For the first time in quite a long while, I had to go to the bank this week to cash a check. As the drive-through has long since been closed, this meant actually going inside to do so. The young woman, certainly no more than 22 years old, was bright-eyed and smiling as I approached. Giving her the check, she asked for my driver’s license and debit card.
“Oh, I don’t have a debit card.” So she asked if she could send me a text with a confirmation code. “What number do you have on file?” Providing the last four digits, I replied, “That’s my home number. It’s a landline.” How about a text? Again, the question as to which number, with four different digits given. “That’s my husband’s cell number.” Well, then, an email. “Yes, I can access my email on my cell phone.” But, of course, I couldn’t, because Karl had me change my password because some service he subscribes to had located my email address on the dark web, which I changed on my computer but not on my cell phone.
Assuring me that this wasn’t a problem, she asked for the last four digits on the social security number on the account. “I can give you all of them.” The transaction completed, she gave me a big smile as she handed me my money.
“Have a great afternoon, Craig.” I replied, “You, too!” and left the bank feeling older than Methuselah’s grandfather. Not because I don’t have a debit card. Not because I have a landline and an AOL email address, both of which I’m sure I’ve had since before this young woman was born. But because she called me Craig.
No doubt she knew she was dealing with a relic from the past, but she did so without displaying any frustration about doing so with someone who was clearly grounded in the last third of the 20th century. Being such a person, her friendly use of my given name was a bit jarring, even more so than all that other business.
As I got in my car (older than she is as well), I found myself pleased overall with my interaction with a member of Gen Z. I said to myself, “She was brought up right.” Then just having that thought threw me back into one of my reveries which I tend to get lost in more and more these days. Is being brought up right, being considered well-bred, even a thing these days?
To be clear, I’m not talking about writing thank you notes or knowing how bread should be buttered. I mean demonstrating the basic politeness and good manners with which we all wish to be treated. One of the places where such demonstrations are too often not seen is in traffic.
The anonymity that comes with being locked inside one’s vehicle seems to give some folks the freedom to drive in such a way as to prove that they are lacking in good breeding. Try this as an experiment.
The next time you’re driving for fifteen minutes to get to a lunch date or doctor’s appointment, not in rush hour, just count the number of people who run red lights and stop signs, jump into traffic having failed to yield the right of way, and push through a four-way stop when it isn’t their turn. Add to that the ones on a narrow residential street who barrel through the limited space even when the car that’s limiting that available space is parked on their side. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll hit double digits before you reach your destination.
Rather than responding to these situations with frustration or anger, I’ve been trying to exercise something that provides a higher degree of serenity. Admittedly, I have not perfected this, but it does help. At the risk of sounding a bit snooty, I think of it as the “restfulness of good breeding,” an expression that caught my imagination when I read it in a book quite a while back. It has nothing to do with social background or anything like that. It’s more an understanding that those poor folks, rushing around trying to catch their tail, simply don’t have that restfulness, and giving up any of yours doesn’t help you or them. So why do it?
As I said, this is still a work in progress. My current assignment is not vocalizing in the privacy of my car when I’m on the receiving end of these vehicular transactions. If I can’t stop myself from doing so, at least changing “son of a bitch” to “boorish lout.” Sometimes we have to take baby steps.
Applying this to broader applications, such as social media, is a bit more challenging. As for the national political scene, something else is needed for those who daily exhibit their lack of good breeding. Bless their ill-bred hearts. They just weren’t brought up right.
