What I find more offensive than finger pointing is the idiot who can't be bothered to get off his phone and has his face buried in it every single time the action gets to him. That guy deserves a finger to the face imo.

Try using Google

"As a professional speaker, I am all too aware that simply pointing with the index finger at something or someone can be offensive in many cultures. It is considered a very rude thing to do in China, Japan, Indonesia, Latin America, and many other countries.

In Europe, it’s thought of as impolite, and in many African countries the index finger is used only for pointing at inanimate objects, never at people. It’s best to use an open hand with all your fingers together when you need to point at something or someone."

With respect to the service industry, I would have to agree that finger pointing is inappropriate. It's good business sense to implement policies to avoid offending people at little to no cost. As an individual I'm not willing to tread on eggshells around other people, but as a business it's often best to be overly politically correct.

I always remember dealers kind of opening their hand with cards in it and leaning your way to indicate action. I would imagine a dealer pointing at you would be awkward. Never really though about it though.

Some dealers indicate action by gesturing toward you, hand open, palm up. Pointing with one finger is at least more aggressive, and definitely does offend some people. I don't think it's important to argue about whether they are "right" to be offended; they are offended, and dealers should take this into consideration. I think most do.

Etiquette has nothing to do with rationality. Neither does your preference for the taste of a gourmet meal over the taste of nutritionally dense slop. Preferences are inherently irrational. This isn't a bad thing. A pointed finger is like calling a person "it." Is this irrational?? No, a person is in fact an object. But we don't call people objects because some people have acquired the preference to not be referred to in this way.

The thread has been split off. You can just, you know, read it.

Dude, what? No.

Both can be problems. What are you doing.

Conventionally many people would consider a hand (or even two fingers tapping the table in their direction) less aggressive than pointing a finger, yes.

Much like poker it's a game of probability. If 20% of the population finds finger pointing aggressive, 0.1% finds an open hand aggressive, and 0.01% finds wearing a blue shirt aggressive, those aren't really comparable.

Those people are incredibly rude. Employees of the house emulating their least considerate customers is a recipe for no more house and no more employees, so that's probably not a great comparison.

I don't think we can make "could someone be offended by this" the standard for whether or not to do something, because no matter what it is, someone, somewhere will be offended by it.

These ideas above are probably a more nuanced, but less definitive way to do it. Is some larger than X portion of my customer base likely to be offended by it? If so, don't do it.

Having said that, I am basically with rob on this one - I don't really care if you point or gesture at me, and I don't think most casino patrons do either, at least in the US. It seems silly that we are making such a huge deal about it here, because I think whether a player is losing or winning will have a much bigger impact on whether they get offended by anything a player or dealer does than this.

Having said THAT, if I know that someone is offended by it, or even suspect that there is a likelihood they might be, then of course I would try my best not to do it to them. That is manners, as well as good business.

Yeah, thanks. That's my point. But part of the problem is that we think of things as bright lines when they aren't bright lines.

We can probably all think of examples of marginal racial or ethnic epithets that are embraced and/or laughed at by some members of the group in question. Heck, in Brasil this sort of banter is 100% standard. Attempting to classify a behavior as objectively always offensive or always benign is -EV when much of the interpretation is socially constructed. (This is not to minimize or invalidate the existence of offense, just to say it's often a social construct. For example I'm not taking the stance that race-based jokes should or shouldn't be a big deal, just saying in some cultures they're much less of a big deal.)

Corporate America has a huge financial incentive to minimize the number of people taking offense at anything. Some people may be offended at everything, so there's no pleasing them, but once you get past that threshold to behaviors that have reasonable alternatives, you go with the least offensive alternative.

Imagine someone so touchy they feel annoyed every time the dealer tells them action is on them. There's probably no catering to that person. But other people would react better to two fingers tapping or an open hand, so may as well cater to them. It's a freeroll.

The fun parts come when some people are offended by X and others are offended by not-X.

Of course any etiquette book will tell you that pointing is considered rude. Like many rules of etiquette, there is often little explanation as to why. But the dislike of pointing is often a cultural thing, where it is considered much more offensive in some cultures than in others. Often simple hand gestures can be interpreted in many different ways. For instance, the Peace Symbol, index and middle fingers held erect; if you turn it around and show the back of your hand it is deeply offensive in some parts of Europe. The OK hand sign and the Thumbs Up hand sign are also held to be deeply offensive signals with sexual connotations in some cultures. And meanings can change over time; recently the OK hand sign has been co-opted by the White Supremacy movement, interpreted to mean Whites Only (3 fingers up for W, thumb and index make the O.)

But we are talking specifically about pointing with your finger. The bias against pointing with your finger has deep cultural roots dating back to ancient times, when a pointed finger could be used to bring down and administer a hex. The pointed finger could also be used to direct the Evil Eye. We can scoff at this now but these were deeply held beliefs for generations, which still permeate some cultures today.

Pointing also stigmatizes the target. The indicative gesture assigns blame. You Point Out problems. You Point the Finger at the one who is to blame. As the author Raymond Tallis said in his book Michelangelo’s Finger:

Why is it so rude to point at someone, even if the action is not meant to be cruel or demeaning, is not accompanied by laughter, even when the pointing finger is not guiding jeers to their target, allocating blame, picking us out of a reluctant crowd for some unpleasant, dangerous, or humiliating task? It is because the pointing finger prods at a vulnerability we all share. We are skewered on the attention of another person and any others to whom the pointing is also addressed. ... Pointing, in virtue of co-opting other consciousnesses, intensifies the sense we all have at times of being known and yet not-known—of being ‘mis-known’, of helpless exposure to uncomprehending eyes that imagine they comprehend us.

I'm explaining how you are making invalid arguments. What are you doing?

You guys make sure that you're not putting your elbows on the table, that you use the proper fork for your salad, and that you not wear white after labor day. I'm going to continue not doing anything that would offend a rational person and not worrying about what might offend the non-rational.

Yeah, don't poke my eye out please.

You would be fine with an open hand obviously pointed at you?

Lots of cultural norms and etiquette rules are completely arbitrary, and not "rational" in the sense of making any real difference if they are followed or not. But if your living as a dealer partially depended on not offending your customers/players, you would be wise (and kind) to be sensitive to what does and doesn't offend many of them, rational or not.

The point (closed fist, extended finger) is confrontational. The open palm is welcoming. This is Body Language 101.

In our next episode....

"There's no rational reason why people should react poorly when the dealer does this:






And anyway, even if there is some evolutionary explanation relating facial contortion to distress or threat, that no longer applies. So why do dealers get written up for making that face when they sit down in the box? It's irrational!"

Only poker players could argue this extensively over finger pointing, holy f***.

I already said that for service industry people I understand their doing things like that. But people kept telling me I needed to follow the silly rules as well, or else risk not being a "decent person".

Really?

Don't be disingenuous. What could be more welcoming than a man wanting to give me a High-Five?

Not being disingenuous. That picture represents well what I have been picturing as the alternative to pointing with your finger.

Well, I've been at tables where the dealer indicated action by gesturing with an extended arm, palm up, at table level towards the player. I've also seen floor people or others indicate direction in a similar fashion to pointing, but with an open hand extended rather than a finger. I do not visualize those actions as a burly threatening man putting up his hand in a stop sign (or for a High-Five,) but whatever. If you do, then you be you.

edit: Actually you should go look up disingenuous. I'm not sure you know what it means, it might be one of those words you think you know but don't. Although to be fair, if this is the image you get every time someone references pointing versus gesturing with an open hand, that would explain some of your posts.

Yes, that represents it to me. And as I said, I wouldn't want either a finger or an open hand put directly in my face.

Intention is the entire point of communication.

You're taking an abstract thought in your mind, turning it into words and actions, which in turn get turned into a thought in someone else's mind.

If the thought in their mind doesn't match the thought in your mind, then communication has failed. Words have meaning - semantic meaning and historical meaning. Actions have meaning - literal and interpretative. If you use certain words or certain actions and someone misinterprets them, you have failed in your attempt at communicating.

Maybe a Brit asked you how many chips and you accidentally gave him the British middle finger when you answered "two." These things happen. But what is more offensive than the inadvertent gesture is the indignation and "snowflake" accusations, because you are then conveying exactly what your intentions are: "I don't give a **** about your feelings."

If you want to be a good customer service provider - or a fully functioning member of society for that matter - you'll have to learn how to recognize when people are offended and apologize quickly.

And you can make fun of all the precious libtard snowflakes in the break room if you really need to vent.