Follow on

Just a follow on from yesterday. There were no cherries at the supermarket much to my disappointment. I worry that by the time I do my next shop they may have come and gone from the shelves but at least I am now stocked up on all my groceries.

My hairdressing appointment was rescheduled to today so I don’t think there is that much chance of those cabbage trees getting planted. I have Chiara coming out tomorrow morning for her healing training and a massage now booked for tomorrow afternoon. On Thursday, I am hoping to attend the writer’s group so my week is looking reasonably full again.

We didn’t get the form sent off to the roading contractors yesterday, because the receipt for the rim, which we had asked for in the morning, didn’t arrive till late last night. I did re-ring the woman, thinking she may have misheard my email address as she had said she would do it right away, and she curtly told me she had other work to attend to. She must have forgotten completely to send it through. Now, we may as well wait until the new tyre arrives so we can include that cost as well, rather than just supplying the quote.

So as one can see, even the best laid plans can go awry and the enthusiasm I held yesterday morning has waned slightly, perhaps fueled on by the number of carbohydrates I consumed. I did buy keto ingredients once again but got tempted by the delicious buns from the deli section of the supermarket. That in itself led to an interesting encounter as I watched a woman and her tactics. She had been serving at the counter but turned to attend to something else, with her back to the customers. A second woman helping at the counter had to go to the kitchen to fill an order for a customer, leaving no one to serve us. The woman, with her back to the counter, turned around, looked me in the eye and turned back again, deciding I and the fellow shoppers, weren’t worth dropping what she was doing, to attend to. Meanwhile, as the other woman left for the kitchen, she called out for assistance and a third woman came out to attend to us. Now the queues were getting quite large and eventually the other woman whose back had been turned, decided she would help. She served one woman in front of her, then asked who was next. A second woman, who had only just arrived said she was, while this woman muttered about how others were waiting further along in the hot section of the deli. Never mind that she had obviously known this but had chosen not to help, while her fellow workers were run off their feet doing all the work.

The other day, while in Whangarei, we had stopped for Subway. One girl was trying to bake the day’s bread and fulfill orders. She had three unfinished rolls in front of her and was making one for a woman in front of me, while putting loaves into the oven at the same time. Another woman came out from the back to replace some freshly baked rolls onto the racks and said a few snide remarks to the girl who was trying to multi task. I could see this girl’s demeanor change. She was doing her best while this other woman was rude and unhelpful.

I used to see this kind of behaviour when I worked in the shearing gangs. People would slack off and leave one person to do all the work, but as soon as someone came into the shed, they would bounce back and pull their weight, like they had been working like that all the time. When rudeness enters the equation as well, it makes for an unpleasant environment. In the ideal world, one would get rid of people like this, but unfortunately, people like this have a way of performing perfectly when the bosses are around. They are often older people who have learnt their cunning ways. Snide remarks here and there to fellow workers or even customers, go unnoticed by those higher up. I remember one woman who worked in a vegetable shop when I lived in New Plymouth. She was rude to everyone, including customers. This shop was on my way home from work and had always been busy, before being sold. It was then that this woman was employed. She would refuse to serve customers until she was ready and growl at them for putting their vegetables on the counter and was rude to fellow workers. I stopped going to that shop on account of her. One day, I had a new massage client, who, it turned out, worked alongside this woman. She told me how obnoxious she was to work with, but that the bosses thought she was wonderful. They loved her. It wasn’t too much longer that that shop closed down. It had been there for years and was very successful with its former owners. I have no doubt that that woman single-handedly brought about its demise.

So I guess the moral of this story is that while some people may think they are clever in the way they get away with treating others, your actions may in fact be noticed after all. It is not how sweet you can be around your boss, but how you treat everyone else around you.