Kindness. Courtesy. Compassion. @dailymanners - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
Kindness. Courtesy. Compassion.
@dailymanners
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If you're like me, you may have had the feeling that since lockdown people have been ruder, more aggressive, and lacking in compassion. The bad news is, you might be right. Some studies and data coming out show that people have gotten ruder and more aggressive since lockdown (x)(x)(x). And the thing is, if even a few people have gotten ruder and more aggressive over the past few years, that's unfortunately spreading. Rudeness and aggression are contagious, if someone feels stressed and upset and like the world is against them because of constant cruelty and apathy from others, they may be likely to adapt the same attitude and spread this attitude even more.
However, there's good news too! Kindness, courtesy, and compassion are also contagious! Acts of kindness and compassion uplift others and inspire them to do the same. You have the power to start a ripple affect with acts of kindness, compassion, and just good manners. You have the power to put the breaks on or even reverse this trend in aggression and hostility that's popped up the past few years.
I made this blog because I'm tired of the constant hostility I've witnessed in public over the past few years. I think we have the power to do better, if we're only reminded.
Now you may be wondering, why do good manners even matter? Aren't they just a bunch of dumb rules made up by old dead people? Well, maybe some manners like "no hats indoors" or "no elbows on the table" are arbitrary and honestly it's harmless not to follow those, but that's why I won't be focusing on good manners that have no clear purpose behind them in this blog. In this blog, I'm going to focus on manners that matter.
By manners that matter I mean, manners that have a clear and definable purpose of showing compassion and empathy to other people. Your words and actions have consequences in how they affect the people around you, manners make sure that they affect others in a good way. Manners are the true social lubricant that makes sharing both private and public spaces with other people better for everyone. Going to work, going to restaurants and shops, and using any public space like roads, sidewalks, and parks is going to be better for everyone if we're all being considerate and compassionate to those around us. And this matters because, just like I said earlier kindness is just as contagious as cruelty, so when you're kind and polite to others it will circle back around to you eventually either way.
This is also why I'll be posting an explanation for every manner I post. I myself an neurodivergent so I understand the importance of needing an explanation behind manners. And even if you're not neurodivergent I understand why you wouldn't want to just blindly follow an old social rule without being given a good explanation. This is why I'll always explain why it's polite to do x. Why it's beneficial to you and/or others.
And always remember for every manner I post, I am not forcing you to do any of these. If you are unable to do any given manner I post for any reason, or you just don't want to, you are free to ignore it and simply carry on with your life. Of course if you're a wheelchair user it's going to be harder to open doors for others or if you're non-verbal it's not going to be possible to say excuse me whenever you accidentally bump into someone. Consider this my disclaimer that any of these that you are unable to do due to a disability you are not obligated to do.
oh hey!! I’m not a janky radfem I can do it myself!
makeup culture is wack and normalizes a ludicrously high bar as the bare minimum women can do. I saw a “lazy"makeup tutorial the other day that listed 22 separate goddamn products. you’re supposed to buy and know how to use 22 different things on your face just for the privilege of being considered lazy and that’s uuuuuuh what’s the word? bullshit.
because I’m gonna be real here, the idea that 22 products is a minimum sucks but it’s really upsetting that any amount of makeup is the bare minimum at all
I’m sorry if I didn’t express this clearly enough in the original post but I’m not really looking for more concise makeup regiments. my intention was to point out how it’s Bad that makeup is considered a bare minimum at all, regardless of individual feelings on the matter
no face should be “required” to have “a minimum” of makeup. makeup has no health benefits and does nothing but fill the pockets of companies that prey on women and our insecurities.
makeup should not be seen as hygiene because it isnt. get that shit out of your head.
this post: makeup culture is ridiculous and 22 products should not be considered a minimum requirement for someones face. no one should have to do that
the notes: so like……. what youre saying is……. we need to make the minimum about 5 or 6 instead… i gotcha
There really are a lot of people in the notes equating sunscreen to makeup by saying things like "okay but this post doesn't apply to me because I have to wear sunscreen because I'm really prone to skin cancer!!" am I missing something?? Since when is sunscreen a type of makeup??
oh hey!! I’m not a janky radfem I can do it myself!
makeup culture is wack and normalizes a ludicrously high bar as the bare minimum women can do. I saw a “lazy"makeup tutorial the other day that listed 22 separate goddamn products. you’re supposed to buy and know how to use 22 different things on your face just for the privilege of being considered lazy and that’s uuuuuuh what’s the word? bullshit.
because I’m gonna be real here, the idea that 22 products is a minimum sucks but it’s really upsetting that any amount of makeup is the bare minimum at all
I’m sorry if I didn’t express this clearly enough in the original post but I’m not really looking for more concise makeup regiments. my intention was to point out how it’s Bad that makeup is considered a bare minimum at all, regardless of individual feelings on the matter
no face should be “required” to have “a minimum” of makeup. makeup has no health benefits and does nothing but fill the pockets of companies that prey on women and our insecurities.
makeup should not be seen as hygiene because it isnt. get that shit out of your head.
this post: makeup culture is ridiculous and 22 products should not be considered a minimum requirement for someones face. no one should have to do that
the notes: so like……. what youre saying is……. we need to make the minimum about 5 or 6 instead… i gotcha
I would like to emphasize that I agree with all of these tags by the way. My post wasn't aiming to pin all of Europe's grotesque racism on the new elections.
A few weeks ago I was at a board game night with some of my old classmates from various mainland European countries. They started talking about how horrible Trump's treatment of immigrants is and how they're so glad to be in Europe where nothing like that is happening right now. I asked them what they thought about the fact that their own governments were complicit in turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave of asylum seekers, and some of them legitimately didn't even know and were surprised to hear that their own governments had enacted policies that caused the deaths of thousands of asylum seekers.
Even here in Iceland, almost nobody has been talking about the fact that some of the far right populist parties have legitimately been talking about wanting to establish detainment camps to keep asylum seekers in.
This post is a few months old now, and the bit about Iceland is now outdated, because Alþingi (the Icelandic parliament) passed the bill approving the detention center for asylum seekers. It will be legal to handcuff and detain children there.
Never let anyone from Europe feed you the lie that racism and fascism are unique to North America in the 21st century.
If women don’t conform to beauty expectations, they’re paid less.
“Madison, who works a customer service job at an airport spa, has an employee handbook that says “makeup should be well maintained” and “hands and nails must be well manicured.” She says the few men she works with just ignore these guidelines “because they’re meant for women but [it] doesn’t explicitly say that.” Her wages ($13.25 per hour + 15% retail commission) do not include additional pay to purchase manicures or makeup. During her interview, her now-boss commented on how nice her makeup looked and how well her shoes matched her purse—comments that make her feel like she needs to keep up that kind of appearance even though she already has the job.
It’s well known that a persistent wage gap exists for women workers in the United States, a gap that becomes even wider when race, industry, age and geography are taken into account. But less frequently discussed is the often silent expectation around appearance imposed on women workers, which has its own financial costs—known as the “grooming gap.” The grooming gap refers to the set of social norms regarding grooming and appearance for women, including the time women workers must spend to conform to these norms and the material consequences it has on their lives.
We’ve all heard the common advice to “look the part” at work. For men, that can often just mean business casual clothing and a short haircut. For women, it can mean hours spent each week on makeup, hair styling and curating an outfit that’s both attractive and professional.
The rules are usually unspoken; even when employers do not explicitly require workers to wear makeup, for example, women workers often feel required to wear it anyway.
They’re not wrong: Sociologists Jaclyn Wong and Andrew Penner found that physically attractive workers have higher incomes than average-looking workers, but that this relationship is eliminated when controlling for grooming in women. In other words, if you purchase the right clothes, makeup and haircut, higher wages are more within reach. It’s true that men need to abide by certain grooming rules, too, but they are less complex, less expensive and less time consuming. Men’s haircuts, for example, often cost much less than women’s haircuts—regardless of hair length. The grooming gap essentially constitutes a pay cut catch-22: If women don’t conform, they are paid less; if they do conform, they’re expected to use those higher wages on beauty products and grooming regimens.
Grooming costs for women can be extremely expensive; the global beauty industry, valued at $532 billion worldwide, directs aggressive advertising toward women to convince them they need to purchase a whole host of products to have a chance at being beautiful, well-liked or successful. The industry relies on maintaining impossible expectations around women’s looks so it can continue to rake in enormous profits. One 2017 study found the average woman puts $8 worth of product on her face each day; another found the average woman spends up to $225,000 on skincare and makeup during her lifetime. And then there’s the “pink tax”: Studies confirm that, 42% of the time, products marketed to women are more expensive than comparable products targeted to men.
The grooming gap also results in a loss of free time: 55 minutes each day for the average woman, the equivalent of two full weeks each year. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFACWA), says that, in her industry—a workforce that is 79.3% women—the expectation around appearance literally “interrupts your sleep”: Flight attendants get minimal rest between flights, and that rest time is further shrunk because they are expected to appear “perfectly coifed” before their next flight. Nelson says that all of her grooming tasks took 30–40 minutes each day (more than two hours in a five-day work week). Madison agrees: it takes her 45 minutes to do her makeup and style her hair before her 7 a.m. shift—and she wakes up at 5 a.m. to get it all done. Prior to this job, Madison says she worked at the beauty department at Target, where she spent $200 on products every other week.
Restaurant and hospitality workers are perhaps hardest hit by the grooming gap, as they rely on tips to survive. When I was a barista in 2010–2011, the only official dress code rule was to wear closed-toed shoes, for safety. Still, I knew I had to show up looking pretty to pay the rent; I made less than $10 an hour and I needed the tips.
Katie, 36, a veteran bartender and server in Fort Smith, Ark., says at her current job, it’s “understood” she should wear makeup. At a previous restaurant, a manager even told her and her coworkers they would “make better tips if [they] wore makeup.”
“Based on my own appearance—weight fluctuations, makeup versus no makeup, jewelry versus no jewelry—there’s a definite difference,” Katie says. She adds that she was passed over for the most lucrative bartending shifts at her previous job after overhearing her managers say they wanted “cuter girls” to bartend instead.
Multi-billion dollar industries also market fad diets and anti-aging products to women. Both Katie and Jeeva, 24, a bartender and member of UNITE HERE, the union representing hospitality, hotel and airport workers, worry about aging. “As you get older, as a female bartender, your tips can go down,” Jeeva says. Katie says she “hope[s] to leave [the service industry] in the next 10 years, before I get too ugly.”
The grooming gap’s effects are compounded for women of color. According to Restaurant Opportunity Center, restaurant owners look for workers who are “clean-cut, [have] good hygiene or a professional appearance, all potential code words for race.” For instance, Black women spent $473 million on relaxers, weaves and other hair care in 2017, in part because of racist ideas that natural Black hair is not professional or attractive. Black workers annually spend nine times more on hair and beauty products than other workers.
For transgender women, too, there can be an added layer of work, stress and self-consciousness. Autumn, who transitioned while at her current publishing job in Washington, D.C., says she quickly realized how much time and energy it takes to perform femininity for work. She used to spend 20 minutes to get ready in the morning, but now takes at least 45 minutes. Autumn adds, “I have to do things that cis women don’t have to… [but] it’s gotten easier with time and practice,” like tucking and dealing with facial hair. Because she presents extremely femme, Autumn says she hasn’t dealt with enforcement around her appearance, but other women workers around the country have been disciplined and even fired for appearing insufficiently feminine. Women workers have sued—and won—over gender discrimination that manifests as attractiveness discrimination.
Nat, a trans woman who works at a union in the Washington, D.C., area, says, “I didn’t feel like I was allowed to be a woman if I liked masculine things. It delayed any kind of self-reflection” about gender and identity “for such a long time.”
At work and in the world, all women—cis and trans—feel the pressure to conform to normative standards of femininity and attractiveness. But the solution to this problem isn’t to throw away all the eyeshadow or take out a new line of credit for weekly manicures. The solution is to organize together.”
I know that this is an Off Topic Tuesday post, but this can be tied into my blog theme. I don't know how many people are aware of the unconscious biases they have in regards to how differently they treat someone based on appearance, how those who are able to meet the standards of being conventionally attractive are afforded more kindness, and general good treatment, than those who can't or won't, and this is especially the case for women and other marginalized people.
I remember in secondary school a friend telling me how differently she was treated when she showed up to school with glasses, no makeup, and a sweatshirt vs contacts, makeup, and a more "feminine" outfit. She said it was like night and day.
On the days she showed up to school in glasses, no makeup, and a comfortable (but androgynous/unisex) outfit, she said she was ignored and dismissed so much more. People were more likely to treat her like she was boring, annoying, unintelligent, and like she had nothing worthwhile to contribute.
However, when she came to school with contacts, makeup, and a more "feminine" outfit, suddenly everyone was so much nicer to her. People wanted to talk to her, people treated her like she was funny and intelligent, people asked her what her opinions were and valued her contributions to the conversation.
Of course, in both scenarios she was still the same person, with the same intelligence, the same humor, the same mind. People just valued her differently based on how well she adhered to beauty standards. I don't think anyone was doing this consciously, which is why it's so important to talk about this and be more aware of this. Check our unconscious biases.
Or, recently another friend of mine shaved her head. Her hair wasn't super long before, but it was long enough to fall into a range considered "feminine".
In her words, after she shaved her head, she said "it's like the whole world has gotten a little colder, like someone turned down the temperature a few degrees." And she didn't mean that literally.
She talked about how after shaving her head, there was a total 180 in how customer service workers treated her. Before when she had hair, cashiers and servers would smile at her and make a little chit chat, but after shaving her head all she gets from customer service workers (including from the very same ones who would smile and be kind to her when she had hair) is a cold and dismissive attitude.
She said she also doesn't receive the small acts of kindness and general politeness she received from strangers before. When she had hair, strangers might have held a door for her, or picked up things for her she dropped, those sorts of things. But after shaving her head she no longer receives any of these small pleasantries, just an air of cold contempt and dismissal from most people around her.
Again, I'm not sure this is even consciously done, but unconscious biases can be pretty powerful, and result in people (especially women and other marginalized people) being punished for not fitting the standards of being conventionally attractive.
The despair I feel when I see a post on Facebook or Instagram about how not all women like wearing makeup, or feel comfortable wearing makeup, and makeup shouldn't be considered an essential part of womanhood, but then I make the unfortunate mistake of opening the comments where 90% of them are "yes that's so me! That's why all I wear is an under eye concealer, mascara, just a bit of eyeliner on my water line, fill in my brows, and put on a little bit of a shimmery lip color"
Girl I do not think you understand what "no makeup" means because that is not it.
Where's that post about how if you make a post anywhere saying "women do not need to wear makeup" you will inevitably get comments like "totally! most women really are fine with just a bit of eyeliner, mascara, and maybe a bit of concealer. Really even just a bit of mascara can make such a difference!"
I do not think you understand what "women do not need to wear makeup" actually means, because that is not it.
As a general rule, always ask before touching or taking things.
Say for example you're getting closer with an acquaintance and starting to become friends, so you are invited to their apartment for the first time. If you see an interesting book on their shelf you'd like to look at closer, the considerate thing to do would be to ask "may I?", because for all you know that book's binding could be falling apart and/or the book has great sentimental value to them, leading them to be particular about who handles it.
Or say they have a box of cookies sitting out on their counter. Before taking one, ask "may I have one?". Maybe they're for a special event the next day, and your host forgot to put away the box before you came over. Or maybe your host has dietary restrictions that make finding special treats difficult, so they'd like to save those particular cookies for themselves (and again, forgot to put that box away before you came over).
Even if they're totally fine with you handling their book or taking a cookie, it's still a gesture of respect for their boundaries and possessions to ask first. As you get to know someone and their private spaces more, you'll become more familiar with what they're okay with you touching and taking. However, while you're still navigating those unfamiliar waters, it's safer to ask first.
A note, because not everyone knows this: if you're driving and another driver flashes their brights at you, this is a signal to be on alert and slow down. There may be debris in the road, a cop out of sight, or an animal crossing ahead of you. (Or, alternatively, your brights are on and they're getting blinded.) Whatever the reason, it's a signal that you need to focus and reduce speed. And possibly turn your own brights off.
This PSA has been brought to you by the four fawns and does that ran out in front of me at various points on my drive home.
Also if the vehicle in front of you puts their hazards on - they may be indicating to you that they can see something ahead you can’t, they may need to stop unexpectedly, or they may be about to do something else you won’t expect (for example, reverse park in the driveway on the other side of the road, so they need the other traffic to wait at a short distance while they complete the manoeuvre).
I really mean this, by the way. Not just in some feel-good-but-ultimately-meaningless sort of way.
If you are an angry and aggressive person, you might make other people nervous or scared even, but ultimately people will not genuinely respect you or take you seriously, or see you as a strong or authoritative figure.
Leaders and authority figures who are able to conjure genuine respect from other people (and wield that respect as a form of social power) are rarely overtly angry and aggressive people.
They are calm because they are secure in their power and strength as an individual. Anger is an expression of feeling threatened. Anger evolved with the purpose of protecting us when we are threatened or in danger.
Perpetual anger and aggression will make you look afraid and insecure to other people, even if only subconsciously. With genuine strength and power comes security, and security looks like calmness.
#i think this is also good to remember bc a lot of us with trauma backgrounds (or at least i do)#associate anger with power in some way shape or form#like abusers with authority over you taking out their anger on you#and it can make us fearful of actually having power#because we assuming having power is the same as abusing it or having it makes us “bad people”#(i will not get into power vs privilege in the tags here but please know my intention is not to equate the two here)#but having power isnt inherently a bad thing and as this post says its about how you wield it#also i know this isnt what op is implying with this post but we are on the piss on the poor site so:#being angry isn't inherently a bad thing#feelings are morally neutral#they are tools#it is your response to the feeling tgjat makes it an issue (or not) for the people around you
Oh good points all around, and thank you for clarifying that. As someone with a trauma background as well, it took me almost a decade of therapy to stop feeling ashamed or like I was a bad person for ever feeling angry, and to accept that my anger exists to protect me, and specifically as a nudge (or a shove) to assert my boundaries when I need to.
It depends on how it's used and what you do with it. There are definitely people who will lash out when it's not called for or appropriate, and the people who do this would probably benefit from therapy.
I do know several people who I am convinced perpetually act angry and always find something to be angry about because they think it makes them look stronger, tougher, or smarter even to other people. It's hard to explain why I get this feeling. Maybe it's because I can't talk to them about anything without them turning the conversation into an angry rant (which is exhausting as is) but they always have their angry rants with a tone of smug triumph and superiority, and usually end the story with victory over whoever they were ranting about. ("someone made a dumb comment on Facebook, and then I TOTALLY told that person off and put them in their place because I'm not afraid to be an asshole!").
I think it's one thing if someone is struggling with mental health in a way that they have a lot of pent up rage. But having to turn any and all conversations into an angry rant with a smug tone of superiority and triumph feels like something different, they're desperately trying to look a certain way and give themselves a specific image, and it feels like they think their angry rants make them look strong or smart or something along those lines. Either way it's very exhausting to deal with, and they certainly lack the self awareness of how exhausting it is.
"Men should put the seat down when they're done peeing so that I don't fall into the toilet when I sit down to pee"
"Actually women should be putting the seat back up when they're done peeing as a courtesy so that I don't have to touch it and put the seat up before I pee"
Actually, both the seat AND lid should be down when no one is actively using the toilet, because this prevents things from accidentally falling into / accidentally being dropped into the toilet. Also having the lid down when you're flushing is important because it prevents the toilet from spraying out bacteria.
I feel as though what drives most rude / inconsiderate behavior I experience IRL on a day to day basis comes from a place of having this unearned and unnecessary sense of urgency in situations that aren't actually urgent. I think if more people became aware of this completely unnecessary sense of urgency in situations that actually aren't urgent, it might make co-existing and sharing public spaces with other people a lot easier and more tolerable.
That text post that's been making the rounds that goes something like "Omg you made it to the same red light as everyone else but faster and more dangerously and recklessly, should we call nascar? Do you want a medal?" summarizes exactly what I'm trying to talk about.
It's like when I have to change buses at one of the bigger and busier bus stops, and the people who get off the same bus as me shove and elbow past me to get off before me, and then shove and elbow past anyone even slightly in their way on the way to the bus they're switching to, only to end up on the same bus as all the people they shoved and elbowed, with several minutes to spare before it leaves and plenty of open seats left.
I think this unnecessary urgency a lot of people feel in their day to day lives drives a lot of bad behavior. I'm not saying I'm innocent of this (is anyone's?), I've felt it too in plenty of situations that didn't call for it, and regrettably was less kind than I should have been as a result. But I try to be aware of it, and always try to ask myself it it's really as urgent as my lizard brain is trying to tell me it is, and even if it was urgent, does that still justify unkind behavior?
Is shoving or elbowing another person aside going to make the difference between whether or not you make it to the bus before it pulls away? (hint: at least where I live, most of the time that's a no because the drivers usually won't leave if they see people from another bus heading towards their bus). Is shoving and elbowing people aside in a crowded grocery store going to make any real difference in how quickly you get your shopping done?
Does a few extra seconds of time actually justify cruel and unkind behavior towards people you perceive as slightly inconveniencing you?
- Waiting in line at the store and the person behind you creeps closer and closer to try to pressure you forward, and ends up violating your personal space and making you uncomfortable, because they think creeping closer and pressuring the person in line in front of them will somehow get them through the line faster (it won't)
- Going through a self-serve buffet, and the person behind you keeps creeping closer and closer to try to pressure you to serve your food faster and get a move on. All it achieves is that you can't scoop your soup without elbowing them, and that's somehow your fault
- Crossing a crosswalk when the car waiting for you to cross creeps closer and closer to you to try to intimidate you into crossing faster (because using a 2 ton metal machine to try to intimidate a fleshy little ape you could easily kill with said 2 ton metal machine isn't acting like a bully at all no sir-ee)
- Honestly a huge heap of the poor treatment of service workers is also rooted in this sense of urgency in things that are not actually urgent
Please do feel free to add more examples if you can think of more examples
#cutting in line at the airport#you are all going on the same flight!
Not just getting on the same flight, but the majority of the time already having assigned seats! The plane isn't going to just pull away while passengers are still boarding, your seat will still be your seat, why the urgency?
People have always been like this in airports, and maybe I'm just noticing it more, but I feel like in the past few years this sense of urgency in airports has gotten worse. I get some people might be running late for their flight due to extenuating circumstances, but that doesn't excuse being rude. It's not fair to punish random strangers at the airport if you're running late for your flight. That's your problem, not theirs.
If it's really urgent and genuinely extenuating circumstances, then use your words ("I'm so sorry but I had a family emergency this morning so now I'm running really late for my flight, do you mind if I go ahead of you?") rather than push / shove / elbow / cut in line / violate other people's person space.
The past several times I've flown I almost had a panic attack going through security because of how much other passengers kept violating my personal space by standing too close (to try to pressure me forward), even though that wouldn't make the line go faster + were getting pushy / shove-y / elbow-y with trying to get their stuff on and off the x-ray belt. Is there really any reason that's called for? We're all just trying to get through and get to our flights, You Are Not The Main Character of Airport Security.
#I think that living I. the United States just drives people insane#legitimately#the societal pressure you feel just makes you batshit#it made me for sure
I have bad news for you (or maybe good news depending on how you look at it) but this is far from a U.S. specific issue. I'm actually in Iceland, so almost all of the experiences I wrote about in this post happened in Iceland. I've visited and lived in a few different countries, and I have a hard time recalling a country I didn't witness this phenomenon. It's the era of instant gratification in many places around the world, and it shows.
My only experience with Germany is a weekend spent in Berlin, but that weekend was stressful because I experienced so much of this in Berlin.
I can recall more than once having to stop and look around because I'd lost sight of my partner, and despite having *several meters* to go around me people would still walk right into me while glaring at me.
I made another post about "body checking" (this exact phenomenon of intentionally walking right into someone as a form of aggression) and someone in the notes also said this kept happening to them in Berlin, they'd stop for just a second to look at their map, and despite having plenty of room to go around people several heads taller than them would aggressively walk right into them and/or clip them.
I can't speak for all of Germany, it's a very large and diverse country after all, but at least Berlin seems to have a problem with aggressive impatience to the point of physically battering strangers who dare to stand still for a second in public spaces.
When going out to eat, if you're not sure if this is somewhere you bus dishes yourself or if staff bus the dishes for you, then ask a staff member. If this is a location where you can/should bus your dishes yourself, then if you're physically capable, bus your dishes yourself.
The general rule of thumb is that if this is somewhere you picked up the food yourself from a counter, then you usually bus it yourself after finishing too, and likewise if a staff member brings the dish out to you, then they will also clear it after you when you leave. Although, exceptions of course apply to this rule, so when in doubt just check.
Although it is true that even in restaurants / food halls / cafeterias where you are to bus your own dishes, there are usually staff who can bus it for you if you don't, if the business is set up with the expectation that you bus your own dishes, those staff members' primary duties will lie elsewhere, and busing dishes will be a secondary duty they won't always have time to do.
So for example at a restaurant where you bus your own dishes, if it's peak hours the staff will probably be so swamped with orders back in the kitchen that it makes it extremely difficult to have a moment to clear tables, at least not without falling even further behind in preparing orders. This means that during peak busy hours you may actually be leaving your dishes and/or garbage to be cleared off by another customer who has nowhere else to sit, rather than a staff member.
A note, because not everyone knows this: if you're driving and another driver flashes their brights at you, this is a signal to be on alert and slow down. There may be debris in the road, a cop out of sight, or an animal crossing ahead of you. (Or, alternatively, your brights are on and they're getting blinded.) Whatever the reason, it's a signal that you need to focus and reduce speed. And possibly turn your own brights off.
This PSA has been brought to you by the four fawns and does that ran out in front of me at various points on my drive home.
If you find lost items in public places, take them to somewhere they're more likely to return to their owner if you can't reunite it with the owner yourself.
Say for example, you're riding the bus, and you see that someone accidentally left their bag on the bus. Instead of just pretending you didn't see it and leaving it there, bring it to the front of the bus and give it to the driver. (stating what should be the obvious here but: obviously when the bus is stopped at a bus stop, so that you're not distracting the driver while they're driving)
Not only is the bag safer up with the driver, if you'd just left the bag on the seat someone could have gone through the bag and stolen important / valuable things, but say the bus does a loop and comes back to where the owner of the bag got off. If the owner of the bag realizes they left it on the bus, then if they approach the driver and say they left a bag on the bus and want to check for it, it's quicker and easier for the driver to say "actually I have it right here" instead of the owner having to run back to the seat they left it on.
If you go to a cafe and see that someone accidentally left behind their phone or jacket, it's safer to bring it to the staff to keep behind the counter, that way their phone or jacket is less likely to end up stolen.
In public places that don't exactly have designated staff things can be trickier. Say you're in a neighborhood park, and you find someone's hat on the ground. If there's no designated park staff around, one thing you can do is put the hat up somewhere off the ground and close to eye level (and preferably as close as possible to where you found it), such as on a fence post next to where you found it. Keeping it off the ground might prevent some damage, and also makes it more visible to spot if the owner comes back. You can also try taking pictures and posting it on social media, such as if there's a Facebook group for residents of the neighborhood around the park.
I would like to emphasize that I agree with all of these tags by the way. My post wasn't aiming to pin all of Europe's grotesque racism on the new elections.
A few weeks ago I was at a board game night with some of my old classmates from various mainland European countries. They started talking about how horrible Trump's treatment of immigrants is and how they're so glad to be in Europe where nothing like that is happening right now. I asked them what they thought about the fact that their own governments were complicit in turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave of asylum seekers, and some of them legitimately didn't even know and were surprised to hear that their own governments had enacted policies that caused the deaths of thousands of asylum seekers.
Even here in Iceland, almost nobody has been talking about the fact that some of the far right populist parties have legitimately been talking about wanting to establish detainment camps to keep asylum seekers in.
This post is a few months old now, and the bit about Iceland is now outdated, because Alþingi (the Icelandic parliament) passed the bill approving the detention center for asylum seekers. It will be legal to handcuff and detain children there.
Never let anyone from Europe feed you the lie that racism and fascism are unique to North America in the 21st century.
A note, because not everyone knows this: if you're driving and another driver flashes their brights at you, this is a signal to be on alert and slow down. There may be debris in the road, a cop out of sight, or an animal crossing ahead of you. (Or, alternatively, your brights are on and they're getting blinded.) Whatever the reason, it's a signal that you need to focus and reduce speed. And possibly turn your own brights off.
This PSA has been brought to you by the four fawns and does that ran out in front of me at various points on my drive home.
