Hi, readers! I hope you've all enjoyed your week, and if, like me, you have no class on Fridays, you're looking forward to your day off today. My topic for this week is a matter of common courtesy. I'm referring to holding doors. Not just holding doors, though, but thanking someone else when they hold a door open for you.
This may not seem like a huge deal, but once you start noticing it around campus, I assure you that you won't be able to stop. There have only been a few occasions when I've held a door open for someone — or a group of people even — and that person has thanked me for holding the door. No, this doesn't mean holding the door only for old people, professors or someone carrying a large and heavy-looking box. I'm talking about holding the door for the person behind you, or the person coming through the door in front of you, or pretty much anyone about to move through the door you've just opened. It doesn't take a whole lot of time to nicely hold a door, and if you really have to be somewhere, you can always pass the door-holding duties to the person behind you — if you're holding the door for a large group. Just don't abruptly leave and slam the door on someone as they're walking through.
It seems like the words "please" and "thank you" have nearly vanished from use in today's society. I'd also be inclined to add "you're welcome" to that list. As a child, I didn't get anything I asked for unless I used the "magic word" — also known as "please." Are people not teaching their kids manners anymore? Or are we just deciding, now that we're in college, that we've outgrown the use of "please" and "thank you?" You're never too old to be polite, and when someone holds the door for you it's just plain nice to say thanks. Likewise, when you happen to be holding the door for someone and they thank you, it's also polite to say "you're welcome." Passing through doors these days is largely a silent matter, devoid of polite exchanges between door-going people.
I'd like to challenge everyone on campus to be more polite when they hold doors and to appropriately use the words I've listed above. I'll try to keep an eye out to see if campus politeness, relating to doors, has increased or — dare I say it — decreased after this article is published. Hopefully, I'll be seeing the former.
I'd also like to make sure I give attention to those people who sometimes get into a zone while they're walking and fail to really notice that anyone is behind them when they open a door. Obviously if someone is a few feet behind you, you have no real excuse not to notice them — you're basically slamming the door you just opened into their face if you don't make at least some effort to hold it. If they're reasonably far away, though, I'll cut you some slack. It's always polite to wait a minute and hold the door for that person walking at an awkward distance behind you, but if you're late for class or have some other obligation, you might not be able to take those extra seconds away from your walking time.
And just remember, if you hold the door for someone and they neglect to thank you, it is always acceptable to loudly yell "you're welcome" for all in the surrounding area to hear.
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Kacey Rayder is a junior majoring in English. She can be reached at Kacey.Rayder@tufts.edu.
