5 Lessons How To Treat People

And they never even touched on one really important lesson - Your personally written notes are always better than memes.

This chain has been around since as far back as 1998, and people are still being hoodwinked into spreading it!

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Meme: Five Lessons About the Way We Treat People

Ocean Elf: Not so much… More like, Five Ways To Yank People's Hearts To Get them Forwarding!

Meme: 1 – First Important Lesson – Cleaning Lady

Ocean Elf: also known as Dorothy… Yes, I like to reveal spoilers, not that this thing has much of a plot anyway.

Meme: During my second month of college, our professor Gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one:

Ocean Elf: You were so smart that you decided to make a chain letter about it, telling the rest of us how to be?

“Meme: What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?”

Ocean Elf: Who knows? C'mon, the students and the cleaning lady or janitor never see one another so why should they know her name? Does she know all of them by name? of course not. Just because she has a job as school janitor doesn't mean she's craving attention and wants her name up in lights.

Meme: Surely this was some kind of joke.

Ocean Elf: Coming from you, that's hardly surprising…

Meme: I had seen the Cleaning woman several times. She was tall, Dark-haired and in her 50′s, but how would I know her name?

Ocean Elf: If you say so… No, I don't buy it. I never ran into the school janitors, at least, not that I can remember. Teachers cleaned up messes we made or we did it ourselves if we could. The janitors came in to sweep etc after school hours. Sometimes there'd be plumming problems or big spillage out in a hall that was taken care of by staff, but how was I to know which staff? The mess was there when I went down the hall once, and ot there when I went back that way later on in the day.

Meme: I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade.

Ocean Elf: *Yawn*

Meme: “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say “hello.”

Ocean Elf: Oh, brother, another pompous, self-righteous chain professor trying to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, well, he's hitting a pretty sour note with me.

Meme: I’ve never forgotten that lesson.

Ocean Elf: Yes I'm sure you haven't, but now you think the world needs a chain letter lesson on learning people's names and smiling, oh, give me a picking' break!

Meme: I also learned her name was Dorothy.

Ocean Elf: well goody for you. Want some kind of award for that?

Meme: 2 – Second Important Lesson – Pickup in the Rain

Ocean Elf: *Bogus story snipped out* The Mrs. Nat King Cole story isn't true, not about her or Donald Trump or anyone else. Besides, if it really had happened, why would she sign a note that way? "Mrs. nat King Cole"? That version of the story assumes she's so lost and caught up in celebrity and her husband's identity that she's willing to shed her own for the sake of status and male dominance. "Look at me, I'm the wife of a big celebrity!" No, I'm pretty sure she would've signed her own name and probably not even mentioned being Nat King cole's wife. You just failed at trying to make yourself look super noble, important and nearly famous. You're just notorious…For telling big whoppers.

Meme: 3 – Third Important Lesson – Always Remember Those Who Serve

Ocean Elf: And always serve those who will remember you - wasn't this already covered in "lessons" 1 and 2 with the janitor and the fake Mrs. Nat King Cole? Please, give it a rest already!

Meme: In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less,

Ocean Elf: That could be any time, really, with prices always going up along with cost of living, wages etc. So when was this exactly?

Never. It didn't happen at all.

Meme: a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table.

Ocean Elf: Why? I mean, where are his parents? His siblings if he had any? His friends? A ten year old boy at a table all by himself in a hotel coffee shop, doesn't make much sense to me.

Meme: A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

Ocean Elf: And the plot boils but doesn't thicken.

Meme: “How much is an ice cream sundae?” he asked.

Ocean Elf: Kid, get a menu and read it…

Meme: “Fifty cents,” replied the waitress.

Ocean Elf: *Yawn*

Meme: The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it.

Ocean Elf: right, gotta make sure to put that "little" in there, and not just call him simply a "boy" to really up the emotional heart-yank, this kid is a perfect little boy who just wants a sundae, awww, how totally precious! *Gag*

“Meme: Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?” he inquired.

Ocean Elf: Right, poor little Precious ain't gots da money… *Rolling eyes* I can see where this is going. Somebody's gonna end up in tears, but it isn't gonna be me.

Meme: By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient.

Ocean Elf: usually there is more than just one waitress, oh, but this is a chain letter coffee shop where all the staff has to be numbered just so in order to make a perfectly dreadful sob story and "lesson" out of it…

So, what, just suddenly ZING! All these people file in out of nowhere, just like that as this kid is trying to order an ice cream? Like that's some sort of cue for the place to fill up with customers at lightning speed in order to heap the right amount of stress upon the one waitress so she'll snap? Yeah, that's got to be the game plan here.

The waitress could simply tell him the price and then say she'll be right back to take his order, and excuse herself from the table to wait on the crowd that suddenly came in. That's what's usually done. Oh, but then that would be too sensible and not make for a super cheesy chain glurge.

Meme: “Thirty-five cents,” she brusquely replied.

Ocean Elf: Dong, there it goes, she's just snapped at a kid, the big turning point of this chain. It won't be long now before little Precious does some sort of big reveal and one or both of them will end up having major water works…

Meme: The little boy again counted his coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said.

Ocean Elf: There it goes again with "the little boy" stuff. I'm really starting to detest this kid.

Meme: The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left.

Ocean Elf: *Yawn.*

Meme: When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table.

Ocean Elf: thought as much, there it goes, didn't I tell ya? Someone did end up in tears, just like I said they would. Seems to me this waitress has had an absolutely crappy day to suddenly fall apart.

Meme: There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, Were two nickels and five pennies..

Ocean Elf: Um okay, so this kid gave her a huge whopping 30% tip instead of ordering what he really wanted, even though she was a basket case, oh, brother! That's what I mean when pointing out how evil these annoying chain letter children are, always managing to somehow show up adults in these stupid chain stories, always managing to reduce adults to tears, both in the story as well as in the real world as forwarders weep and gush over these insidious kender.

Meme: You see, he couldn’t have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

Ocean Elf: Oh, c'mon, that kid's way too altruistic to be real. he's as phoney as a 35cent piece. You'll never convince me some ten-year-old boy is so saintly that he'll pass up a sundae for plain ice cream just to give a snarky waitress who yells at him a 30% tip! And what sort of kick do you get out of humiliating this waitress anyway? isn't it enough she's already getting a next to nothing for pay and having to deal with rotten customers, demanding boss, the whole bit, never mind what might be going on in her personal life, you inflict this incredibly odious guilt-tripping kid and his antics on her?

What was the lesson again? That we should all leave 30% tips because that's remembering service and we should all behave like this fake kid so we'll wrack up big brownie points or something?

Forget it. I'll go ahead and order my ice cream with the works on it, no tips from me if the server is grumpy, over-the-top fake happy happy joy joy, or flirty… Having said that, I also think it should be the establishment who pays the server a good wage…

A final note about this one - you can't sweeten chain letters with ice cream, and use it to hold my emotions. It ends rather badly as you can see here as well as in the following examples:

Babysitter Beatrice Jessica and Holly The Ice Cream Sundae Brat And The Red Mirror
Slow Dancing With Jessica Mystink Mydek, David Lackwit Lawitts, Tamara Shamara Martin, Rick Con Artist Connor, George and rachel Arlington Winslet

Meme: 4 – Fourth Important Lesson – The Obstacle in Our Path

Ocean Elf: Like the one I'm putting in your path to attempted chain letter immortality?

Meme: In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway.

Ocean Elf: Ancient times, when exactly? where? Which king? You know, for all your fuss about knowing people's names in the first story, you sure tossed that 'important' first lesson out the window fast, when you didn't need it any more. You only felt it 'important' to name Mrs. Nat King Cole in a tall tale you wove, and Dorothy the school janitor in story number one. Since then, you didn't give the little 10-year-old boy's or the waitress's names. And now this king. Why?

Meme: Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.

Ocean Elf: Okay, so this king 'had' he did not 'happen on' a boulder in the middle of a road. He had it deliberately placed there. why? Then he does the most logical thing imaginable, he hides and spies to see what other people do when they come to it? Yeah, right. He was hoping they'd try to remove it without seeking him out first to receive instruction? Oh, sure.

Meme: Some of the King’s wealthiest merchants and couriers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Ocean Elf: Well duh, perhaps that is because they were waiting for him to show up on the matter! He was their king, after all.

Meme: Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Ocean Elf: So this was basically a silly experiment put on by a king who had too much money and didn't know what to do with it. Well,

Meme: Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

Ocean Elf: Wrong. The king's experiment was contrived to test people. But if you go up on stage at a public performance and you have a mind-blank, how are you going to improve your condition if you can't remember your lines and do them flawlessly when you need to? Or what if you are an iron worker and the obstacle is wind conditions and you losing your footing. If you don't have some means of staying anchored to the structure, or by some ill luck the whole section you'r standing on, gives way, you're dead. Some obstacles are nothing more than things just waiting to worsen your condition.

But hopefully anyone who reads this smash will have their thinking condition improved and think twice about passing on the next chain letter to hit their screen.

Meme: 5 – Fifth Important Lesson – Giving When it Counts

Ocean Elf: And not giving until you're dead, or letting some kid believe he must give by letting himself get killed to save someone else.

The transfusion story isn't true either, and pretty sick IMO anyway. The idea of a kid expecting to sacrifice himself to save his little sister is repugnant. It's not really so much a case of altruism as this kid thinks he's expendable and his parents and the doctors are gluing to have him killed, but he's so incredibly 'brave' and fine with this because his sister's so much more important and loved that this kid has been lead to believe it is good and right for his parents to force him to throw away his own life to save hers. Any parent and doctor worth their salt should make it very clear that a blood transfusion is risky, but does not mean you drain yourself dry and will undoubtedly die in the process to save someone else, no child should ever be put in this position, either by actuality or by simply belief. So I rate this Chicken Soup story very high on the sickening scale.

Meme: Now you have choices.

Ocean Elf: Yeah, the choice not to follow your ultimatum which aims not to give me a choice at all. The choice to smash this chain instead of simply deleting in silence or forwarding it on.

Meme: 1 Delete this email, or 2. Forward it other people.

Ocean Elf: neither. 3. Smash it!

Meme: I hope that you will choose No. 2

Ocean Elf: of course you do, that's the whole point, really, but your hopes are being dashed right here and now…

Meme: and remember.

Ocean Elf: Oh, not with the remember bit again…

Meme: Most importantly....

Ocean Elf: 'important' 'important' 'important' 'important' 'important' 'importantly' you sure are stuck on artificial importance, and honestly, the most important thing to you is getting people passing on this not-so-important chain letter, which is full of bogus and sickly sappy stories, and in your self-important scheme, you forgot one truly important thing about how to treat people - that is honesty!

Meme: Live with no regrets,

Ocean Elf: Impossible. everybody makes mistakes so everybody has regrets because nobody's perfect and that's a fact.

Meme: Treat people the way you want to be treated,

Ocean Elf: Yeah yeah, the golden rule, I know………. Well, precisely. That is why I refuse to help manipulative chain letter originators with their odious schemes, whatever form they take, whatever emotional angle they use!

Meme: Work like you don't need the money,

Ocean Elf: What's that supposed to mean, do nothing? no thanks. and I do need the money and I do like my job, a lot, so don't tell me how to work.

Meme: Love like you've never been hurt,

Ocean Elf: No thanks, not possible, not practical. once you've been hurt, you should learn from that experience. you're not going to want to set yourself up to get hurt again. I'll stick to being careful about who I love and trust instead of ending up living a pathetic sad life getting used by everybody who's likely to take me for all I have. That's a way of guarding against a pile of regrets, you know.. But you'd rather I lived in this fantasy world, off on Planet Utopia, out of touch with my own emotions and the people around me, being all happy happy joy joy no matter what? No can-do… No will-do either. I'd be my own worst enemy, lying to myself if I did.

Meme: and Dance like you do when nobody's watching.

Ocean Elf: I do - when nobody's around to look… Or sometimes even when there are other people around, it all depends on my excitement level. But living life to the fullest, dancing etc. does not equal passing on this chain letter. Just a FYI.

Meme: NOW more than ever - Please... Pass It On...

Ocean Elf: No, not even your use of the magic word is going to do it. I do not give in to Nigerian princes who claim they need my help andI see the likes of you as among them… These ne'er-do-wells can use a lot of sob stories and pretty words to persuade people to do what they want, and you're no different, except that you're not trying to get me to fork over a fortune.

Meme: You never know how or when you'll be paid!

Ocean Elf: Yes well I'd rather make sure I'm not paid by having someone secretly hate me for being fool enough to spread this chain letter.

So don't hand me this important lessons via Chicken Soup For The Soul stuff, because this soul doesn't like that kind of chicken soup, and you might want to check the age of the chicken before brewing up another batch. This stuff's pretty rank.

Over - and - out…!