Has basic civism completely disappeared?

So today I'm back to ranting because of something that happened to me earlier. I'm in a elevator heading down from the 4th floor to the basement of the building I was in, since it is faster to get to my office from the basement. We hit the lobby, and of course people that don't pay attention head towards the elevator even though it's heading down. I typically let them know ahead of time "it's heading down" so they don't need to come in (delaying the process of the elevator going down, letting us leave and the go back up). So this idiot comes in saying "well, it will go back up", turns around and sees his buddy coming towards the elevator (even though he knows they're both going up, unlike the elevator). So what does he do? OF COURSE he decides to hold the elevator so his buddy can come in (further delaying me being able to reach my floor). Then another buddy of these 2 show up as the doors are closing so OF COURSE he decides to block the door again to let his other buddy get on it. Then ANOTHER buddy shows up and as he gets ready to block the door AGAIN I snapped asking him "could you fucking let the door close so I can reach the fucking basement!?". So he did, and I reached my floor a good time after I should have. Messed up part is that, had they not entered the elevator, we would have been out of it, and they could have all gone in as the elevator was heading the right direction, wasting less time for ALL of us, not to mention the people at other floors that were probably waiting for this ONE single elevator.

Unfortunately, this is a scene that happens way too often, with people being so concentrated in what THEY want, that they fail to pay attention to what makes sense. It is just like the typical scenario: "room full of people trying to get out, while a lot of people want to get in". In "common sense civic World", where I happen to reside, you WAIT until a room is empty before you walk in, thus avoiding a jam of people at the door, while allowing the room to have enough empty space to accommodate the new wave of people heading in. It is the most BASIC, LOGICAL approach. Yet, every day, in colleges, coffee shops, buses, trains, etc etc, people will just walk into a full room while people attempt to head out without even flinching. I just don't get it.

In a nutshell, be courteous to each other, if we could all be nicer to one another, maybe we wouldn't be in a World like the one we're in today. It's just common sense.

PS: And if you are one of those selfish $^&*)%*(&# then SHAME ON YOU!

The "let's meet up some day" Syndrome. (LMUSD Syndrome)

It has happened to all of us at one point or another, you see someone you haven't seen in a while and you utter the words "Let's meet up some day!", in that very moment you probably have the best intentions in the World to actually meet up with that person in the near future, heck, you're probably excited to see them and want to catch up, but what usually ends up happening is that the meeting will never happen.

So why am I bringing that up? Almost a year ago, four of my students stopped by my office as the semester was ending, we chatted for a while and realized we all play music. One of the students suggested we find some time to all jam together, to which we all agreed. I haven't played with a group of people in quite some time (and I really miss the feeling of it), so the idea of jamming with some students was actually a very cool idea to me. I've even been trying to convince other fellow faculty to join in some jam sessions. So what is the issue? That darn LMUSD Syndrome, the never-ending "let's jam some day"!

That was a long time ago, and no jamming has been done, and probably won't happen any time soon. I'm OK with that, though I'm pretty sure one of those students (which I have kindly nicknamed my personal stalker) will read this sooner than later. So to him I'd like to say "what the hell?! when are we jamming?!". To the rest of you, I'd like to give you an easy cure to LMUSD...

We live in a world where most people walk around with a personal computer in their pockets: their smartphone. In those devices, there are calendars, which are backed up "in the cloud" almost instantly. So next time someone suggest "LMUSD!" don't answer with "yeah! sounds great!". Pull your phone out and make them pick a date, agree on a day and time, and put it on both calendars, you'll be able to step away from there KNOWING that you will meet them again. And once that is done, STICK to your schedule, go see that person and reconnect, because personal connections are much more meaningful that empty words.