rudeness abounds and thoughts thereof

Yesterday while conducting a small transaction, this young, snotty teenager was rude to me. Really rude. I had done nothing to provoke this in her. She obviously didn't feel well at all, and instead of going home or getting a grip, she took out some of her annoyance on me. It's been a while since I wanted to slap someone cross-eyed, but it did cross my mind. But I didn't and I remained pleasant until I could get away.

Then today, I emailed a business with a question. Two people read the email and replied. One of them was helpful and answered my question and the other responded with unnecessary sarcasm and gave a conflicting answer. I didn't do anything except ask a question in a very nice tone. This is a business? And these two people can't communicate with each other to tell me the same answer? Or decide which one of them gets to answer (preferably without the sarcasm). So now I want this guy to eat shit and die, and I don't even know him and he doesn't know me. I'm really sorry if this was the 30th time he'd answered the question, but that's no excuse for rudeness. Like I said, there's rarely a good excuse for rudeness. Sometimes brutal honesty can be mistaken for rudeness, but that's usually only a last resort and only if the honest opinion is invited. Otherwise, lying is preferred. But going out of your way to make someone feel less, feel bad, feel irritating- is rude. And it's bad karma.

Most of us have plenty of opportunities to be rude on a daily basis, especially if we work with the public but isn't it better for everyone to avoid the temptation to be rude? Isn't that obvious? And the rude people then blame other people for their unhappiness. Uh huh. It's karma. And if you are rude, you deserve what happens to you.