treated from time to time.

    As it happens there is a an off switch located on the head of the sorts of gits that you mention. It can only be dpressed by hitting it repeatedly with a blunt object though, so you electro-shock aversion therapy is probably a better plan. Abduction of idiots and surgical implantation of the device seems the like the best approach.

  • dough

    hello – devil’s advocate here. What your English western ass thinks is rude may not be so in many different cultures. As with many things “cultural” it’s tough to talk about without getting daubed with the racist brush, but let me say this. London is one of the most multicultural cities in the world and perceived as horribly rude by many country folk, northerners and Canadians. Yet Americans always come over and comment on how polite we are? Further, if you go to Peckham, the Nigerians stand out as the most obnoxious of all the many immigrant groups, to us anglo saxons anyway. And yet, I’m sure to the fellow Nigerian, talking super loud and not looking at the person you talk to is normal. In fact that’s another thing. We perceive not looking at the person we’re talking to as rude but in some culture’s it’s the other way round.

  • http://www.spikydog.com/ Nathan

    @devil’s advocate – what my ‘English western ass’ (when did you turn into a rapper?) thinks is rude is not all that out of kilter with most other people with a basic grasp of common sense and manners, and cultural differences if understood can be allowed for, should be, and are by most people with a soggy grey lump at the top of their brain stem.

    Sod racism, there might be things I find offensive or difficult to understand about other cultures or nationalities, but that is not the same as being rude. Rudeness implies a deliberate, unthinking, disrespectful act, gesture or word.

    As for London, yes, people are anything from abrupt to rude all the time, but this is a highly subjective thing, and I’m sure it is down to each individual to draw their own personal line in the sand as to what they think is acceptable behaviour in another.

    People who are empirically, undeniably, emphatically rude:

    * The self-satisfied tosser who shouted ‘OI!’ for attention the other night in the bar. He damn well knew better.
    * The tourists, too numerous to mention, who routinely jump queues in the bakery in town. Queue jumping, as I understand it, is a fairly common occupation for various nationalities – well, cultural differences aside, it is WRONG and it is RUDE.
    * The eight or so wanker banker wide-boys in sharp suits in the American Bar of the Savoy who greeted my entrance with Prue and Anna with lots of ‘Wha-hey!’ and ‘Woor’ and ‘Awight daalin’. Just because you’re earning too much money for your own pea-sized brain to process and you’re drinking eight-pound cocktails does not mean that women want to jump on your face.

    I could go on. And on. And on. The point is, it’s my button and I’ll squeeze it when I want to.

  • dough

    calling me a rapper…how rude….lol