Columnists
What people do
I’m a people watcher. I observe the behaviour of other people. This is a form of entertainment for me when there’s nothing else to do. Smart people take reading material to airports to await their flight (and cheap snacks and homemade sandwiches, because airport prices make you think they did an express courier from Japan to get you a stale beef wrap).
I don’t need any of this, because I’m a people watcher. Not in a creepy way. I don’t follow women into airport washrooms with a video camera.
No, I watch how everyone behaves. I don’t know them, but I learn a lot from watching people, and what they do. In airports, pretty much everyone in the giant building is stressed. Parents are corralling their kids, while kissing their luggage goodbye, as it travels down a treadmill, never to be seen again.
I do carry-on only because, not surprisingly, I do not require regular wardrobe changes on a one-week vacation to New Orleans. I can wear the same shirt twice in one week—or all week—because in N’Orleans, no one will remember me, or how I was dressed. I could wear the same shirt and no other clothing, and I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in the Quarter.
HOW WE BEHAVE
This is going to be a circuitous route, but let’s go. Some parents suck. I had good parents, so I have a scale of Good Parent/Sucky Parent in my observations. To wit, some people treat their children like an annoyance. They are full of useless advice only stupid parents could give: “You’re eating a burrito, use a napkin!” This is not proper parenting. To do it right, you need to say: “You are eating. Anything. So we are going to put you in a Hazmat suit, because we’re tired of gobbling up 45 jugs of Tide Pods® every time you decide to have a snack. You’ve got hands; you’ve got a mouth – make them work together you little @#$*.” This is proper parenting.
In Bloomfield, I saw a couple who took their eyes off their kid for a second, and he headed to the street on the run. The mother turned and said: “Aidan, don’t …” I was closest, so grabbed the kid before he went into traffic. But the mother said, in a soft voice: “Aidan, don’t do that, it’s dangerous.” What? That doesn’t do the trick. Clearly, this kid has heard the words, “Don’t do that,” so many times it has no meaning to him. I would suggest a crazy screaming fit full of the aforementioned expletives. That might be something that would stick in his mind. I would never whap my kids to prove the point, and I certainly could not whap someone else’s kid, even though the parents might have seen it as useful in keeping their son alive, instead of running into traffic.
PEOPLE. PEOPLE WHO DON’T NEED PEOPLE
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but people are strange. I kind of like that, because I enjoy figuring out people. That’s kind of the ‘observing’ thing. After many years of dealing with clients, I learn all their quirks. I can also detect a ‘player’ just by watching his eyes and his mannerisms.
Sure, I’ve been suckered before on business deals, because the people who do this are good. I laugh and shake my head, much as I would do at a blackjack table, when I split two face cards, get 20 on each, and the dealer pops an Ace. You just need to say: “Didn’t see that coming!” Learn, and laugh it off.
Everyone has their quirks. Most of my clients are super-fine. “Sorry to bother you, but can I get a photocopy?” Not a bother at all. A 15¢ transaction done politely. Some clients come in freaked out: “I have a trade show in two days, and realized I don’t have any business cards.”
Done and done. Some people are nasty and belligerent and demanding. They want it now, and want to haggle the per copy price down. They do not get our ‘red carpet’ treatment. I usually kick them to the curb and ask them politely to find someone else to do the job. It’s not that I’m rich and don’t need the work, it’s just that the mental strain of dealing with jerks is not worth the few bucks I might make.
WHERE ARE WE?
We used to have bus tours through the County, and still do. This was intended to introduce people from the world outside the County, which we occasionally visit, after spending several hours in traffic on the 401.
This may have been a fun excursion for them, but they learned nothing about the County … any more than a European high-speed tour in which you can catch a great photo of a famous landmark through the bus window.
To the point, one of my famous anecdotes. An elderly lady arrived in my shop via tour bus, and asked: “Tell us what you know about Wellington.”
I said, “Okay, I know a lot about Wellington, but you are in Bloomfield.” This caused some confusion, but then she saw our books on the shelf, and recognized my face. “You’re an author?”
She bought my book on the condition that I would sign it, to impress her friends, and give her a kiss. Deal was done, and I leaned forward for a kiss on the cheek. But no. Full on. And longer than I wished. Still, I bet her late husband died a happy man.
PEOPLE ARE STRANGE
But I like that. I don’t want everyone to think like me, or I couldn’t join my friends at the bar: “You know what I think?” “Yes, we do.” No fun there. No discussion, no bashing ideas against opinions, no heading off into crazy thoughts which make us forget the original premise. I live for this.
Proper engagement. Weird stories from our lives— painful at the time, but now curious adventures from our past.
MY ANALYSIS
There’s no two people identical in life. I’ve always believed a perfect relationship is not “The two shall be as one” but how you fit together. Not as one thinking like the other, but how, as individuals they fit together, like two hands clasping. One strength fills the gap in the other’s strength. One is brilliant at something; the other is brilliant at something else.
In that, there is strength. Disagreements? Of course. Because you are not the same, and your approaches may be different. But when I have a problem with a client, and I can’t figure it out, she can, because she is not wrapped into my ongoing mess, but sees it clearly. By the same token, I can see what she can’t see in her work. Both of us because we’re on the outside, and the view is much clearer there than when you’re embroiled deep in your problem.
One last story: I had a phone encounter with what was then Provincial Sales Tax. She said my trigger words, which always leads me to red rage: “You people …” I responded with a wisecrack, and she hung up. Not good. About five minutes later, my financial advisor called and said all my accounts had been frozen. We fixed this up, but I always wondered: If you are a colossal bitch at work, do you go home and be kind to your loving family? Or are you always a bitch, 24/7? I didn’t ask. People do what they do.
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