Are you really sorry?

When you hear the phrase, ‘I hate to do this to you, but…’ you know the next words are going to be something you will not like.

There really is nothing like being told you have to move because someone more important than you is being employed and they need to sit in ‘that’ seat because they are a permanent member of staff and you, well, you’re just a contractor, to make you feel welcome.

The rumblings of movement had started on Tuesday when I was asked, ‘I hate to do this to you, but …is this your permanently assigned desk?’

‘As far as I’ve been told yes, at least until your department moves to xxx at the end of July and then the team I work with will be resettled together.’

Of course that wasn’t the first thing that went through my head. The first thing was more like – If you really hated to do it, you wouldn’t, but you’re going to anyway because really you have no feelings on the issue except to get what you want.

‘Oh, I have a permanent employee starting next week, you need to move.’

‘In that case you’ll need to speak with A. to discuss seating arrangements.’ I said.

I had to pack up the contents of the desk on Friday and shove my belongings into a cupboard.

***

Why do people say sorry for things they really aren’t sorry for?

It’s a word that is losing its meaning through over and incorrect use. If you let the door close on someone on purpose, don’t say sorry, say, ‘I’m an ignorant arse.’ If on the other hand you genuinely didn’t see the people directly behind you, apologise.

When you push in the queue, don’t speak the word of apology as you jump in front of others, say it like it really is, ‘I really do believe that my time is more valuable than yours, so I’m not waiting’.

Everyone knows what you’re thinking, so please speak the truth and stop devaluing the sorry word.

***

Today I have been moved on twice. I will be ‘hot-desking’ for at least 30 days. It’s going to be so much fun because I’ll meet people I’ve never met before when they see me sat at their desk and ask, ‘Why are you sitting here?’

I won’t be apologising, I’ll be speaking the truth. ‘I’m sitting here because there is nowhere else for me to sit and for some reason I’m not allowed t work at home.’

Street Walker

I’ve come to the conclusion that the human race can be a pretty unhelpful bunch, but I also like that they can be nice too.

I know this, because I have days the same, but I have recognised this in myself and have developed ways to say, ‘Thanks, but bugger off’, without actually saying it.

As a way to develop my photography skills I do unpaid work for a website called Fashion Studio. This involves me going out onto the streets of Sydney and looking at fashion trends. Unfortunately, due to privacy laws, I have to seek permission before taking pictures. This is a shame for a few reasons;

1. Often the best fashionista is having a bad hair/bad handbag/bad ‘breakout’ day. This usually means they look fabulous and to mere mortals they appear to have nothing wrong or out of place on their perfectly quaffed head.
2. They are in a hurry. This is usually a the person mentioned above who has until the moment you approach them been gliding along with ethereal grace, clearly in no hurry to get to their destination.
3. They completely ignore you. Politely, you say, ‘excuse me.’ They pretend they haven’t heard, I like being ignored, it’s gives me such a happy joy-joy feeling.
4. They tell you to ‘f*** off’. This is always very pleasant and will often issue before I’ve even said ‘Excus...
5. They say, ‘would you mind if I said no?’ Pretty hard to argue with. I tried once, I replied with, ‘Yes, I would, terribly.’ She was a number 1, she looked stunning, but she still said no, I let her go.
6. They try to pose, it never looks natural.

This is how I approach.

‘Excuse me, my name if is Jodie and I’m a fashion photographer.’ If this get one of the responses from above, I start looking for the next desirable. If they stop, I know I’m in with a 70/30 chance of getting a picture.

I go on to explain. ‘I work for Fashion Studio, an online magazine that looks at how catwalk fashion translate to street wear. Today we’re looking at xyz and I could help but notice your stunning/fabulous/amazing xyz’.

A lot are flattered, as they should be, some not so, and decline in a variety of ways

They will then ask, ‘Do I just stand here?’ So I’ll suggest a twist of the hip and look at the camera. They like that it slims them down, I like that it naturally get them putting their best foot forward (good for nice shoes) and get them to relax and maybe giggle a bit. Occasionally this doesn’t work and the full length shot looks awful, in that case I’ll take a waist up shot.

After the picture has been taken I give them a sheet that contains details of the site, my name and a URL of the site and tell them they can view their picture in the next couple of days. They go away smiling, enjoying the moment of spontaneity.

Personally if I was approached by a ‘fashion photographer’ and told what I was wearing was the height of fashion, I’d be happy to pose. The whole process that about 3 minutes. I’m not selling anything and not getting you sign up to support a charity with a regular monthly withdrawal of funds. What I notice is, that a lot of people will not even take the time to find out.

If I have the info sheet visible at ‘Excuse me’ I get a higher rate of Number 4, than if I highlight the camera, then bring out the info. Paper = selling in people’s minds.

This is not the first time I have had to solicit. I’ve done market research, I canvassed for the Alpaca Association and recently I’ve started doing voluntary work for an animal welfare group. Never selling, always offering information or offering something for free. So I’ve been on the receiving end of the general public’s wrath for a number of causes, so while I expect abuse of varying degrees, I’m still not used to it. I have learnt not to behave in a rude manner, I either do not make eye contact (the first rule of selling stuff) or I politely decline. If it’s charity, I explain I have my list of five each year and I review at Christmas. Happy to take a leaflet. Of course I do donate to charity, but it’s an ad-hoc thing and it’s rarely the big charities that spend hundreds of thousands on paying backpackers in Martin Place. Often, it’ll just be someone asking directions.

So please give this some thought next time you are approached by a stranger on a busy street.

Ask not what you can do for them, but what they can do for you.

In my case, you might just get a few minutes of fame.

PS. Thank you to the 16 lovely ladies that said 'Yes, I'd love too' today, two of whom are about.

Manners

I think I've written about this before, but I think I need to again because it's something that continues to vex me.

Manners seem to be dying and to the detriment of society.

I know it may be an old fashioned point of view and suddenly I've turned into my grandmother with her 'youth of today' attitude, but it's not just the youth of today that this is decay is affecting. It's everyone.

Train travel: as a frequent user I see how the lack of simple please, thank you and excuse me affects the blood pressure of many travellers. When you wish to exit a packed afternoon commuter tube, 'excuse me' would be extremely effective at getting people out of the way instead at staring at the back of their head in the hope that their latent ESP is going to kick in. It rarely kicks in before they pushed out of the way from behind. Everyone in this scenario loses. The pusher gets annoyed and the pushee gets pushed and annoyed. Not good for anyone.

Queuing: being of English decent I am well versed with the art of queuing. I think I even formed my own queue to get out of my mother’s womb. So what happened to an orderly line of like minded souls all after a ticket for something or other? I had a bloke shout, 'oh come on!' at me this morning. Really, I wasn't even at the front being served; some Indian lady had that pleasure, and I'm pretty sure she was going as fast as the credit card machine would allow. Again, queuing is not a hard thing to master: join the end of a line, stay there and shuffle along until you reach the ticket seller, food dispatcher, or check out chick. It really is very simple; it shouldn’t require a six week learning annex.

Seating on public transport: there are seats that seat three or two people, on occasion there is the odd single seater or multi seater. If your bottom is wide or you are just grossly obese, please don't try and squish between two people in a three seater or peg someone to the window in a two seater. It's rude. If you need a seat and a half or even two, consider asking the sitter to vacate. It's entirely possible that you'll be told to 'bugger off' but at least you warned them before sitting on them and breaking their thigh bone.

On a similar note, when people are getting off the chosen mode of transport, don't make them climb over you to get out (or in for that matter). Please stand and let them slide into the window seat with dignity instead of nearly falling head first through said window. Ladies often have skirts and stocking on, it's not nice to have to spread your legs over a stranger just so you can sit down. It's even worse it you snag a new pair of stockings just because the sitter can't be arsed to stand.

A simple rule of physics next. If you don't let some out, you can't fit more in. Same goes for public transport. Letting folks off usually makes it much easier to get on.

I feel I have said enough for now on this subject. It’s possible I shall revisit it next time either I or some unfortunate stranger has steam pouring from their ears in the AM or PM trip, but I shall leave you with this final thought;

Wouldn’t being out in public be a much nicer and less stressful experience if everyone just gave a little thought to what other people may like in life?

Retail Therapy

On Wednesday last week I took Bessie for a little jaunt down to Victoria. The intention was to see Little and maybe hire a motorbike and have a look at the Great Ocean Road. The motorbike didn’t happen and as it turned out I had a bit of a bug, so I wasn’t feeling on top form, so even if it hadn’t have fallen through I wouldn’t have been able to ride anyway.

I helped Wynnie out in her shop for three days.

Wynnie is also known as Sally, or Little Sally. She’s my sister or rather my step-sister. My Muv was also Sally, so when we moved in with the step family, Muv was Big Sally, Little was...well, little. She’s still petit, but not so little, being my big sister ;-)

She has a used furniture store in the Dandenong’s township of Emerald. Wynnies Used Furniture is housed in a old stable with a beautiful pressed tin ceiling. Everyday, except Monday, she opens up at 10am by placing piece on the grass outside under the awning. She dresses a mannequin up in clothing to suit the weather and places her in a position to watch over the roadside stock. At five PM she brings the goodies that haven’t sold back in and locks up. After the shop shuts, she does the odd house clearance or delivery, pretty much every night.

On a Saturday she rises before the sun and jumps in her beaten up white van with her three legged dog, Peg and drives for thirty minutes to a different town to go around the garage sales to see if anything worth having is on offer before getting back to Emerald to open the shop at 10am.

After doing all this, she also tarts up new stock items and deals with members of the general public.

And this is where I really take my hat off to her, not that I don’t admire everything else as well, but I’ve worked retail in my time and I’ll confess to hating it.

One customer, I’ll call her Fleur, because I can’t remember her real name. She’s been going into Wynnie’s for nearly three years and telling the same long winded sob stories about doing the lounge in blue and the bedroom in green.

I was sat behind the counter writing up the last sale, when Little handed me a note: Don’t get into a conversation with the woman in the front room, she’ll talk at you for hours.
Suddenly the woman was standing in front of the counter asking Little if she had something or other in green, because she was renovating the bedroom in bedroom. While she was banging on, Sally very discreetly picked up her mobile phone and flicked it open. Without taking her eyes off the customer and all the time nodding and making affirmative noises dialled a number with her thumb.

The shop phone rang.

I picked it up passed it to over. ‘Good Afternoon, Wynnie’s Used Furniture. Yes, we do do house clearances...’ The one sided conversation continued as a disappointed Fleur wandered towards the door.

Little raised her hand, waved and smiled. Fleur looked back just before stepping out into the sunshine.

I had trouble keeping a straight face as Little clicked the phone off and put it on the desk as she said, ‘she has never brought anything.’

It was all class, a fabulous way to get rid of the annoying customer that EVERY shopkeeper has encountered, and such a polite way to do it considering she must be exhausted.

When did manners and courtesy disappear?

Was it with woman’s lib? Meaning men no longer give up their seat for a woman wearing heels?

Why don’t people say ‘excuse me’ anymore and instead stare at the back of your head expecting you to know they want to move instinctively?

Why is it that an train aisle full of standing people doesn’t inspire someone to move their handbag and feet off the seat next to them?

When did a queue become just a way of standing before turning into an all out bun fight to get through a door?

Why did I have to ask to sit down, when I was on crutches?

Why, when paying for an item, does the next person feel compelled to stand so close to you, you can feel their breath?

In a world where personal space is becoming more and more precious, I say we need, more than ever to regain some of the basic manners and courtesy with which we are furnished as children. Of course, in saying this I am assuming that manners are actually taught to everyone. Based on the evidence from public transport, public events and your average shopping centre, I reckon it’s a subject that needs to be put on the school curriculum.

Well, Excuse Me! Part two

While waiting for the 1910 to Glenfield at Central I saw this guy, drinking this drink before he dropped the cup at his feet. A gentle,'I think you dropped something' a few minutes later resulted in him saying he would pick it up, but he left it laying were it fell. Nice guy, don't you think? Jodie, Merrylands



I sent this to MX commuter freesheet tonight. Maybe this litterbug gets his 15 minutes of fame for being a complete git.