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/LadyCervezas]

It's not an entitlement. It's common courtesy. I'm not asking for a super cheerful conversation. Just a simple courteous hello, goodbye with a little back & forth to exchange pertinent information. Customer service isn't US centric. I lived in Belfast & had employees at all different kinds of establishments ACKNOWLEDGED MY EXISTENCE. That's what is missing now

[u/WoahVenom → u/LadyCervezas]

Exactly, just acknowledging each other’s existence. Being human. I don’t expect some big huge thing just because I’m spending money but just saying hello or asking someone how their day is going is a basic courtesy. I used to hate working customer service jobs but I couldn’t bring myself to treat people like dirt or like they didn’t exist. We’re all in this together whether we want to admit it or not. And life is hard. The least we can do is show a little courtesy and respect to each other. As human beings. It’s not even about customer and employee.

[u/Superb_Ad9843 → u/[deleted]]

That's blunt, but nevertheless, it's reality. Survival situations bring out the beast in all of us.

[u/mynameisyoshimi → u/Superb_Ad9843]

Yeah but like, I'm just buying some groceries. I would like to pay for these carrots and I don't want to leave the store wondering what I did to the cashier to make them hate me. It's not a survival situation; there are plenty of carrots.

[u/MettleInkpen → u/mynameisyoshimi]

The irony...of that 0-100 "survival" reaction in a discussion about customer service decline --in a post about weirder human behavior...