I have been on a crusade for many years to battle, or at least call out rudeness.
My biggest pet hate, in the entire world is being ignored. I find it the rudest thing a person can ever do.
This all started to come to a head when I was a teenage and entering the dating scene. Now I fully admit that I'm a bit weird and can be an acquired taste. But my generation was the first to be glued to their phone and have immediate contact with anyone. So when a text message, or Instant Message goes unanswered, I know full well that its not because it hasn't been seen.
But I'm not one to leave it alone. I know full well that pushing harder wouldn't help me get in someones pants, but I basically had this basic need to close the communication loop. Even if its a reply of "Fuck off dickhead" then I'm happy.
So now I'm mid 30's, I'm not trying to get in chicks pants anymore. But I am still fighting ignorant rude assholes every day. What should be mature professional individuals that I deal with day to day in the mining industry really turn out to be no better than 17yr old girl.
The other week, I contacted over 180 individual mining professionals. Every email was personally written, not a blanket carbon copy to every person. Out of those 180 emails, I had 1 reply.
How many read receipts did I have? About 100. So that means out of the 100 that I KNOW read my message only 1% bothered to reply.
Again I would have been happy to recieve a reply telling me to bugger off.
So for god sake people, if someone bothers to send you a message be it a text, a letter or an email, then do the right thing and give them a reply. Its the mature thing to do. It only takes a second and it can really make a difference in a persons day. In extreme circumstances, it can even make a difference in their mental state. I know that in my professional life at the moment, I'm at a particularly low ebb in thinking "Why the hell am I even bothering"
