| Where does Respect come from?
A coworker and I were talking at lunch about the decline of good customer service. I likened it to the concept of fast food: we want to pay less for things, and this seems to correlate directly to the decline of good customer service in the more fast paced service industries. I suggested that I would be willing to pay more for better service, my friend and I lamented together in the fact that this still didn’t guarantee good service. Eventually the conversation arrived at the conclusion that it wasn’t just service people providing bad customer service, but the general lack of respect coming from the common person.
We have all been treated with a snide remark, or uncaring attitude while standing in line for a burger or from a waiter, and we have all seen others abuse (if not done it once or twice ourselves) the service person that is there to assist us. To me, it boils down to a matter of respect, and the diminishing capacity to hold it. We discussed who’s responsibility we thought it was to teach the concept of respect to us in the first place; our parents, our schools, our peers, our co-workers, our belief system (religious and not) were all possibilities, on none we could really agree, except that it was a concept that should be learned early.
Seeing as how respect is an important concept in the practice of martial arts, this is why I bring the subject up and pose these questions to you:
Does anyone else perceive a decline of respect, both in service and interpersonal relationships? Why do you think this is?
Where did you learn the concept of respect, and what does that govern?
If a thread posing this question already exists, then by all means, pass it up, but if it doesn't... please comment. |