Courtesy??

Courtesy...a thing of the past. Or, am I really getting older?
Too many incidents in the past few days to really ignore. Where do I start? In my office, where else.? You would expect that on a relative basis, educated folks would have better courtesy. I was sadly disappointed. At lunch, on a table that can seat 4, a fifth guy elbows his way between me and the guy on my left and plonks his plate on the table. There is no space for his chair, so he sits slightly behind me and pokes at his food bravely. I have some problems with this:

1. Why should he choose to sit there when there is obviously no space at the table.
2. If he decides to sit, isn't it basic courtesy (or am I asking for too much) to request me to move slightly... a polite "excuse me" would have sufficed.

Our hero's actions had the effect of me quickly downing my food and getting out of the damn place.

Second incident this morning: Girl at water cooler with 2 glasses. Fills up her glass. Expect her to move away. No chance. She stands at the cooler clutching at the nozzle while she drinks. All the while, yours truly is standing behind her, silently fuming.

Definitely a thing of the past, that uncommon trait called courtesy.

Loans...loans

Will the obsession with loans ever go away?
I just thought I'd finished up activities leading up to my education loan.
Now, a new worry - When I take time off from work, will my bank try to call in my home loan, since I will not be employed for a year?
This basically doesn't make sense, since I have enough cash to meet the monthly EMIs.
But since when have banks known to be sensible??
So, another loan to think about and screw my happiness?
Will I ever be free from loans?

Customer service

Why is customer service commonly uncommon?
We see this in numerous instances in our daily life, especially in India.

One example of this happened yesterday when I visited our cafeteria yesterday with a colleague.
One of the stalls, let's say Stall A, sells slightly overpriced food items, albeit tasty ones. There were 3 people to take care of the stall, but not one of them was actually behind the counter. This had the potential effect of customers walking to one of the other 3 stalls. As I was watching the 3 stall care-takers, a bunch of customers paused in front of the stall to study the menu on display. One of the 3 care-takers sauntered up and kept looking at the customers for a full minute without once engaging them in conversation. The customers decided to move on, having found nothing to their liking. The care-taker simply sauntered back to talk to his colleagues. The stall owner would have fumed to see such slackness.

How do we overcome this basic apathy in service workers?What should have been a sure-fire sale yesterday, turned to a no-sale. Further, the attitude of the care-taker ensured little possibility of repeat business from that bunch of customers.

Sad.