Ugly People

It was on the night of Thursday last, just after dinner, that I went out to a store close by to purchase bread and beverages. Therein, an episode unfolded that was oddly disturbing:

The store manager was clearly busy, since he was also the cashier and there was a small queue of customers waiting to be served. Despite this, he tasked his assistant to mop up some condensate that had accumulated near the refrigerators, thereby removing the latter from another counter, which might have helped to thin the crowd. This was the point at which I found myself paying a bit more attention at the pair than I usually would. To be brutally honest, I was thinking "What a dumb ass!" at the manager. The condensate was not hurting anyone, and like the others in line, I was beginning to get impatient.

At this time, a deliveryman entered, laden with a box of perishables. They were clearly for the renewal of stock for the store, and he promptly replaced the old stock on the refrigerator shelves with them. He then turned to the assistant and asked the latter to acknowledge the move. The assistant demurred, as it was the manager's duty, and beyond his salary-grade. The deliveryman then approached the counter and asked the manager to append his signature. The manager, being bogged down with customers, simply told the man to wait. Which he did.

After serving two more customers, which took approximately ten minutes, the manager still showed no sign that he was going to attend to the deliveryman. The assistant, in the meantime, had completed his task and was putting away his mop. The deliveryman, clearly frustrated with the delay, turned to the assistant and asked if the manager was always this slow. The assistant merely smiled and replied that the manager liked to do some things on his own. Then he returned to his own counter.

The manager gave his assistant a rather significant look at this time, and handed over the work to him. He then went and dealt with the delivery in what I can only describe as a curt and reluctant manner. The deliveryman, his work done, hurried outside with nary a backward glance.

Now, it so happened that the manager and his assistant were from different ethnic groups, and the deliveryman had spoken to the assistant in a dialect that was unknown to the manager. What transpired thereafter only served to fix in my mind just how pathetic the manager was:

Ignoring the customers that were lining up in front of his assistant, the manager demanded that he tell him just what had been said by the deliveryman. The assistant, who was half-way through a customer, was taken aback and barely fumbled through the rest of his work. The manager appeared oblivious to the rest of queue, and continued to pester the assistant, instead of taking up his own post as I expected him to. It was only when the assistant waved a hand at the queue, that the manager took the hint and went back to his counter. Even then, he persisted in his interrogation of his assistant, across the distance between them, in a loud and irritating (to me) fashion. By this time, I had reached the head of the queue, so I concluded my business quickly and left. Even as I was walking out the door, the question was still going on.

Perhaps it is my job, that has shaped my thinking: the work is more important than one's feelings. The work is more important that one's need to demonstrate one's authority over another person. The quality of the work must not be compromised.

Perhaps it is the way that I have been educated: if you cannot take the criticism, you should make sure that your work is above criticism. If you make a decision, take the consequences that come with it.

Perhaps it is my oriental upbringing: smile, no matter how hard the going gets. If one must berate someone, do it in private; public displays of anger results in loss of 'face' for both the one doing the scolding as well as the one being scolded. And show no emotion in the face of adversity.

No matter how I look at it, that store manager was one ugly person.