My sincere apologies for not posting in several weeks. If this was a commercial enterprise, rather than a gentlemanly hobby, my ‘market’ would by now have been snapped up by a rival, and I would be shutting up shop. As it is, I can only hope that my readers are patient enough to wait for my humble offerings to be delivered whenever the real world does not get in the way, rather than with the robotic regularity of a professional service provider.
The truth is simply that, like any other gentleman, doing what I love does not pay the bills, while I have no love for that which gets my bills paid. And, unfortunately, the bill-paying indignities have been tiring me out more than usual of late.
Because, of late, the anger and aggression bordering on outright violence of colleagues in what passes for a workplace, the sullen manner in which they deign to communicate or do any task they cannot simply avoid, and the sheer misery they inflict on those around them (and which is deflected back onto them - because they must operate in the same physical and mental space) has been getting worse.
But it is not just in the workplace. Perhaps recently I am more thin skinned than usual, having been laid low by various physical maladies, but the absence of any social grace and the preponderance of the rude, the brutish and the unpleasant in all things around me has been more painfully obvious too.
The sad thing is that this is not necessary. What such ‘victims’ of supposed social and economic determinism will not admit is that none of this unpleasantness is necessary.
There is at all times and in all places a choice. Between beauty and ugliness, the elegant or the uncouth, between being pleasant or rude, helpful or unhelpful.
The obvious question is why would you choose the worse one? It is not even practical!
For example, the amusing thing is that much of my work would not – and in many cases should not – be necessary were it not for the stroppy, adolescent attitude of others towards public servants simply doing their job efficiently and economically, rather than when the aforementioned stroppy adolescents want it done. Some of this is simple immaturity (though how some can reach late middle age without leaving adolescence, while simultaneously teenagers act like so many acne-ridden Toryshire Colonel Blimps, is a mystery worthy of any enterprising social psychologist), some because they lack the patience to think things through or to understand straightforward and reasonable enough government procedures.
I say this is amusing because as long as it continues people like me can be sure of a job. Because at some point, usually after yet another Alpha Male has snarled one too many times at a hapless civil servant and the civil service department concerned is working to rule (which in practice means the impossible deadline said Alpha Male has promised to his equally ill tempered, equally self-regarding and really rather dim office superiors and clients will not be met) the in-house diplomat will be asked to smooth over the unpleasantness while still, somehow, delivering the impossible deadline.
I used to think it was just me who was asked to take on tasks which would rattle Kofi Annan. Then I met several other ‘chaps’ who, according to the usual rules of business, were over the hill, far too old school and pleasant to one and all, and thus should have been long redundant.
But from talking to one or two it became clear that they had something else in common besides a tendency to hold doors open for ladies. All worked in enterprises led by Alan Sugar clones, where similarly the middle management would tend towards Apprentice candidates and the office grunts were Mail-reading misanthropes with short tempers and a mistrust of anyone or anything that smelt of Radio or BBC 4.
Inevitably this meant that almost daily a vital government functionary or provider of allied professional services would deliver only when convenient or contracted to after being insulted one too many times by one of the above. Inevitably this also meant that the only way in which the unspoken ‘boycott’ could be lifted was if a co-worker whose own manners were above reproach could negotiate a settlement with the injured party.
I readily admit this is not a situation it is in my interest to change. For as long as I am surrounded by the foul-mouthed, the short-tempered and the uncouth I have a job for life just rebuilding the bridges they burn.
I have, by the funniest accident, created a 'niche market' without any professional strategy to do so. This gives me a quiet satisfaction, but there are times such as the last few weeks when I wished for more opportunity to enjoy it instead of having to duck every few seconds to dodge another incoming salvo.
