If your mom was anything like mine, she always reminded you to say “please” and “thank you.” My mother never gave me anything unless I asked politely.

I was taught to hold open doors for people behind me, pick up someone’s keys if they dropped them by me, and the other nice things people do day to day that make up the idea of “common courtesy.”

Apparently, some people’s mothers didn’t teach them this concept.

I have come to see even more profoundly in the last few weeks just how dead common courtesy is in America.

People cut each other off on the road daily — an action seemingly more prevalent in Phoenix than other areas of the country. Few people hold open business doors or offer you their shopping cart when you both reach for the same one. Even something as simple as saying “hello” when you pass someone in a parking lot is lost on many.

When I have waved a pedestrian across the street or allowed someone to go in front of me in line because they were actually there before me, they often seemed surprised.

It has come to be even worse with the advent of impersonal technology like e-mail. The other day I applied for several jobs that I found on the ASU job search Web site. They were off-campus jobs that were in the person’s home.

I e-mailed the respective employers, providing a resume and a brief, cheerful note in the body of the e-mail letting them know where I had found the position and a little about myself.

I signed the e-mail as I always do, “Best, Janne Gaub.”

The replies were startlingly terse. One simply said, “The position has been filled,” followed by the employer’s name. Others never bothered to reply at all.

At first, I thought maybe this was simply a misunderstanding that is common in e-mail. Tone and inflection is lost in electronic communication, so maybe the writer was simply a person of few words.

But then I decided that there was only one word for it: rude.

Is it honestly that difficult to start an e-mail with “Dear [insert name here]” or some other standard salutation? How hard is it to be polite and add “Thank you for your interest in the position” before adding that the position is filled?

Simply put, it isn’t. But it is a choice.

Common courtesy is a sign of a civil society. It demonstrates respect for each other and is a way to harmoniously live together. In some ways, “random acts of kindness” are a kind of common courtesy.

Have we really come to the point that we are no longer civil to one another? That would be a sad state for America indeed.

Let Janne know about your stories of common courtesy (or lack thereof) at janne.gaub@asu.edu.