Apollo45 said:
Well, some of the people were decent, but I have never met ruder employees of restaurants, toll booths, the police, even the fire department and EMTs are just plain annoying.
I'll admit, the people I got to know ended up being relatively nice, but it's how you treat strangers that really tells you what kind of person you are. Making a pregnant woman cry for no reason other than to watch her cry (I'll throw another quote here, said to a native of the state at the DMV; "Ma'am, this is New Jersey. You bend over and take it or get out.") is not something a nice person does to someone else. Ever.
Again, strangers. "It's a dog eat dog world" may as well be our unofficial state motto.
IDK, I think the way you treat strangers says little. A lot of it comes down to societal expectations. In a lot of the country you're expected to smile and wave, regardless of your actual feelings.
NJ consistently ranks very low on suicide rates, so we're doing something right when it comes to how we treat each other.