Am I a snob?

I like Waitrose, but can't afford their prices.  Same with M & S.  I shop in my local Aldi and Morrison's.  Yes, there are plenty of rude people in both.  People who shout and barge around with their trolleys.  People who let their kids use scooters and skates in the store.  People who use their phones all the time at the checkouts, or have earphones plugged in.  People who don't say 'please' or 'thank you'.  There could be many reasons for rudeness.  Ignorance.  Lack of education.  Pure arrogance.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'common people', Robert. Are you implying that there might be a 'class' thing attached to this?   At least, all the stores you've mentioned are those that would be frequented (though not exclusively) by those with less money to spare: people on low incomes and benefits.  Of course, as you and I know, income level is no indicator of manners.  And plenty of those at the top of the pile, who've had good upbringings and excellent educations, can be rude and vulgar.  I suspect such people, too, would be less likely to go to discount stores.

I'm sure you're not being judgmental or making generalisations - so I'm just wondering how you would categorise these 'common people' otherwise.

There seems to be quite a debate going on now about society, and whether people are actually getting ruder or not.  Personally, I think they are.  The smart phone has certainly had an impact here.  I've lost count of the number of times I've been speaking to someone and they've broken off either to answer their phone or reply to a text.  And carrying on loud conversations with them on public transport and other public places.  Before the advent of the mobile, we only really did such things in sound-proofed phone booths, or in the privacy of our own homes.  So, I classify these habits as rudeness - if you define it as disregarding the presence of others, or not caring less how intrusive you are being.  As Will Self has said, these devices seem to be the absolute realisation of anomie in our culture.

And whatever happened to common courtesies?  I've also lost count of the number of times I'll be looking at something in a shop and someone else has reached across in front of me without a word.  Or, if they do speak, it's most often an 'Excuse me', rather than the 'Excuse me, please' that I was brought up to use.  I actually turned to someone one day - a middle-aged woman, who should have known better - and said 'Excuse me what?'  She glared at me.  'Excuse me... I want to get to the shelf!' 

At Christmas, my niece's husband was showing off their Alexa.  'Alexa.  Tell me the temperature in the kitchen'... to which I intoned 'Please'.  'Alexa.  Play 'Merry Christmas, Everyone.'  'Please.'  I understand that they've now reprogrammed these virtual assistants to respond to 'Please'... but people still don't seem to use it.  I guess if people - especially the young - get used to having things done for them without 'please' or 'thank you' being needed, they could easily end up not using them in any kind of exchange.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic.  Forgive me for trying to maintain some politeness in an increasingly couldn't-care-less world.

Some people have class, others are common.

The distinction is NOT about having money.

Some poor people have class, good manners , eccentric behaviour, interesting lifestyles, and finally many Autistics.

Now, common is common, even having money cannot make up for it!

I didn't think it was about not having money.  I thought I made that clear.

I'm still not sure what you mean by common - sorry.  'The common people' is a pretty obsolete expression now.  It certainly used to be used judgmentally, to refer to 'the lower orders': very much a social class-based categorisation.  I had a work colleague, years about in my early 20s, who came from a very well-to-do family and who'd been very expensively educated.  She was a frightful snob.  I remember asking her one day if she ever watched Coronation Street.  'Good grief, no!  It's about common people!'  She meant it, too.  'Like me, you mean,' I said.  'Working-class.'  The term has always rankled a bit ever since.

Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes, as the way you define 'class' seems to suggest.  I was talking about it in the terms mentioned above.

I didn't mean any offence.

Things can get complicated.  My main problem in my last care job was the centre manager.  She was a bully who took an instant dislike to me.  But she had her good points . Things got done when she was about because the staff were afraid of her.  When I worked on a bank holiday Monday with no management around.  The staff were so complacent and lazy that I almost reported them to her.

You're talking about the 'Arc of Satisfaction'

When you're a kid, you dream of being a millionaire, huge house, ferrari on the drive.

You get your first job, work really hard and your pathetic pay packet means you adjust your sights to be wealthy, 5-bed house, BMW on the drive.

You work harder, get promoted, but still your pay is pathetic - you adjust your sights lower to doing ok, detached house, Mondeo on the drive.

You work even harder but now you're married with kids - your pay doesn't cover it and your sights drop to struggling, tiny house and 10-year old Astra on the drive.

That's when people give up trying - they just coast, not quite doing the bare minimum.

I suspect we've all experienced working with people who are supposedly doing a job but don't really seem to have the slightest interest in what they're doing beyond the bare minimum and don't even seem to have the bare minimum competence necessary to do the job.  My experience is those sorts of people are pretty common.  They also usually have an expectation that somebody else will pick-up and do for them the stuff they can't be bothered with.

I don't claim to understand that mentality myself and I find it deeply annoying and frustrating, but it seems to be very common.  A lot of people I guess don't have a drive to be competent/keep improving at what they do.

Good point.  I think it demonstrates how words can have different meanings to different people, with some being more sensitive to words than others.  Some people, for instance, are proud to refer to themselves as working-class, whereas other people would be offended by being called working-class.  The common exclamation 'Christ!' wouldn't bother many people, whereas others would be deeply offended by it.  Words, too, can have many different shades of meaning - ambiguities, etc.

Personally, it doesn't bother me to be called bizarre, quirky or weird.  I'm sure, to most people, that's how I seem.  But I'm very sensitive to some other words that might seem quite innocent on the face of it. 

I'm sure people use a few colourful terms about me, too.  And I know I can come across as pompous and arrogant.  Someone once told me that I was 'high-minded' because I referred to some reality TV show as 'tripe'.

I suppose, if we're all honest, we can all be judgmental at times - even if we try our hardest not to be.  I'll look at someone in the street, say, and part of me is thinking 'How could you wear something like that?' I'm a bit like you in the way I regard some of the people I work with.  Perhaps - like you again - I have a different approach to the job I do, and want to see it done properly.  I remember you mentioning about bringing up some issue with medication, which you were right to do... and you got bawled out over it.  Similarly with being made to use hoists and slings without proper training first.  This is gross incompetence on their part.  It may even be illegal.  I can't believe that every other staff member signed our general Infection Control Risk Assessment at work.  I know many of them signed it without even reading it.  I refused to, because it stated quite clearly that no further measures needed to be taken to improve conditions.  Yet our kitchen hand-wash basin only had a cold water tap!  The toilets were never properly cleaned.  The food cupboards and fridges were filthy.  People hardly ever used PPE when doing personal care.  I can only look at such practices and think that these people are idiots.  Many of them were clearly idiots in other ways, too: shouting at service users, swearing in front of service users, bullying.  I hate to say it, but it's partly the nature of the care sector.  It's relatively easy to walk into a job with no experience or qualifications, and unfortunately for that reason it often attracts people who can't get jobs elsewhere.

Good point.  I think it demonstrates how words can have different meanings to different people, with some being more sensitive to words than others.  Some people, for instance, are proud to refer to themselves as working-class, whereas other people would be offended by being called working-class.  The common exclamation 'Christ!' wouldn't bother many people, whereas others would be deeply offended by it.  Words, too, can have many different shades of meaning - ambiguities, etc.

Personally, it doesn't bother me to be called bizarre, quirky or weird.  I'm sure, to most people, that's how I seem.  But I'm very sensitive to some other words that might seem quite innocent on the face of it. 

I'm sure people use a few colourful terms about me, too.  And I know I can come across as pompous and arrogant.  Someone once told me that I was 'high-minded' because I referred to some reality TV show as 'tripe'.

I suppose, if we're all honest, we can all be judgmental at times - even if we try our hardest not to be.  I'll look at someone in the street, say, and part of me is thinking 'How could you wear something like that?' I'm a bit like you in the way I regard some of the people I work with.  Perhaps - like you again - I have a different approach to the job I do, and want to see it done properly.  I remember you mentioning about bringing up some issue with medication, which you were right to do... and you got bawled out over it.  Similarly with being made to use hoists and slings without proper training first.  This is gross incompetence on their part.  It may even be illegal.  I can't believe that every other staff member signed our general Infection Control Risk Assessment at work.  I know many of them signed it without even reading it.  I refused to, because it stated quite clearly that no further measures needed to be taken to improve conditions.  Yet our kitchen hand-wash basin only had a cold water tap!  The toilets were never properly cleaned.  The food cupboards and fridges were filthy.  People hardly ever used PPE when doing personal care.  I can only look at such practices and think that these people are idiots.  Many of them were clearly idiots in other ways, too: shouting at service users, swearing in front of service users, bullying.  I hate to say it, but it's partly the nature of the care sector.  It's relatively easy to walk into a job with no experience or qualifications, and unfortunately for that reason it often attracts people who can't get jobs elsewhere.

Things can get complicated.  My main problem in my last care job was the centre manager.  She was a bully who took an instant dislike to me.  But she had her good points . Things got done when she was about because the staff were afraid of her.  When I worked on a bank holiday Monday with no management around.  The staff were so complacent and lazy that I almost reported them to her.

You're talking about the 'Arc of Satisfaction'

When you're a kid, you dream of being a millionaire, huge house, ferrari on the drive.

You get your first job, work really hard and your pathetic pay packet means you adjust your sights to be wealthy, 5-bed house, BMW on the drive.

You work harder, get promoted, but still your pay is pathetic - you adjust your sights lower to doing ok, detached house, Mondeo on the drive.

You work even harder but now you're married with kids - your pay doesn't cover it and your sights drop to struggling, tiny house and 10-year old Astra on the drive.

That's when people give up trying - they just coast, not quite doing the bare minimum.

I suspect we've all experienced working with people who are supposedly doing a job but don't really seem to have the slightest interest in what they're doing beyond the bare minimum and don't even seem to have the bare minimum competence necessary to do the job.  My experience is those sorts of people are pretty common.  They also usually have an expectation that somebody else will pick-up and do for them the stuff they can't be bothered with.

I don't claim to understand that mentality myself and I find it deeply annoying and frustrating, but it seems to be very common.  A lot of people I guess don't have a drive to be competent/keep improving at what they do.