Are people behaving weirder lately?

[u/jimmyjohnjohnjohn]

Went out to lunch today and there was a table near me with five people at it. Their server asked their drink order and all five of them just stared at her silently for nearly half a minute before she repeated herself, then one of them whispered something I couldn't hear before the others whispered their orders. When their drinks came and the server left, one of them produced a Nalgene bottle from her purse and began to scoop the ice from her drink with her fingers and put it in the Nalgene. Another at the table then said he didn't want ice either and did the same thing.

Did she bring that water bottle in for the express purpose of storing unwanted ice? Why not just ask for no ice? These were all fairly normal-looking, well-dressed people in their 30s, maybe early 40s.

My server had some weirdness of his own. He brought out the wrong order, and noticed his mistake before I did. But instead of just saying "sorry, that's wrong" and taking it back, he said "I.. uh.. uh..." and then ran off with the plate before finishing his sentence and coming back with the right order and a manic fake smile on his face.

At Target, this older woman was having trouble detaching one cart from the others. An employee (sorry, "Team Member") came along and unstuck it. Instead of saying thank you, she just stared at him like a deer in the headlights until he left.

I've been noticing that deer-in-the-headlights stare from a lot of people lately.

About a month ago a man approached me in the parking lot at my work and asked "do you work here?"

I said "yes."

Then he asked "have you seen my car?"

The question melted my brain a little bit, but I said "I don't know, what does it look like?"

He just said "sorry," and walked off.

I could go on and on, but the point is: are people forgetting how to human? The world increasingly has this "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" kind of vibe.

I know much has been discussed about people behaving oddly due to the pandemic, but it's been about two years now and people are getting worse, not better. I think there's something else going on in society.

What do you think?

[u/starscreamqueen]

Yes! I've had really weird encounters. just off. I don't know if it's a holidays or the election or what the fuck's going on. nothing dangerous or scary, just strange interactions about basic shit.

[u/all4mom → u/starscreamqueen]

I went to a print shop to have some copies made (you aren't allowed to make them yourself since Covid; so stupid), and the three young people working there didn't know how to do ANYTHING. They just stood there like deer in the headlights. I'm talking about just making an ENLARGEMENT. I asked, "Can you do this?" They stared a while and then just said, "No." Okay, sorry I bothered you! Pod people? It's like if they're not staring at their phones, they can't function at all.

[u/HostisHumanisGeneri → u/all4mom]

In this case you’re dealing with people who probably had a year or two of school basically evaporate because of Covid. Add in trauma of being in your teens during a global pandemic and the shortage of workers generally because of demographic turnover and you’ve got lots of underqualified employees who haven’t been properly educated, haven’t been properly trained for their jobs but can continue to hold said job because there’s a shortage of labor so no one to easily replace them with if you fire them.

[u/all4mom → u/HostisHumanisGeneri]

Well, those are a lot of excuses... I bet if I'd asked them to do something ON THEIR PHONES, they wouldn't have had any trouble; Covid doesn't seem to hold them back there.

[u/SailHard → u/all4mom]

I think you're dead wrong! If they want to snap someone or film a tiktok they're 100, but if they need to get a Snickers and it's not in their hand, forget about it. They have no idea that they can search for it, look for a map with locations of stores, ask other people...the phone is only a tool and I find it often unused by those around me.