On the Saturday before Mother’s Day I went to a large, sort of upscale department store to shop for some spring clothes. It was crowded and after picking out a couple of things to try on I waited for a dressing room. When I finally got one, was shocked to find six pairs of jeans on the floor in a heap. I thought I would at least pick them up and lay them across the back of a chair and noticed that at least three pairs were inside out (they were skinny jeans and probably difficult to take off). I wound up putting the jeans right side out and hanging them back up on the hangers. I felt bad for whoever would have had to do this job on such a busy day and also was kind of worried that whoever came into the room after me would think I had left such a mess. Later, in the shoe department, I was waiting for the clerk to bring some shoes for me to try on and as I sat I noticed the floor completely littered with tissue from the boxes, cardboard inserts from the shoes, those little footie-things people put on, etc. The staff was being run ragged because the store was so crowded; it was not like anyone could come around immediately and pick these things up. But then, shouldn’t these would-be customers be respectful enough of not only the staff but of new retail merchandise–who wants to buy something someone else has thrown on the floor in a heap? What is wrong with people these days? Is it so hard to at least make an attempt to put things back as you found them? 0513-14
I’m with you. I pick up my stuff and replace it on the hangers or fold it….maybe not as neatly folded as the store staff would do but I make the effort.
We have a saying in our family when we see things like this, “The world is their ashtray.” Only in your case, the department store is some people’s ashtray. They just wander through life depositing the detritus of their existence expecting everyone else to clean up in their wake. It’s an imperial form of entitlement as if they were too highly positioned in life to ever deign to stoop to such menial tasks. The concept of leaving the world a little better than you found it is utterly lost on them.