Sorry: Why the dirt?

While I have a bucket list of priorities waiting, looking like:

1) Fix that hose and unwrap that new mop;
2) Download the shortlist of photographs into the USB and get them printed;
3) Buy frames;
4) Start a new folder to organise the travel photographs; and
5) Get a high speed downloader / card reader.

I like to think they have waited this long, they would not mind waiting a tad longer as I want to write about yet, another experience I have just had, true to form in my capacity (sometimes I suspect) to walk into the paths of retards.

Harsh words but if you have been yelled at publicly by a shameful bully twice, you tend to think they perhaps fit the subject.

The story is not about how I was being verbally abused but the horrid actions that a General Manager of a busy gym in Chatswood would think as being acceptable to be used to apologise to the one that actually pays your mortgage - your customer. I had been treated rudely, I lodged a formal complaint to the reception and they promised the GM will call me after the weekend.

I was not looking for a free personal training session, but I do think such unprofessional behaviour needs to be reported. The call did finally arrive and it began as a painful observation from my part to see a fully grown man, paid quite well I like to think to hold the GM office of running a busy gym, just presenting himself as "come on, lash out at me you crazy woman of a customer and blow off your steam so that I can go back to playing Flappy Bird".

It was sad. He was not coming from a place where we can discuss about the possibility of this unfortunate event and mitigation options. In fact he was not even talkative. I had to check a few times that he was still online. He did dig himself into a hole when he denied that the staff had any complaints for being verbally abusive and that they pride themselves as a very inclusive and customer-focused gym.

I told him that his entire team is only as strong as his weakest link. And I told him that you never invalidate your customer's complaint (did you think I have an obsession of walking up to a random gym to make up stories?) and if you can't walk the talk, then do not go around throwing textbook concepts of being customer-centric when you do not understand the basic of an apology.

It happened. Diffuse and contain the problem. Sorry is not a dirty word. Say it, try it, you may just like it.

But you have to mean it.

Natural Selection

Today I have the opportunity to return to my writing after a year-long hiatus and feel compelled to voice out on an experience that I have observed.

A close friend of mine had posted about her little girl who had begun the brave journey into kindergarten and unfortunately she and another girl in her class had been excluded from the handing out of a birthday invite from one of the girls in their class. The post courted heavy responses from other mothers in our online mother support group. Most are conclusive in their agreement that this was a horrible thing for a young woman to learn at such a delicate age. Some had tried to offer rationalisation that this could have been an oversight. Some were suggestive that the teacher should get involved.

My natural inclination was to throw the biggest party a kindergarten goer can understand and yes, maybe (much to my utter confession) even have One Direction (the band) plays along with the Hi-Five group and invite ALL of the girls to this do, and throw in some real life unicorns and all the strawberry shortcake ice cream one can eat.

However my real (and more realistic) approach is to blog about this and make it a public discussion. This is not a name and shame but I want to speak about the opportunity that some mums (trolls) that condoned this sort of exclusion behaviour in their children had successfully denied their young ones the chance to learn about the concept of acceptance, of openness to something that may not look familiar, of adventure, of broadening their learning, of the importance of not pigeon-holing someone who comes from a difference background, ethnicity, creed, or even postcode.

Children are innocent and I do not believe in any way the girl who handed out the birthday invite deliberately excluded my friend's little girl or the other girl. She may had a slight concern that she did not know her new friends well enough but I would expect it out from an adult that it is our duty to school our children to look at the world in a non-selective manner.

We already, as a society, so divided through religions, income tax brackets, private school choices, birthing hospitals, to name a few, that we do not serve a higher good by teaching our little ones from such a tender age to follow in and sustain such practice.

There is no other way to word this and I think being vicious in our retort or response to the trolls would not bring an eventual positive spin to things; however I can say this:

When you deny yourself the chance to ponder upon the new, you deny yourself the opportunity to grow.

When we strop growing, we are trapped in the limits of our current capacity and as an individual, a family, a community and nation, we have failed the future generation.

I feel more sorry for the little girl who is handing out the cards, even her friends who are invited, as I think living life blindfolded through judgement is not a way to live, or living at all.