To Serve and to be Kind, Comrades

A 'bag lady' walks into the most elegant and expensive department in a well-known store. 

She gets the treatment that any well-off customer would get. A man of the cloth, who has been watching curiously, asks the sales assistant why she treated the lady with such patience and courtesy,  knowing that she was most unlikely to buy anything. The assistant replies:

 "Sir, we are here to serve and to be kind."

The cleric is so impressed that he makes the incident the subject of his Sunday sermon. He asks his congregation:

"Are you here to serve and to be kind?"

Dear South African civil servant, what would be your answer?  Dear Mr President, dear cabinet, dear MPs, what would be your answer?  

Staying with our store chain, a top executive visits one of the stores. As is customary,  a flock of senior staff accompanies him on his store walkabout. He peels off suddenly in mid-conversation  to serve a customer that he has spotted waiting.

 Let me follow time-honoured South African practice,  and state the obvious, as do our politicians and political commentators.  There are several self-evident truths. 

 1. The culture of a company,  government department or even a country is seen and felt only in encounters  between people. The rest is words. Of no value whatever.

 

 2. Nothing  teaches more effectively than example.  It's simple but it has never been easy.  Certainly a lot cheaper and of longer lasting impact than a six million rand state of the nation show.  Among others this is what managers, politicians and presidents are paid for. Handsomely. To set the best example.

 

There's more to the 'bag lady' story.

In the congregation that Sunday were a couple of journalists.  They wrote about the incident and the chain's brand, already strong, became legend.

 

The other obvious lesson is that, out of such  intangibles as values and vision, come the greatness of an organization, a country, a people. If they are lived consistently. It would be foolish to think that success comes without the other elements -  planning, competence, knowledge, among others. I suspect that we, and in particular our government score extremely poorly on all of these. Well, it's more than a suspicion.  The evidence Is all around. 

 

We have had citizens battered senseless by blue light bodyguards. We have a member of Parliament who simply drops her tray  to the floor on an aircraft because she, a great ANC MP,  cannot wait any longer for it to be collected.  We have the member of  ANC royalty, who, when questioned about the bewildering  circumstances around the acquisition of her driver's license, answered:

“I don’t have time to stand in queue. I am not required to stand in queues at airports and things.”

As they say in the adverts, there's more, much more.

 

Dear voters, out of such arrogance and indifference, you really expect caring service? 

I have not mentioned betrayals and blunders. But a leadership that never misses an opportunity to act unworthily and dishonourably in the little things, is going to lead you nowhere but to decay and disintegration.  No matter how great the promise of your organization or your country. A brand of shame.

That is a fact.

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

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O Tichmann 

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