(Un)Common Courtesy – I Know It When I See It
- Post By: Greg Crumpton
- Date:
- Category: Blog
My wife and I have lived in the same condo, in the same building, and have had the same next-door neighbors, for the last seven and a half years. Joe and Debbie, not their real names, have been very good neighbors over the years. They both travel a lot and we seldom see them, but when we do it’s always nice to catch up on what has happened since our last visit.
Common Courtesy
A few months ago Joe told me that they had decided to put their condo on the market and that they were moving to Atlanta to be closer to Debbie’s work. After the realtor had the opportunity to bring people through, they settled on a deal with a gentleman named Fred, no, not his real name either, but a really nice guy. We are excited to welcome Fred into the building and our small little community of 20 condos.
So, now you sit here having read the two paragraphs above wondering what the heck all this is about. It’s about what I witnessed during the transition of ownership from my next-door neighbor, Joe, to Fred over the last couple of weeks.
The first thing that really struck me, although I shouldn’t have been surprised, was the care and courtesy that Joe and Debbie, as well as their movers, showed on the way out with all their belongings. When you live in a building with common areas it’s very easy to take for granted that someone else will clean up your mess. This wasn’t the case with Joe and Debbie. They took great pains to ensure that all the debris from the moving process was cleaned up in a timely fashion and the building was left as it should have been. That is very uncommon in this day and age. It was very much appreciated.
So then fast forward three weeks and Fred moves into the building. Again things are handled very well, and you could hardly tell any activity was going on due to the way that Fred and his hired guns cleaned and took care of issues as they came up. Not very sexy, but really nice to see in an age where the entitlement mentality runs rampant.
Now for the cool part. Last Friday morning I was loading up my “stuff” into my truck, getting ready to go to work, and that’s when I saw Joe and Fred walk out of the building together. Fred has his briefcase and all the things that he would need for the day, just like any ordinary homeowner, then there was Joe with an overnight suitcase. I asked Joe, “Did you stay with Fred last night at your old house?” “Yes,” was the answer.
To think in this day and age that someone who had just purchased a home could actually be courteous enough to extend an overnight stay to the seller, really hit me in the heart… in a great way.
Witnessing this gives me hope that there are many more situations out there like this happening every day, that I am completely unaware of.
Courtesy is something that you learn at your parents knee, but you have to pick up the ball and run with it as an adult. Joe and Fred’s parents did a great job.
Their behavior is my new benchmark of courtesy.
