Kill 'Em With Kindness

Today I'm going to have a little bitchfest about niceness.  Or not-niceness.  Whatever it is, I'm going to complain about people being jerks.  Specifically, over the last 24 hours.

Right away, I'm sure you could conjure up a situation where some stranger was a big fat jerk face to you recently.  Something that makes you squint with pissedoffness when you think about it.  I have  bunch of them that regularly occur and really light a fire under my ass.

1- People who walk into an establishment before you and let the door slam shut on you.

2- People who walk in behind you and don't say thank you (or smile or even look at you) when you hold the door open for them.  

3- People who are polite enough to hold a door, but can't figure out that "you're welcome" is the correct response to "thank you."

4- People who look at you like you're an idiot when you smile at them as you walk past each other in public.

5- People who cut in front of you in line at a store because clearly they never figured out how a line works.  Get in the back, Jack!

Those are five of my favorites.  I would like to give honorable mention to grammatical issues like those who think an apostrophe means you pluralized a word.  Louise's farts vs. Louises farts..... the first one is about farts that belong to Louise.  The second one pertains to flatulence created by a group of people called Louise.  And "car's" means that something belongs to a car.  "Cars" means more than one car.  It's really the worst!  It's apostrophe abuse.

REALLY???  WHY?  WHAT MAKES THIS PERSON THINK ANY PUNCTUATION BELONGS IN "LASTS"???  THIS WAS TOO PAINFUL NOT TO SHARE.  IT'S A GRAMMATICAL TRAIN WRECK!

Reading back, I've come to realize that I have a lot of issues involving door etiquette, don't I?

Anyway, I learned something new about "being too nice".  There is no such thing as being too nice when you're in business.  I've been criticized for "being too nice" to my clients when I don't charge for certain things that most other people charge for.  Most of the time it's because of some kind of human error.... and God knows I've got my own list of human errors that I've made!  So, sometimes I don't charge people for things like forgetting to cancel every once in a (long) while, or if they urgently need my help at the last minute because they (infrequently) forgot to call me.  Random stuff happens.   (But I DO have limits.)

As a benefit, it is that those little acts of understanding people for being human and making mistakes that usually improves and strengthens the bond with me and my clients.  BEING NICE HELPS.

Let me give you an example.

Exhibit A:  (I really don't need the A...there was only one situation today, but it sounds fancy to call it Exhibit A.)  (Don't give me crap, because lots of people would've written "....the bond with my clients and myself" in the previous paragraph to sound fancy, which would have been incorrect, so get over my "A")

Exhibit A: 

I need to have straps put on a dress and then get it steamed.  I asked around and someone told me to try a certain place that I've never been to.  So, I did.  I walked in the door and the first person I encountered didn't even turn around and look at me.  The second person, who was behind the counter, looked a little annoyed at being interrupted from....I don't know.  I got kinda nervous because this place did NOT give off the "warm, fuzzy" vibe I would like of someone who will be trying to help me keep my boobs in my dress.

"Can I help you?" They both turned their attention to me at the same time and they sounded as if they had taken a handful of Valium about an hour before I got there.  Enthusiasm was not an option here.

I rambled off what I needed and barely made sense.  As I mentioned, I was nervous.   I don't get nervous in regular situations.  But these two people weren't regular.  They weren't even remotely cheerful.  And I think they lost their smile muscles in some sort of accident.  

The whole thing was horrible.  I felt like they didn't want my business.  And it was a nice looking place, so clearly they must do well at..... something.  For a minute, I took it personally since I can't imagine these people made money being annoyed at everyone who walked in the door.  It must've been me, right?  Did I offend?

I lied and said I'd be back the next day (today) and left.  I made a "U"ey and went to the place I originally planned on going to.

Place #2 is not nearly as nice as the one with The Living Dead running it.  It's a little rundown looking.  However, they've been in business forever and the people working there were cheerful, helpful, and actually looked like they wanted to help me.  And they were freakin' NICE.  

NICE. NICE. NICE.  

"Too Nice" by some people's standards.  But not mine.  They deserved my business.  They earned it the minute I walked in and they smiled at me.  I will always recommend them to people.  And I will always tell the story why I like them so much.

Unless of course they screw up my dress.  And then I will have to say how nice they are and follow it up with "they don't know squat about sewing shit".   But I'll still mention how nice they are. Because I know that you should always start of the analyzation of a situation by saying something kind.  

It's the nice thing to do.

Before I go, check out these shoes:

Alfani Apryl Mary Janes

Aren't they cute?  Why am I showing you them?   Cuz I keep closing my browser tabs before I remember to save them to my bookmarks.  Now I need to save them here.  I'm using my blog to remind me of crap I want to buy when I have money.  I hope you don't feel used.

They're even cute in the Hooker Leopard, no?

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You're Too Nice!

Three little words that have confused me for a very long time: You're too nice.

I would like to know exactly when being nice became a problem of excess.  When did being nice become a no-no?  Where exactly is that line between "just enough nice" and "too nice"?  Someone help me with this please!


There is the 
"you're nice to the point of being a moron
" judgement, as well as the 
"you're nice to the point of being suspicious and you must have alterior motives
" problem.
I may be the first one, but the second one pisses me off and 
I hear it more than anything.  
Personally, 
I dont think 
I'm excessively amicable, and many days my husband would be standing behind me, nodding his head like crazy.

Soooooooo....

Before I continue, I would like to put my meanie-pants on and bitch slap you just so I can be like the cool kids and have the appropriate amount of nasty going on while we talk here.  Cuz I'm not really sure what I'm doing in this "bad girl territory", so I figure that's a good place to start.

I'm a mid-western girl.  My parents moved to the east coast when I was 13.  I was traumatized because the month before we moved, my father had travelled to Aruba to look at a restaurant, so I thought that if we were moving that we would be heading to that "One Happy Island".

Nay, nay.

Instead of working on a tan and gettin' my island groove on, I found myself being analyzed and torn apart by my peers who were kind of harsh.  I dressed wrong, I spoke wrong, I carried myself wrong, and I was "too nice", which was an undesirable trait.  So, yes, I've been confused since I was 13.

But I'm not alone!  My mother, also born and raised as a mid-west girl, has been hearing the same judgement since we got here.  She's just as confused as I am about this one.  However, a few weeks ago,  she uttered those dreadful words to me, and my response was, "When did it become wrong to be nice?  Either I'm nice or I'm stupid.  But there is no "too nice".  Maybe they're just too f*cking bitchy???"

I listen to Howard Stern on satellite and when you hear people talk about his wife, Beth, they always marvel about how nice she is and how she's such "an angel".  Well, I hate to break it to you all, but I grew up in the same place that she did, and I'm the same age that she is, and her behavior seems entirely appropriate and normal to me.  It's no big shocker.  In fact, I have a boatload of cousins who are just like her!  If you got us all together in one room and filmed it, apparently they could promote it as a science fiction series or some other oddity.  An observation of a herd of Too Nicers?   Ooooooo!  Scary stuff.  (oh, puh-leez)

My husband says part of why he married me because of my morality.  When he mentions behavior here that I find mean spirited or selfish, I'm always shocked.  And when I'm shocked, he's surprised.  To him, it's all normal.  It's normal for people close to you take advantage of you, or to turn their backs on you, or abandon you for an extended period of time, or blatantly lie to you, or to say shitty things and expect you to get over it because they "feel better after venting".  I'll stop there.  I'm sure you get it.

Justin is dying to go to where I grew up just so he can see if there actually ARE more people like my mother, my brother and me.  Like we are some kind of Holier Than Thou side show freaks in his world? While I'd love to think we are special, the fact is that people who live further away from big metropolitan areas are different, and there are tons more like us. 

When I have to explain my "level of niceness" in a discussion, it usually starts with, "You know me....the happy idiot!"  I say it with a smile, but I know it's what many people think.  I know because I have good hearing and they talk too loud.

Here's my drama.  I want my daughter to think and live her life more like my family and less like "the local status quo".

Don't get me wrong, I love the extra bit of self confidence and outspoken tendencies of the people from here.  I like that they have a thicker skin and are a little less sensitive.  And I think it's awesome that they will get in your face and tell you that you're an asshole when you really deserve it!  However, I can't seem to figure out how to make "bad ass" and "too nice" merge.  At some point they start to work against each other.

This made me think of some of my prior employers..... especially at one "driven" company 

If I had my druthers, Allie would be kind and loving to people, but speak up when she's being treated in a way she doesn't like.  I want her to stick up for herself and for others who deserve it, but in a way that is respectful and intelligent.  She should be too nice, but only to people who deserve it.  And when people use her pleasant and good natured demeanor against her and criticize her for it, I hope it doesn't deter her from being a good person in the future (insert kick in the shin here).

I must clarify that everyone here isn't a bigfatjerkface.  There are many awesome people sprinkled around this area.  Granted, some of them are from out of town as well, but there are just as many that were born and raised here.  And you know what they tell me?  They say that people always tell them that they are "too nice".

Really, people?  How did something so good become so wrong?

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