"Acknowledge" service people??

[sandnsea]

Please tell me you don't consider a grocery checker or other service worker so foreign from your daily lives that you have to remember to make a point to 'acknowledge' them. In a small town, we just call each other neighbors. I'm referring more to a couple of posts in this thread than to Elizabeth herself. Some of this strikes me as the sort of elitism Dems get accused of, and comes from a couple people I'm surprised to see it coming from.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2985298&mesg_id=2985298

[JI7]

1. not just small towns but even larger cities like Los Angeles

if you are a regular somewhere and see certain people regularly. and of course in some cases "we" are those people too. and "we" interact among each other like the person delivering your mail while you are at work. or the person who takes your lunch order at the places you regularly go to. never really thought of it but yeah, i don't get the need for any special acknowledgement in these cases.

[sandnsea]

2. They aren't your friends?

You don't have any friends that work at a coffee shop or deliver the mail? Like a friend of ours who is the mortgage guy at the bank, and his wife works at the post office. Just normal every day friends. I've been to parties that included checkers from Safeway and realtors and bank loan officers, for instance. All our kids go to the same school. No need to remember to treat your child's friend's mother respectfully, you're friends, or at least friendly acquaintances. :shrug:

[JI7]

3. yeah, friends too

i mostly talk to them more than my own family also. we even go out together like you would with friends you make in school. i guess i just never really thought of it though as it's just something that develops naturally when it's people you see regularly and almost everyday.

it's something you notice more if someone you know is going to move away or get another job and you wont see that as much anymore. and then you realize how much you will miss them.

[JI7]

4. there are some differences

in places like Los Angeles rarely would the person you see at work be your neighbor or have kids in the same school. there is a of commuting.

the person you live next to often go in totally different directions for school and/or work.

[Noisy Democrat]

5. Yeah, this strikes me as odd

I haven't watched the interview, to be fair, but just from the synopsis, I'm imagining that it comes off sounding as if E.E. is assuming that no post office workers or grocery store clerks actually watch news interview shows and that anyone who does doesn't know any such people. It sounds very elitist.

[globalvillage]

6. I acknowledge the ones who acknowledge me.

I treat them like everyone else, because they are. Of course I say good morning to the housekeeping staff when I see them in the halls of a hotel. I also tip them, which I dare say they find equally important. I also say hello to the hotel guests I pass in the hall. Isn't that what people do?
And I am friendly, generally speaking, to checkout people and taxi drivers just as I am to doctors and CEOs.
I don't make a special effort to acknowledge the guy at the deli counter at my grocery store who is a jerk, my financial advisor who doesn't understand why I insist on investing in socially responsible funds and tries to convince me that oil companies are people too, and my mail man, who shoves my magazines in the mailbox and rips them to the point some have to be tossed. I do like the guy who delivers my paper, although I rarely see him. I don't wake up early to wave to him from the window, but I do send him a small check at Christmas. I think he understands.
Are we supposed to single these people out for some reason? I thought they were us.

[sandnsea]

8. I thought they were us too

I make a point of speaking to the housekeeping staff in unfamiliar areas because they know where the deals are! And, of course, if you become friends with that guy behind the coffee or burger counter - you get free stuff sometimes. ;)

Still, I'm not kidding when I say that it wouldn't be odd for any given party in my town to include anybody from a doctor to a gas station attendant. People are friends because they like each other and that's about the extent of it.

[karynnj]

9. Is this a good point to mention

that Kerry won the poll of the Iowa hospitality as the one they thought cared most about them. (This is cited all the time - do we have a link?) This is a more meaningful measure of genuinely treating people as respected individuals.

GV, in Boston we saw an example of Kerry acknowledging people - while we were waiting for the live bloggers, we heard a group of 4 or 5 Etheopean immigrants who live in MA, as they described themselves when asking one of the Kerry staffers if they could have a minute with Senator Kerry. The staffer told them that Kerry was still speaking to people inside but he would come out that door and they could speak to him.

When Kerry came out they did speak to him for several minutes. I couldn't hear them or Kerry, but Kerry's demeanor was extremely respectful and he clearly heard them out - and they seemed happy with his attention. On any social scale, these people who likely are not even citizens are as close to the bottom as you can get.

In Morristown, I witnessed two acts that showed that Kerry actully practices what EE is speaking of - on a deep sincere level - not a superficial friendliness. In Morristown, all the local Democrats - spoke first. This one guy rudely interrupted several people telling them to cut it short. (I guess he wanted to hear Kerry) Afterwards, he pushed through the crowd to where people were speaking to Kerry. He then shouted out that he had been to Cape Cod, said to Kerry that he was "the man from Nantucket ... - in other words, this guy had a major deficit in social skills. Kerry responded by speaking more quietly to him than he had spoken to others and asked him how he liked Cape Cod and what he had done there. The man responded in a normal voice that he had gone there to work on a house for Habitats for Humanity - one of 40 some he had worked on. Kerry then praised him for doing so and thanked him for helping MA. I seriously doubt many politicians would have taken the time with this guy. The other was that Kerry spent about 5 minutes speaking to a woman in an ambulance who had fainted while waiting for the event to happen.

Treating people without power well is something I think is better done than spoken about. The danger to the Edwards is that the more they push the "we're just normal people like you", the more they expose themselves when there ARE contradictions. The fact is that as soon as they left law school, they had far more income and far more prospects than the average couple. (In his 30s and 40s, he was already a millionaire. The Edwards have then been in the elite for at least 20 years and, even if they still eat at Wendy's, they do it by choice.)

I prefer the way Gephardt would speak of education allowing him opportunities that his dad, a milkman didn't have. I also heard Lautenberg this fall speak to a couple whose granparents lived in Patterson in the same area as Lautenberg grew up in. Lautenberg's dad worked in a silk factory and he told his son he had to work hard at school to avoid working there. He showed his son how dirty the air was there - his dad and many peers died very young from exposure to unhealthy air quality. In both there cases, they acknowledge that they are priviledged - but that they have connections to people who weren't.

[globalvillage]

11. The Ethiopians were cool.

IIRC, they were really impressed by Sen Kerry.
Your Morristown story reminds me of that video of Sen Kerry talking to the goat farmer at some wine tasting/fund raiser. The guy was quite rude, and after the Senator talked to him for a while about goat farming, the conversation led to the guy's kids being in the military, and ended with the Senator and the goat farmer (hearder? you don't farm goats, do you?) getting along just fine.
But Sen Kerry never did an interview on how to be nice to goat farmers, did he? Some things just come naturally. Being in touch with people isn't something people will do because they're told to. It's either who you are, or it isn't.

[karynnj]

12. Actually the goat farmer thing was more impressive

because he was extremely rude to Kerry - I think asking if he would get Fonda's help in getting out of Iraq. Kerry treated him with respect, even when the guy was rude to a sitting Senator.

I was blown away by the Ethiopean/Kerry conversation - even though I couldn't hear it. The Senator clearly listened to them and then gave them an answer that from their expression was thoughtful and their was clearly a conversation. I realize that this is what a Senator is suppose to do - it's just cool to see it.

[beachmom]

7. I watched the video -- it wasn't weird, but I didn't find it particularly

inspiring either. I don't know any of the service people in my life -- I'm a little shy to plunge into conversations with complete strangers. But I do wave at the mail carrier if she's driving by, and smile and thank the grocery clerk and bagger (in Germany you have to do EVERYTHING and they are very rude, so coming back to America I totally appreciate the people at the grocery store). But it's not exactly groundbreaking to say you should be kind to people working at stores. She, like her husband, is a lightweight with little to say. Which is weird, because they have been through some heavy things in their lives. And yet, what I see is continuing shallowness. That's what is weird.

[Mass]

10. So typical of her. They both make me sick. It reminds me the good ladies

that were giving charity to the poor once a week and felt so much better after that.

[sandnsea]

15. Yes n/t

[Island Blue]

13. I appreciate what Mrs. Edwards' is saying here.

It's a shame that what she said actually needs to be said, but it kinda sorta does. My second job (a seasonal one) is in the service sector, and the people I deal with (who are mostly tourists) have absolutely no appreciation of the work that goes into making their vacation enjoyable. Most of them want what they want and they want it NOW. If that's the attitude they have on vacation, I can only imagine what they're like when they're in their home towns.

[sandnsea]

14. Rude people are just rude people

If she wants to address that, fine. But to single out "service people" - well just blech. And honestly, I still find it surprising that nobody actually seems to have a grocery clerk or waitress or even burger flipper among their personal friends or acquaintances.

[fedupinBushcountry]

17. My daughter and son

are a waiter/waitress/bartenders at restaurants. My daughter is a college student and my son is a writer/musician. They have some great customers and some really lousy ones. When they worked here in Virginia Beach good old Pat Robertson would come to their restaurant and no one wanted to wait on him, he was rude and a lousy tipper, those are the types that could care less about service" workers. My daughter also says in Richmond she also gets a lot of evangelicals on conventions there, and they are just plain rude and also lousy tippers, and they look down upon the workers. My daughter has said she just wants to scream at them, and say listen I'm in college, don't treat me like an imbecile.

They do have some great customers, and they both believe that the rudest ones are Republicans. They both laugh everytime they hear republicans rant about how moral they are.

[JI7]

16. i know people who do service jobs and treat other people with similar jobs

like crap if their food isn't on time or the way they want.

i think the food delivery people get it the worse such as the pizza guy.

i have a friend who struggles with money and yet she treats waiters, sales people etc lke crap.

[fedupinBushcountry]

19. Wow

my kids are the complete opposite, and treat others in their line of work really well, and they always try to leave at least a 20%-25% tip.

My oldest who is a teacher now, delivered pizzas, and he always gives the delivery people at least a $5 tip and strikes up a conversation with them.

[rox63]

18. My Mom has been one of those service people

So it wouldn't occur to me to treat them any differently than any other person. When I was growing up, Mom worked behind the counter at the local laundromat for a few years. She's also worked as a housekeeper and home health aide for the elderly. I like to think that I treat service people like I'd want them to treat my own mother. My one blank spot on this is that (in a large, busy restaurant) I always have trouble remembering which waitress or waiter is mine. But when they do show up at the table, I treat them respectfully.

[sandnsea]

20. My dad was an auto body man

I just see people as people, whatever job they do. I'm just as likely to get pissed off at a doctor as I am a waitress, and I don't think doctors feelings are any less important than a waitresses either. At one point, I went from working the desk at a hotel straight to working in a legal office. Upset people are upset people, either place. As are snobs or airheads, etc.

Anyway - I'm tired, I spent the afternoon with a literal hyperactive 5 year old, my husband's grandson. Oy!!! Me need sleepie.

[_dynamicdems]

21. What exactly is a "service person" anyway?

Does she consider anyone who is in customer service to be a "service person" or only those who do their customer service standing up?

Even the very term "service person" offends me. Anyone with a small business is a service person. Anyone who manages a retail store (and in the case of Wal-Mart store managers pull down a six-figure income) is a service person. Or are the service people she refers to just the ones who have what she considers demeaning jobs, such as pouring coffee or ringing up groceries?

Somebody should let Elizabeth and anyone else who uses the term "service people" as an euphemism for "the little people", know that many so-called "service people" have healthy bank accounts and college educations. You can go to nearly any Wal-Mart and find that a good portion of the associates have college degrees. And that cute, little, old door-greeter might just be the widow of a wealthy doctor who simply wants to get out of the house and be with people again.

People are people and only the ignorant assume they know anything about a stranger because of the setting they find the person in.

[rox63]

22. Actually, I guess I'm also one

I work in tech support, which is a customer-service sort of job.

[_dynamicdems]

23. Part of the problem is that "service" has become a dirty word.

Anyone who takes money for a product or service should value customer service. All small businesses know this. Personalized attention to a customer is important recognition that the customer is spending their hard-earned money in your establishment instead of someone else's. Maybe the problem is that society has become impersonal in general. Small towns and small "Mom and Pop" businesses are fewer and far between and so is the ethic they inspired.

The other part of the problem is associating the person with the job they do. This is especially egregious coming from Democrats and liberals. There are no "service people" that I know of only people who work at service-type jobs.

Maybe customer service and tech support are considered by some to be service jobs. To others, a lawyer they hire to represent them might be considered a service person because the lawyer is in their service. It is all a matter of perspective: one of elitism. It seems that everybody has to look down on somebody. If liberals can't be egalitarian, who can?

[sandnsea]

24. I bet you get some tirades on occasion

Probably doesn't have anything to do with people not respecting your job - more that people can be jerks and/or say stupid things when they're frustrated.