Did I mention that I'm on a cruise at the time of writing? It may have cropped up, I'm sure. Sitting in the buffet restaurant today, I was struck by the difference in attitude of the various nationalities.
This is an American-owned ship, and I have
always held the view that our transatlantic cousins really know a thing or two about the concept of customer
service. All of the staff, of whatever
nationality (and they are many and varied) are unfailingly polite, cheerful and
helpful. I know various U.S. companies
have tried to transfer this mindset to their U.K. outlets, with predictably
mixed results. As far as the British are
concerned, customer service means finding new and imaginative ways of saying
'sorry' for not delivering the expected service, without actually doing
anything about it.
In this restaurant, hordes of
Brits (and it is mostly Brits on this trip) were, I noticed, marching morosely
around the various buffet bars. Here
they were, surrounded by a mind-boggling variety of high quality foods, with no
restriction on how much or how many they could have, and yet, from their expressions,
you would have thought they were queuing for ECT without the aid of
anaesthesia.
All of this led me to consider
whether happiness really suits the British people. It seems to me that we do everything we can
to avoid it. We certainly won't admit to
it. Even that meaningless but now
ubiquitous phrase 'have a nice weekend' is likely to evince a host of reasons,
including jobs, duties or dutiful visits, that the recipient has lined up to
ensure that he/she does nothing of the sort.
If we own up to going on holiday, we tend to say "We're only going
for a week" as if to admit to anything more would be the equivalent of
being addicted to selfish pleasures. Ask
people about any, supposedly, pleasurable experience and they will first tell
you about everything that went wrong.
"Our holiday? Well, yes,
pretty good really. Of course you heard
about us losing half the luggage from the roof rack on the M6? Closed two carriageways and had traffic
backed up to Wilmslow at one point, apparently.
Good job it wasn't raining then, well certainly not as hard as it did
for our first week. Not that we bother
about a bit of rain, well you've got to expect it in our country haven't
you? We always take a few games to
play. It was a pity that little Saffron
hurt her eye in that freak dominoes accident and we had to spend 12 hours in
the local A&E, not that I'll hear a word said against the NHS, even if we
did have a hard time to make ourselves understood to the on-duty doctor…"
Take unsolicited sales phone
calls, for instance. It's standard
practice to moan about these, and with good reason. They always strike at the most inconvenient
time (although I'm not sure there ever would be a convenient time to talk about
double glazing or cavity wall insulation).
For some years now there has been the option of barring these calls by
registering with the Telephone Preference Service. It's a very effective method of stopping this
particular nuisance at source and has left us free to eat our tea in peace. However, mention this to anyone in
mid-complaint and I guarantee that the reaction you won't get is "Oh
really? No, I didn't know that. I'll get on to that tomorrow". They are far more likely to come up with a
string of reasons why they shouldn't do it.
"Well, they'll get round it some way, won't they?" (No),
"It doesn't stop them from calling from overseas, does it?" (No, but
these are so few in number, it really doesn't matter) If pressed, they might admit to "not
wanting to block something that might be useful" However, the fact is that they don't want a
solution, they want to be keep moaning about the problem.
Our transatlantic cousins
actually have 'the pursuit of happiness' enshrined in their Constitution. Not the achievement of it, you note, just the
pursuit. Still, I can't see that working
in the U.K., we don't so much pursue happiness as pretend we're out when it
calls.
Look at our newspaper
headlines. Every report of some positive
development will be quickly followed by some example of why it will bring
misery and suffering to countless others.
We don't celebrate with
lottery winners, we wait for the inevitable tales of family strife, marital
breakdown and bankruptcy that we have come to expect will follow this good
news.
If you really don't believe that
we enjoy misery, then just take a look at our popular soap operas. Even the previously innocuous ones like
Emmerdale, and even The Archers for goodness sake, have storylines containing
adultery, murder, rape and every sin that flesh is heir to. This, remember, is supposed to be early
evening family entertainment.
The difference between us and the
Americans is that they aspire to happiness, even if they don't actually achieve
it, whereas we're just about prepared to tolerate happiness if we must, but
would ideally like to stamp it out. Anyway,
any country that is prepared to admit being responsible for Simon Cowell
deserves everything it gets.
P.S. There are times when I wonder if my quest for
comic effect sometimes leads me to be a little unfair on my fellow
countrymen. "Whiteland" I
scold myself (I tend to address myself like a recalcitrant 1950s public
schoolboy)"you are too harsh", and then something like this happens.
We were having breakfast (on our
cruise, remember?) It was a buffet
arrangement, and I've mentioned before my weakness for buffets. Two ladies of a certain age came and sat next
to us, each with a small bowl of fruit.
One looked as if she sucked lemons for a pastime, the other as if she
nursed a secret sorrow. I feared that
the bowl of fruit indicated that a 'healthy breakfast' was to be had, so,
imagine my surprise when one said to the other "Well, shall we go and see
what is on offer in the cooked breakfast items?" My heart leapt (despite all of the
cholesterol it was undoubtedly having to contend with). Clearly I had misjudged them, they were
trencherwomen after all. Reason regained
its throne, however, when they returned.
The 'secret sorrow' had a plate on which rested three slices of cucumber
and two of tomato, accompanied by a small spoonful of scrambled egg. "Well", she explained to her
friend, "we have to make the most of it, this is the last of our big
breakfasts" When the other let it be known that she loved water in the
morning, but usually took it hot with a slice of lemon, it only confirmed my
worst fears.
A version of this post appears in the new compilation of stories "A Kick at the Pantry Door". If you want to read the rest of the 'nostalgedy' series before then, take a look at Steady Past Your Granny's and Crutches for Ducks
