Sermons and Confessions

I admit to being very intolerant of what I perceive as bad manners.  I’m probably quite old fashioned and no doubt overly sensitive but I get offended when a person behind the counter can’t even make eye contact or thank me for my custom.

It’s fast food outlets where this phenomenon strikes most.  I do understand that it’s probably pretty boring work, but on the other hand the only thing the job has going for it is that you get contact with lots of different people.  If you can’t even be bothered to make eye contact once throughout the course of the transaction you really are making your own life hard.

Today I was so frustrated with this behaviour that, at luchtime, when faced again with particularly poor service at the local “Ravenous Johns” (as known in the US as Meat Monarch) I asked the young man behind the counter “Don’t you have any manners?”  A pretty stupid question really and probably not very helpful to changing the long term situation, but it was just venting.

I think if I was the franchise owner of these restaurants I would be turning up unannounced and acting as a normal customer just to check the service level.

I know that Generation X  and Y don’t value manners the way that I do.  These restaurants are the first jobs for many gen x ers and as such owe them some responsibility to train them for entering the workforce where baby boomers will expect a certain amount of good manners.

I wonder the extent of mental illness in our community.  How many of the people that we come across day to day are actually suffering, diagnosed or otherwise? Of those people who annoy, shock, frighten or surprise us how many are just arse holes and how many have at least a partial excuse of being sick? Where’s the line between behaviour that can’t be helped and a tendancy to behaviour that is not controlled because the person either doesn’t care or won’t take their medication?

Mental illness must surely be one of the most frightening illnesses for both the sufferer and for those around them.  If you watch a friend suffering from cancer you, no doubt, grieve as you see the physical changes and the pain that your friend endures, but basically it’s still your friend.  If your friend has a mental illness it may be that a person who looks like your friend is now behaving in an embarrassing, dangerous or aggressive way.

 Thankfully my own experience is fairly limited.  Some years ago my younger brother, who also had an intellectual disability, had a phyciatric episode.  It was particularly stressful for my parents and to this day Dad in particular is very critical of the staff of the local mental hospital who had to restrain their “little boy who wouldn’t hurt anyone” because at that moment he was a 100kg man who was acting completly unpredictably and would have been quite frightening.

A collegue at work is having serious difficulty with a tenant who is behaving agressively and unreasonably.  She’s recently found out that he has bi-polar disorder.  Does this explain or excuse his behaviour?  I don’t know but it certainly wouldn’t be making the problem any easier to deal with.

What’s the answer?  I don’t have one.  I suspect like a lot of things it’s partially about money.  Are we as a community prepared to support people with mental illnesses who can not hold down work?  Are we prepared to pay higher taxes to fund more support, research and care for these people?  I suspect we’re probably not but at what cost?

I have tried this last week to really do a good job at work.  I put in the effort and got some answers to a couple of things that have been on the too hard basket.  I also did some things that I personally find very hard.  I told someone that I couldn’t deliver something and I asked my boss for feedback on my performance.  All in all it went pretty well.

There is just one incident I would like to rant on.  I’m doing a job for one particular person.  It involves testing and preparing for the implementation of a change.  I have been held up by not being able to get some answers from other parties.  My boss has also asked for these answers.  None forthcoming as yet.   On Friday I was told by this person that she really doesn’t want to wait.

Well I’m sure she doesn’t.  What does she think, I’m doing this for fun?  This woman is, externally, a very attractive person.  All the bits in the right places, almost model attractive.  Her attitude and lack of intelligence make her repulsive as far as I’m concerned.

I shall do my best to get this job done, but a real part of me wants to tell this bitch to get #$%^!

This is the problem with this department.  No one says - “good job”, but plenty of people are ready to say “you haven’t done this.”

One particular favourite of the commercial TV current affairs shows is the theme of politicians wages.  This week one of them is suggesting something about ‘could a politician live on $xxx’.  Something about the amount of money that a pensioner is getting.  I don’t know the merits of the story and I’m all for the needy in society getting more help.  What I object to is the suggestion that politicians are all out to rip off their electorates and the tax payer.

 Are we really suggesting that the leaders of Australia should be paid at the same level as as say a postal worker or (even worse) a school teacher.  We are expecting the best and brightest of our community to give up jobs that are paying huge amounts of money.  We want people who are intelligent, caring, perceptive and innovative.  Well business wants these people too.

One of the great risks we take if we pay our leaders poorly is that we will only attract those people driven by their egos or those seeking power, not for the greater good, but to advance their own needs. 

We get what we pay for, lets get the best leaders we can.