I weaponize politeness.
I’ve always been, so I’ve been told,
‘charmingly polite’. But that simple
statement begs lots of questions. Is
‘charm’ something that is part of authentic ‘niceness’ or is it something which
is much more self-aware and knowing? Is
‘charm’ a spontaneous emanation of the warm parts of one’s soul or the
calculating approach to get what you want?
Or, indeed, neither of these things.
I do remember from my teaching days that I always used to promote
politeness as a sure-fire way of getting what you want with the least amount of
effort. And I was able to adduce example
after example of what came my way through the soft power of simply being nice.
And what, after all, is politeness? The following an age-old code of proper
behaviour facilitating human interaction, or a hypocritical façade allowing
cynical manipulation?
To which the proper answer is, I think,
“Yes!”
The way that I was brought up followed a
fairly conventional lower middle class professional path. As teachers, my parents had a highly
developed sense of responsibility and inculcated in me a series of ethical
standards that were firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian-British-Welsh-Tidy-Proper
approach to human living. This in spite
of the fact that at least 50% of my parental influence (i.e. my dad) was more
geared towards the robustly atheistic and cynically socialist way of life. The actual basis of my mother’s Anglican
(Church in Wales) faith, I never really discovered, and when I was old enough
to engage in theological discussion with her I never really came out
victoriously. Well, she was, after all,
my mother and did not hesitate to use the most underhand maternal pressures
that mere biblical and theological argument merely brushed against!
But some ethical principles were set in
stone:
1
A lady
never picks up her own dropped glove, it is the duty of the man (or boy) to
return it to her.
2
A man
(or boy) walks on the outside of the pavement, next to the road when with a
lady.
3
A
gentleman tips his soup bowl away from himself and eats (not ‘drinks’) his soup
from the side of the spoon.
4
Civilized
people push uneaten food to the right side of the plate and place the knife and
fork, parallel to each other and at 90 degrees to the person, on the right side
of the plate too.
5
CPs do
not scrape the knife and fork on the surface of the plate.
6
CPs
should obey the more reasonable of the 10 Commandments as far as possible.
7
When
taking Communion, you should take the cup from the hands of the vicar and drink
from it yourself.
8
When
reciting the Creed you should remain standing when the rest of the congregation
(though excess of Popery) kneels during certain phrases.
9
The
yellow Labrador bitch is the best dog that there is and, while other dogs (NOT
CATS) might be cute, they are not YLBs and should be treated as lower life
forms.
10
“Fair
play is bonny play.”
11
“Never
refuse a good offer.”
12
China,
cutlery and glass are important: always buy quality.
13
Always
clean your shoes.
14
Don’t
bite your nails.
15
Pronounce
‘trait’ in the correct, French way and not by sounding the ‘t’.
16
“Anything
is better than nothing.”
17
Keep
coloured clothes from white clothes in the wash.
18
Close
the door.
19
Always
say “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me”.
20
Have a
cup of tea and offer a cup of tea on all possible occasions.
I have just read through those 20 rules or
suggestions or thoughts and have realised that a great deal of my life is
encapsulated therein!
Anyway, to get back (almost) to the
point. I have been brought up to be
polite and reasonable and charming, and it either fits the character that I
have, or that character has been formed by the way in which I have been
raised. Whatever, the truth (if such a
thing exists) I am (as Popeye said) what I am - and that’s the way I roll.
So why does all this come to mind on this
Saturday afternoon?
Well, we have just had lunch in our usual
watering hole and I had the worst meal that I have ever had in the
restaurant. My spaghetti first course
was over salted, the spaghetti was nastily al dente and the sauce was
bland. My second course was of
over-cooked tasteless cod with a clam sauce in which most of the clams were
shut-shell dead. The orange I had for
dessert was sort-of OK. I had rebelled
against the god-awful house wine and bought a more expensive (for Spain) bottle
that was the best part of the meal! And
did I say a word about this? No I did
not - except of course to Toni who had had a menu plate of pork loin and
half-and-half salad and chips that he enjoyed.
I mean, let’s face it: the meal was not
free, I paid for it. It was, you might
say, a service. And it wasn’t good. And I said nothing. I even had to pay for the upgrade on the
wine! So why didn’t I optimize my
opening sentence and say something in the nicest way possible to show that I
was not happy?
It probably comes down to cowardice and an
attitude that could probably be properly added as number 21 to the list above:
“Put it down to experience and get on with it.”
Because, one of my Great Life Lessons was
discovering that people actually listen to what you say in a sequential
way. So, if you say one thing and then
say another, people tend to put the two statements next to each other rather
than regarding them as separate utterances.
So, no matter how polite you are about voicing an opinion about the
saltiness of food in a dish in your regular restaurant, it will not be regarded
as a one-off, only of relevance to the dish in question (no matter how
reasonable such an assumption might be) but rather as a negative which calls
into question any previous positive there might have been.
There are exceptions. One time in Le Monde in Cardiff, I ordered a
vegetable soup. It came and one sip told
me it was impossibly salty. I took
another sip to confirm my taste and, behold, it was so! Unfortunately we were sitting next to the
open kitchen and the chef who prepared my soup was within ladle smashing
distance. But I simply couldn’t drink
the soup. So, talking my courage in both
hands I timidly called the waiter and intimated that there was a trifle more
salt in the soup than I could handle.
The dish was taken away and returned to the chef who immediately took a
spoon and tasted the soup for himself.
One taste later, the chef asked me if it
was my dish, agreed that it was undrinkable and asked me to choose what I
wanted from the menu - he suggested the much more expensive king prawns which I
thought was a jolly good idea. They were
delicious, I was delighted and I have not stopped going to Le Monde and would
recommend the place to anyone looking for decent food in St Mary Street in
Cardiff without hesitation.
But with our Saturday restaurant, we are a
bit too chummy with the owner and staff, but not chummy enough to have a sub
standard dish dismissed as just another irritation instantly remedied. A tricky situation.
So, in some situations, my much vaunted
charm and politeness are just veneers, have no depth and do nothing except give
a gloss to the problem.
I’ll carry on smiling because that’s the
easiest way!
