I stopped saying 'bless you' after sneezes for a month to see what would happen
I work in an open office in Austin, and I just quietly stopped acknowledging sneezes (you know, like a normal Tuesday). After about three days, a coworker actually asked if I was mad at him. The weird part was, by week two, two other people in my section had unconsciously stopped saying it too. It made me wonder if we're upholding these tiny norms just because everyone else does, or if there's a real social glue there. Has anyone else tried dropping a small, automatic politeness ritual and seen it spread?