I recently moved my son to another state. We drove 36 hours and alternated sleep throughout the night. When we arrived at our hotel, the room was not ready. No problem. We sat and figured out what we would order for dinner. 

Eventually, the woman at the counter motioned us up to let us know the room was ready. We made our way to the counter and as I was pulling out my credit card and license, a man literally budged in front of us, put his reservation paper down on the counter and asked to check in. I can’t make this stuff up. His wife was standing right next to him. The clerk didn’t know what to do. I simply said, “just take care of him and then you can finalize our check in.” I could tell she was uncomfortable, but frankly, this bully of a guy wasn’t worth any more loss of energy in the moment. I looked at my son and said, “that was just rude.” 

I don’t know about you, but lately I have experienced a whole new level of rudeness as I go about my work and personal activities. Yes, I acknowledge there are still a lot of great people but I am also fascinated with this new level of rude in the world. I can make up a lot of reasons why this happening and the short list is that people are frustrated…tired—exhausted even…not sure of who to trust anymore…and did I mention tired? In the past, we may have had a perceived sense of being able to control things (we all know that there isn’t really such a thing) and lately, the ability to “control” anything seems to have gone down the drain. So why not take it out on others, right? I seriously believe this is one of the reasons for the rudeness.

What can we do about it?

I typically try and find the bright side, so I came up with a reframe around RUDE. If we are going to be RUDE, why not switch up to a new R.U.D.E. Here is what I came up with:

R—Resiliency and Respect. I had to have two R words. Resiliency keeps us in the game. It’s the piece of us that knows we will show up another day and make it better than the last. Respect is for ourselves and others. It matters.

U—Understanding. Maybe we can be a little more understanding of everyone’s circumstances. We all have something going on. This can go a long way to connecting with someone.

D—Dedicated. What would be possible if we dedicated more time to making ourselves and the world a better place. Too often we are busy criticizing and judging others. It starts with us. 

E—Encouraging. Who doesn’t need a little encouragement here and there? Encouragement brings out the best in people. We can even mentor each other into better lives and decisions through encouragement.

I’d love to hear some of your reframes around R.U.D.E. What if we normalized the new R.U.D.E.? I’d love to see it in action.