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by Colin Edmund Grant
Rudeness (also called impudence or effrontery) is the disrespect and
I recently returned from several weeks of travel, some of which was for business, and some of which was for pleasure. The business part of it was dismal stuff. Peter, one of my little brothers, passed away suddenly, and, since he was a bachelor, I spent a week putting his affairs in order in Phoenix where he had lived. Then I was in Boston for a week as my family gathered for services. Then my wife and I embarked on a long-planned two-week vacation, which included a visit to Disney World, a visit to my Mom (whom we had not seen in a whole five days at the time, owing to Peter's unexpected funeral), and a Disney cruise.
The people in Phoenix were excruciatingly and consistently kind, especially once they found out why I was there. The people in Boston, most of whom were family and friends, were also extremely nice, which is mildly shocking, since we are talking about (a) Bostonians, and (b) my family. The people at Walt Disney World are always so nice that it is disturbing. Some people are like that.
Digression... I am reminded of the time a company I was working for merged with a company in Minneapolis. Several of my colleagues were transferred to Minneapolis, and although I did not move there, business required that I visit Minneapolis for about one week per month for a year or two. Among the folks who moved to Minneapolis was a fellow named Barry, a bright, upbeat, pleasant and polite guy. Now that I think of it, I am not sure I had ever heard Barry do so much as utter a curse-word.
Whenever I was in Minneapolis, I always stopped by to chat with Barry whether or not I had a business reason to do so. One time, about three months after he and his family had moved to Minneapolis, I was in the MN office and Barry rushed up to me and said, "Tell me to f*ck off."
This was out of character for Barry, but I figured there was a punch line involved, and quickly replied, "F*ck off, Barry!"
He responded, "F*CK YOU!!" And he ran away.
Later, I caught up with him and asked what that had all been about. He explained, "These Minnesota people are so nice it's driving me crazy! No matter what you do, or what they do, no one ever just rips into anyone. And I still don't know anyone well enough to tear them a new one without reason -- they just won't understand. But I needed to tell someone to f*ck off, and I knew you'd understand."
He was right -- I understood. There is such a thing as "too nice."
Which brings us back to Disney World, where the people are so nice that one is tempted to conclude that strong and highly desirable narcotics are involved. And on the subsequent Disney cruise, they were even nicer, I think, although with all the different strong and sometimes undecipherable accents it is hard to be sure.
After such an extreme dose of courtesy, cordiality, and kindness, in Phoenix and Boston and Mount Dora and Orlando and Disney World and at sea and in the Bahamas, I am sure I was beginning to look like the way-too-happy guy in the Enztye commercials:
Reflecting upon these events, my thoughts turned to The Rudest Person in the World. To discuss The Rudest Person the World, we must first define our terms. A rude person is merely rude, or uncouth, or lacking in social graces. A rude person may also be vile and violent and sociopathic, but is not necessarily any of those things. Hitler may have been rude -- he was certainly much worse than rude -- but I do not know if he was personally rude. So when I talk about The Rudest Person in the World, I am not saying that this person is the worst person in the world, just the rudest. I can think of two general ways to be rude. Category One rudeness occurs when one ignores normal social conventions -- fails to thank a host, behaves boorishly at a dinner party, steals the spotlight from the bride at a wedding, or fails to respond to a request for an RSVP. There are countless Category One rudeness violations, some more rude than others. Category Two rudeness occurs when one acts in a manner that demonstrates a lack of consideration or thoughtfulness for those around him without breaking any Category One rule. For example, one has committed a Category Two violation if one rails on the hideousness of Poughkeepsie, NY, without bothering to learn that four people at the table hail from Poughkeepsie, NY. (And, by the way, I have nothing against Poughkeepsie, never having been there.) One has committed a Category Two violation if one makes broad statements such as "all college professors are morons" without thinking to consider that perhaps one is speaking to a college professor, or the son of a college professor. Such rudeness shows both a lack of social awareness -- e.g., one is unwise to complain about "the Jews" at a meeting of the B'nai B'rith -- and a lack of common sense -- e.g., ALL college professors are morons? Every one? The Rudest Person in the World was rude in every way. Looking back, she was so rude that I wonder if it was not intentional rudeness, although at the time it seemed like merely ignorant rudeness. Let us now recall my encounter with The Rudest Person in the World. It was the late 90's. My career was going very well at the time, for reasons I will never, ever understand. A tiny company that I had co-founded a couple of years earlier had been acquired by Siebel Systems (now part of Oracle Corporation, shudder), and we had had a bit part in helping Siebel grow to reach about $2 billion in sales. I was a Director at Siebel. Meanwhile, Fargus Industries (not its real name), another small start-up that I had helped to finance and had had a small hand in starting up, was also doing well. I had recently been elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fargus. This all sounds impressive, but means nothing. At Siebel, almost every employee was a Director, including part-time janitors. As for Fargus, there were about 20 employees and only two owners, and the other owner appointed me Chairman because he owned more of the business and thought that the gesture would appeal to my ego. It did. In fact, I am still Chairman, and have it on a business card and everything. When I need to, I whip out the card, and I don't need no stinking Viagra, if you get my drift.  So there I was, an apparently successful Viagra-free executive, and one day someone at Fargus screwed up and invited me to the Holiday Party.
Digression... Some people really hate the term "Holiday Party." They want to call it "Christmas Party." Hell, *I* would prefer to call it a "Christmas Party," because "Christmas Party" sounds like it means something. "Holiday Party" sounds vague and soulless, like "President's Day," which apparently honors George Washington, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Abraham Lincoln, Millard Fillmore, and Andrew Johnson all equally.
But I must admit, there is one good reason to call it a "Holiday Party": it is courteous to do so. We have lots of people who do not celebrate Christmas, and it seems more considerate to invite people to a celebration that includes their observances than one that excludes them. I have Jewish friends who invite Gentiles to their Passover Seder, and there, they celebrate Passover. And if I were to invite Jewish friends over for Christmas dinner, we'd celebrate Christmas. But when we have a corporate party around the 15th of December, it seems courteous to make such a party honor various seasonal holidays, such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Pus-Bucket Day (quite important to the Zoorgons) and so on.
For those of you believe that such thoughtfulness is nothing more than Political Correctness Run Amuck, I thoughtfully respond: You're a f*cking idiot. Political correctness is not some vast left-wing conspiracy, it is simply good manners, common courtesy. If people whose ancestors came from Africa wish to be called "African Americans" rather than "Blacks" or "Negroes," it is just common courtesy to call them African Americans. Same thing for "Persons of Color." I don't have any idea who "Persons of Color" includes -- Chinese? Inuits? Spaniards? -- but if you want me to refer to you as a Person of Color, I'll be happy to, although I will quietly resent the wordiness the phrase necessitates.
So remember: If you get annoyed when something strikes you as "politically correct," just recall that all it means is "courteous" or "courtesy." When someone says, "That's political correctness run amuck," they are really saying, "That is courtesy run amuck," and there is nothing wrong with a little extra courtesy.
So I went to the Fargus Industries Holiday Party, in the slightly odd position of being a sort-of co-host (as co-owner, I was co-paying for the party) while not really knowing who would be attending. It was at a nice restaurant, and I was surprised at how large a party it was. Almost all the employees were present, plus spouses and significant others, some vendors, and some clients, and it turned out that I knew almost no one at the party. My wife was not able to attend, so rather than hiding in a corner with her, I mingled. Some of the mingling was fun, as I ran across some interesting people, some good story-tellers, some recently released felons, and so on. Some of the mingling was boring, as some of the people were boring, and some of the people froze with terror when they found out who I was ("The Silent Partner! OH MY GOD!!"). Some of the mingling was pince (if you don't know about pince, see Bauction and search for pince), as some people kissed my butt with a clumsy and graceless obviousness that would make Uriah Heep blush. And then I ran into Suzette. Suzette was the wife of Tim Tilson, who was one of our engineers. (These are made-up names. Otherwise, the story is 100% true.) They may still be married, although I would not be surprised if they are divorced, or if one of them is in prison for murdering the other. Tim and Suzette were a real Mutt and Jeff couple, with Suzette playing the role of Mutt.  It's really unfair to compare her to Mutt, because she was actually tall and attractive; they were Mutt and Jeff only to the extent that Suzette-Mutt was tall and Tim-Jeff was short. Tim, in addition to being short, was round, hairy, and often noxious. I knew Tim only well enough to say Hi to, and, frankly, I avoided his office because of the fumes. He had evidently bathed for the Holiday Party, so I went over to chat. He introduced me to his wife and fled. Here, as precisely as I can recall, is a verbatim transcript of my conversation with Suzette, The Rudest Person in the World, with commentary.
At this point I realized that I was dealing with The Rudest Person in the World. There I was, genuinely curious to hear how she interpreted the actions of her advisors, sincerely professing interest in her academic struggles, and she informs me that my interest or choice of words was enough to make her vomit real chunks. Who would not want to marry such a sweet, compassionate, considerate, self-aware and thoughtful person?
I have no idea what was going on in Suzette's head that day. She did not seem drunk, she seemed reasonably intelligent and, to look at her, aware of the nature of social intercourse. But she was unable to control her anger at something, and criticized everybody and everything that came up in conversation. She remained blissfully unaware that she was talking to her husband's boss's boss's boss, not to mention her host. All that aside, why would she want to make anybody at such a gathering feel as awkward as she made me feel? My conclusion, then as now, is that she is a self-centered, somewhat sociopathic jerk. She just does not care about causing discomfort in others. This is the pinnacle of rudeness. In the movie Blast from the Past there is a line wherein the naive Brendan Fraser explains to the jaded Alicia Silverstone, "Manners are a way of showing other people we care about them." It's true. Likewise, rudeness is a way of showing other people that we don't.
I would never embarrass Suzette by revealing her real name, but she is The Rudest Person in the World. (2)
(1) Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rude
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