Ever since I can remember, my family has always told me to respect my elders. I always thought that I should do so no matter if they were rude to me. But while I was in middle school my whole perspective changed. Going into middle school I thought it would be fun, but half of my teachers were really mean, but I got through 6th grade with the help of my new friends. Moving onto 7th grade my teachers were rude and just plain bitter. I later learned that if I respect you still won’t give me any respect.

My family loves to say, “Respect your elders”, but what about “Elders respect the young ins”, for some of us we get emotional very fast. Teachers and older people shout and some of us get offended. And for some they don’t care and will go off on you. For example, I work at a Dairy Queen on the weekends. Yesterday (3/15/21) I was working in drive through. The person taking the orders got this old mans order wrong. I said to him “Hi! Do you have a regular fry and 2 medium blizzards?” He immediately became hostile and replied, “I didn’t ******* order that, why would I ******* need that”? He was so rude. After he left, I started thinking about that situation. Older people feel like we owe them respect, but shout at us angrily for something that wasn’t even my fault. Another incident like this happened a couple months ago. I was taking order through a headset. I politely greeted the customer at the speaker, and they started talking. I was having trouble hearing them which no problem is. I calmly told the man, “If you can please speak into the second
speaker, I am having trouble hearing you,” He didn’t move, so I looked out the window and there was plenty space in front of him. He continued with his order, but all I could hear is mumbling. Since my coworkers, or I couldn’t hear him, I asked him to move to the window and we could better assist him there”. As he moved to the window, I heard him call us idiots and came out of the window.

Now I encountered another customer who is so sweet. Whenever he comes, he always orders 2 large hot fudge sundaes, for him and his wife. And asks for his ice cream, change, and receipt in a brown paper bag. A couple
times he has came and only ordered 1 sundae, I had to ask him if that’s what he wanted and he said with a smile on his face, that his wife cancelled on him this time. Now if every customer could be like him, my life would be so much easier.

Adults don’t realize that we are humans as well. And if the roles we reversed it would be a completely different situation. Older generations have taught their children to respect their elders butwhat is respect if we don’t get any back. Don’t they know you get what you receive?