28

Mar

Your Parents Weren’t Makers of Glass…

It was a lovely summer’s day in Sydney’s Chinatown.

There was a gentle breeze blowing through sounds of touristy chatter and giggles. Pigeons were gathering on the pavement, and in a rare moment, the few people buzzing about, mere metres above, didn’t seem too bothered by their presence.

I was enjoying this view of an afternoon moment in the city… until, suddenly, a woman’s head and torso appeared before me.

I stared, somewhat in amazement. Had she simply and suddenly morphed at my table from molecular particles – as per in a science fiction film…??

Was it connected to the rest of a body??

The confusion cleared as I realised this indeed appeared to be a grandmother taking a child out for a stroll in a pram. And the spare seat opposite me…despite the abundant availability of alternative seating…had proved too tempting to ignore.

She hadn’t shifted to the left or right either… It was as if this lady had planned the co-ordinates of her landing – as skilfully and swiftly as any Boeing pilot – to navigate directly into the centre of my point of view.

Almost literally. If she had only asked for my point of view, I pondered, I would have gladly given it.

With her back turned to me and a sour and sulky expression on her face, I decided the only real way I could tell this story for the education of others was through a photograph – which, I confess, I took shamelessly and with some indulgence.

When one wants others to notice them, the best and most polite way is to:

  • face them, first and foremostly
  • and approach them with a smile and greeting

Always, always consider your surrounding environment before you plonk yourself down for a rest…and if in dire need of advancing directly into someone else’s space, smile AND make eye contact.

  • Image

12 years ago Short URL

//////

02

Mar

Let Us Give Thanks…

A friend recently asked me to tackle this topic on her sister’s behalf  –  the thank-you note.

It would seem that this humble petite gesture of the past is fast becoming as endangered as the Siberian tiger.

In days of old, the thank-you note could be seen winging its way to many a household across many a socio-economic class after many a scenario – from trimming old Mrs McGarrity’s hedges to having the neighbours over for a baked dinner.

Nowadays, it’s a wonder if anyone knows what the dear little thing once looked like.

So let’s start with that, shall we?

The thank-you note was first and foremostly a tangible object. Not one megapixel to be found. It was handwritten … on something similar to what we put in our printers of today – notepaper. However, the quality of the notepaper also was significant in representing the level of respect held for the recipient.

Without question, one would use one’s best notepaper for the most gracious of thank-you notes.

Next, the thank-you note would begin with the word ‘Dear’, because well, the recipient was usually someone we held dear – or at least hoped to hold dear sentiment towards. Whether the writer was on a first-name basis or using a titular reference in person with the recipient would determine, of course, what followed the ‘Dear’.

Simplicity was always the beauty of the affair and the thank-you note was – in all of its omnipresence – a creature comprised of a carefully assigned mix of words and sentiment. Oh, and of the most reverent importance was the inclusion of the actual deed that was worthy of platitude – you know, in case the recipient was confused as to what he or she was being thanked for.

The writer could then choose to use the ubiquitous ‘Sincerely’ in signing-off or perhaps the slightly more casual ‘With warmest wishes’ or ‘Your _____(friend, neighbour, confidante, mistress, gigolo…)”

And there you have it. The Thank-You Note. Embellish or personalise at your whim.

I’d like to see the return of the TYN. I’m sure a lot of people would agree – if they only knew what one was and how easy it would be to save and sustain for future generations.

Modern times could certainly see a much more secure and streamlined future for the Thank-You Note – one that ensured its survival through the immediacy of email and the Internet.

To suggest however alternative forms of ‘sending’ the written word – such as text messaging, Facebooking or even Tweeting thanks – is a personal choice in a world of decision-making and freedom of choice – one that would ultimately require a whole new cyber-universe for debate.

Thanks for reading!!

12 years ago Short URL

////

02

Mar

Service With a Snarl: The importance of being eye-nest…

How often has this happened to you?
Picture this – you’ve entered a shop and, it soon becomes evident, a lively conversation between its staff.
They stop only to stare at you, before continuing on with their monotonous littany including the inevitable Oh-My-Gods, He-Didn’t!s, and of course, the And-Then-She-Saids.

This morning’s incident occurred in what some Australians affectionately know as ‘fair dinkum bargain stores’. Others sometimes refer to them as ‘dollar shops’ as the humble dollar can yield much inside their doors.

The staffer in question, to my gratitude,  bucked all stereotypes by being male, loudly bitching about an incident with colleagues to clearly more than those few co-workers in his immediate presence. It was quite a sight to behold.

Bundles of minutes passed. Soon it was a good quarter of an hour and this aisle-bound confessional was by now much more than momentary gossip –  it was annoying!! But before I could move, a woman with a pram approached the staffer in question – with a question. His barrage stopped abruptly.

“Sorry to interrupt you, but excuse me, could I ask you a question?” she quizzed.

I was hoping – no, expecting the next line to be assertive with a twist of sarcasm. However, what followed was merely a fluffy, practically apologetic query about the location of makeup cotton pads on sale.

Our salesman answered hurriedly – with the merest of a glance to his customer – only to turn back to his colleagues and continue with his epic tale. Meanwhile his pram-pushing customer presumably continued on her search for makeup pads.

Once upon a time, we humans were taught that the two greatest things to possess when entering a room were eye contact and a smile.

I still try to carry these little words with me wherever I go –  whether it’s the local supermarket or the most formal of functions.

Whether or not you are the customer or staff, it’s important that we don’t lose these most personal of forms of communications in the world.

Eye contact lets the recipient know that you see and hear them.

Couple it together with a smile and you’ve got access to one of the most powerful duets in history.

In this ever-growing world of ours, it can only help to let people know that they still exist.

12 years ago Short URL

///////

02

Mar

It’s Just a Jump to the Left: Etiquette for Escalators and Straight Lines

What’s grey, regularly crowded and is capable of putting momentary fear into the eyes of all kids – big and small?

The humble escalator can be construed as a metaphor for the road of life.

You want to get to the next level? Life’s tough. There’s no time for fear.
You step on. Ah, but where to stand?

Or do you, as a great Aussie band once churned, just keep walking?

In Australia, the ‘keep left, unless overtaking’ rule is one that is generally accepted but unfortunately
blissfully ignored on the road, on escalators, and pretty much wherever there is a straight line stretching out ahead.

Depending on where you’ve come from in the world, this may come as naturally as eating or sleeping – or it could feel as unnatural as riding a bicycle backwards.
The trick is to keep calm and remain courteous at all times with those who may come to our land from other countries and cultures where queues are a cue to move right.

The question of demographic division further complicates the issue.

Francis of Pyrmont recently wrote to me of an incident in which he suddenly found himself in a social stand-off almost worthy of the days of the wild, wild West.

“It was a narrow laneway – blocked even further by a construction site and these two ladies were walking towards me, side by side, with two big prams. I stopped. They stopped. They stared. And then, suddenly, one said to me, ‘I think the phrase you’re looking for is ‘Excuse me…’ Fair enough if I was on the right side of the path or trying to push my way past – but I was on the left!”

I’ve heard of serious scuttles caused by smaller confrontations. In this situation, as with bicycles on busy roadways, it must be said that it is quite inconsiderate to opt for the steamroller strategy – especially with all the confidence that comes with travelling in numbers.

Travelling two-or-more-abreast in any form is an option that can never be simply taken for granted in an everexpanding city such as Sydney.

Look left, look right but most importantly, look ahead and make a conscious, community-driven decision on where you stand – not only on escalators and footpaths – but also in life.

12 years ago Short URL

////////

02

Mar

To test or not to test – that is the question…

There she stood, beside the checkout at the local greengrocer’s.
Plunging her hands up to the wrists into a big foam box of fresh black olives on sale.

Someone’s Nanna. Someone’s Mum. Someone’s ‘best cook in the world.’

I watched with intrigue. Discreetly.
But interest soon turned to disgust as she proceeded to squish one of the olives between her fingers.
She momentarily stared at the mush, and then calmly, carefully and deliberately pushed it through the remaining olives and into the bottom of the box.
Then, with merely a glance left and right, she was gone – presumably to see what else she could squish or squash.
It is one thing to test a product before purchase, but it is an entirely different matter when that product is produce.
The most disgraceful part of this story was that in Madame Consumer’s seemingly important quest for the perfect olive, she quite openly contaminated the remaining contents of the box for other prospective buyers.

There have been too many stories on too many current affairs programs on this very subject.
But surely, I can hear some of you chime, the customer has a commerce-given right to try before he or she buys??
Good point.
However, I suspect there might be more than a few greengrocers out there who can offer a distinctive counter-cry on the rights of the seller.
There is a solution. And the good news is that it can be summed up in one word – ASK.
Ask for permission to “try” the produce. Ask the staff. Ask the supervisor. Ask the manager. Ask whoever is around.

And if, for some reason, you feel that you can’t… well, I think you have your answer anyway.

12 years ago Short URL

//////

02

Mar

A Spoonful of Sugar…

“For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun – find the fun and snap! The job’s a game…” (Mary Poppins, 1964)”For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun – find the fun and snap! The job’s a game…” (Mary Poppins, 1964)

A certain world-famous nanny, who was practically perfect in every single way, once trilled something about a spoonful of sugar doing the most magical things.
Household chores simply did themselves. Birds sang on windowsills.
In other words, a positive attitude could make all the difference to the dullest of tasks or days (but somehow, I don’t think this song would’ve been as snappy.)

For some, dining out for breakfast in a cafe on weekends in Sydney is a real treat, and especially cherished when shared with interstate visitors.

Last weekend, I eagerly led the way with my party of three to a cafe in Marrickville for this very purpose. It didn’t look particularly busy – the perfect place to catch up.

And so in the doorway we hovered, waiting for one of three waitresses – less than three metres away, giggling and apparently all assigned to put away cutlery – to look up.

Bingo. Houston, we had eye contact – with one then the others. Somewhere, the ticking of a clock echoed through time. Crickets may have also been chirping.

I decided to choose our own table.

Minutes melted away. Eventually, one of the waitresses managed to find her way to our table and then very literally slapped down four cumbersomely oversized menus with four equally unmanageable wine lists onto the edge of the table.

With a scowl and a sigh, she spat,”I’ll have to come back because there’s too many of youse…”
Noticing the stunned silence, she added the disclaimer: “..in the nicest way.”

And off she buzzed, leaving us to ponder on the surely multitudinous ways that the statement could be taken at its “nicest.”

After 10 minutes of waiting for our nicest possible waitress to return, I tried in vain to hail her down in order to return the bulky breakfast wine lists and hopefully make an order before evening.

A middle-aged woman standing behind the register glanced over with neither a smile, nor evidently, interest, and just as swiftly, looked away.

At this moment, we decided to leave. We took our business only metres down the road but, as it turned out, to another galaxy in terms of smart business practice.

We were greeted at the door, and again behind the counter, by friendly, smiling faces. Menus were handed out individually, with witty smalltalk about the day-so-far on the side, followed by enthusiastic recommendations of blackboard specials.

It was the spoonful of sugar that had been missing. We were even thanked for our business when it was time to pay the bill.

You may not love your job. You may not even like it. But no matter what it is, there’s the whole world at your feet and who gets to see it but the birds, the stars and the chimney sweeps.

12 years ago Short URL

////

02

Mar

In Your Own Private Universe…

I miss manners in the world…
Good manners. Commonsense. Etiquette.
No matter what you call it, the concept of a social rulebook seems to be fading fast in today’s society.
Once upon a time, we were taught from an early age how to chew with a closed mouths; how to discreetly use a handkerchief or tissue; how to write a letter, or start a conversation.
The times are a-changing – but that doesn’t mean we must lose all connection to centuries of lessons in how to live, together, on the planet.
Murray of Tempe agrees. He writes of sitting on the bus the other day, minding his own business, when his eye was caught by some rapid movement from the woman in the seat opposite – she was filing her fingernails!! Ferociously.
Personal grooming – of any form – should be just that. Personal. Conducted in private. One wouldn’t wax or pluck one’s eyebrows on a bus and neither should one be grinding their nails away into dust in such a shared space.
I have even watched in stunned silence as friends have become visibly obsessed with picking at whatever is underneath their nails whilst in my company.
Similarly, flossing the teeth, using a toothpick, cleaning cuticles, poking in and around the ear canal and, an ashamedly increasing trend – picking one’s nose in public – are all human habits that are best undertaken in the privacy of your home.
And while on this note:
Earlier this week, I witnessed a delivery man very loudly and shamelessly gather phlegm in his mouth outside a cafe and then melodramatically direct it into the nearest bin before a small but horrified audience.
The city’s garbage bins, and streets for that matter, are not personal spittoons.
At the end of the day, it’s merely another form of littering in an increasingly polluted world.  Use a tissue or find some other, less publicly obnoxious way of marking your turf.

12 years ago Short URL

//////

02

Mar

Respondez S’il Vous Wait

Nathan was perplexed.

He’d organised his birthday party a month in advance, eagerly sending out individual invitations to more than a dozen friends from across the years via his Facebook page.

A week before the event, plenty had commented but more than a few had responded with a “Maybe”, despite the presence of a prominent ‘RSVP’ within the p-a-g-e.

He then used the social network’s ‘reminder’ function, to, well, remind his nearest and dearest of the forthcoming event.

A day before, with his mobile phone glowing, he decided to text a few of those he had considered in his closest circle. The silence that followed was deafening.

“I hadn’t issued out a general group invite,” writes Nathan.
“I’d only wanted to celebrate my birthday at the pub surrounded by my mates – mates, I might add, whose parties I’d often dragged myself out of the house on cold and rainy nights to attend.”

The RSVP was once as much a must-have for a special outing or occasion as a new outfit and a social status.

It spoke volumes of the good breeding of the Invited and also served as a way for the Inviter to keep a tally on numbers and gauge just how many devils-on-horseback to whip up.

Today’s Facebook invites have an added benefit of letting the Invited know just who will be in attendance.

No longer are Inviters bothered with those tedious phone calls in the busy lead-up to the event to find out “who’s coming” or if Rachel will be there because, of course, she’s had a falling out with Jenny ever since that day when Tom was seen at the races with her.

Facebook has indeed changed the world of the party invite.

But there is one big pitfall to this easier, more open world of who’s in and who’s out – and I call it the Respondez S’il Vous Wait.

The Invited can and often do now choose to hold off on their RSVP to an event – for a variety of reasons – thanks to Facebook’s Maybe button.

The RSVW may simply be due to rotating work rosters and an inability to confirm their availability on the night.

Or, more sinisterly, it’s an opportunity to R-S-V-Wait-and-See who else is attending, or even if there is a better offer coming in the cyber-pipeline.

Whatever the case, it’s simply not good form to adopt this approach.

If you’re available, make a decision.

There’s far too many Maybes in the world. Be a Yes or a No and pick a side.

As for Nathan’s Maybes out there, I think it’s safe to say you can expect a RSVW at your next event.

12 years ago Short URL

///////

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.