I walked up to a bank building and saw a man of about 35 years old urinating behind a wall.
I went into the bank to draw cash from the ATM.
I got in line behind the person using the ATM.
The same man who had been urinating outside walked in front of me.
I told him that I was the next person in line.
He looked at me and said I wasn’t.
Then I said to him, I would appreciate if I could go next.
He said threateningly that he didn’t care. He was before me.
His father was dead, he added, and he didn’t respect any people older than himself.
How do you teach scum like this manners.
You don’t.
This man is part of a broken country, a broken society, a broken community. He is a disfigured, broken man. A product of his broken environment, his broken life.
There is no way that he will ever be taught manners.
He will remain a piece of human trash.
It’s sad but true.
By the way, I walked away saying alright, it’s alright with me, it’s fine.
Another reason was that behind me were three young men of the same ilk.
I was concerned about my safety.
You get this sort of thing every day so you have to be like a duck and let the water run off your back.
This is an extreme example of no manners.
But listen, large corporations have no manners too.
I received an SMS from Momentum insurance informing me that my insurance policy was under review on Old Year’s Eve.
Can you believe it?
I knew one thing, it only meant that the insurance policies I have, have all gone up.
I looked at it two days later and they had gone up.
So what do you call this type of behaviour?
Filthy lying scum?
Or bad manners?
Insensitive?
If you are in sales or you need to get somebody to do something for you, you have to be careful about manners.
Be careful in your business writing.
Learn to write in a way that doesn’t offend people.
And don’t just think about the woke people.
Think about those who are anti-woke and how whatever you write, it could be an email, a letter or another document, might offend them and then you’ve lost a potential customer.
Now some would say they don’t want anti-woke customers.
Well, they can say that if they are wealthy, have plumb jobs and are privileged.
But when it comes to customers, it’s probably best not to worry about their societal, religious, spiritual, sexual or political views. It might also be their private headspace.
If you want to write to show that you care for your reader with manners, then contact me and I’ll show you how.
It might take you a lot of effort to send me a simple email but you might be glad you did, especially when you get yourself into all sorts of trouble by not minding your manners.
