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ShareAt the risk of this being dismissed as a rant from someone who has outlived her era, I wish to place these pertinent questions on record:
Why is power seen as a licence to rudeness?
Example: I am sitting next to a PYT, who happens to be a journalist. That I presume is correct because she is sitting at the computer next to the one I am using at the press centre.
She turns around and calls out to a photographer who stands nearby. Holding up her phone she tells him in much the same words:
"Here, there are six photos in this, which I have copied as references. I want them transferred on to a disc." The photographer tries to look.
"Don't waste time, just get them transferred. I don't want them lost."
He tries to say something.
"I want these references for my shoot, and I want them safe, and I want them NOW!"
The vehemence of her 'now,' is like a command to a dog who won't obey easily.
The photographer explains that there are no systems free... but she has turned away.
I want it 'Now,' she says once more, and starts typing away again.
My point is, she is a pro, so is he, each is independently a master of his own domain. Then why the command?
Would not a request work? Is designation a cloak that comes with the dagger of arrogance attached?
Why is no one concerned about waste?
Agreed, this is the age of communication. And PR.(Sometimes the latter translates loosely as nuisance.)
But this is also the age of cell phones and e-mails.
Then why do PR companies waste client money in printing complex initiations, pamphlets, brochures, and sending them out, often in duplicate to countless hapless journalists who more often than not consign them straight into the bin, sometimes without bothering to open them.
So much effort, time and paper wasted to no end.
Considering that all of it also comes through e-mail and some of it through the phone!
Another example: a water pipe is leaking. It is on a main street, people pass it by as they go up and down all the time. Some see it every day!
No one bothers about it. It is as if water is aplenty, and even as we read warnings about half filled lakes and impending water cuts, this pipe continues to leak.
No one, not the public whom it will directly affect, not the authorities who are in charge, is concerned. Why is no one made accountable?
Last one: Are good looks and good clothes a substitute for good manners?
Went to an exhibition yesterday. Crowded with the who's who straight out of the various Page 3s of various media. And some more! All dressed in silk and designerwear, and carrying branded bags heavy with cash. Buying clothes, jewellery, knick-knacks
as if the end of the world were at hand.
But what many had left behind at home, was good manners. Not an 'excuse me' or a 'sorry', as shoulders clashed, a bag banged into a rib, a shoe stepped on a foot. Just a push, a shove and more shopping!
Sorry, not my scene. But as I said, maybe I belong to another era.
