Category: Fourre-tout

“All successful businesses pay attention to customer service. As without your customers you have no business. The higher the level of satisfaction a customer has is one of the determining factors in the success of any business.” Catherine Pulsifer

Nothing irks me more than poor customer service. It aggravates me to no end when I have to wait an inordinate amount of time due to the ineptness of some employee.

I will (reluctantly I admit) put up with waiting if I perceive that the person in charge is doing the best he/she can do. But it absolutely drives me crazy if I feel that some “schmo” is not up to the job.

This morning I went to a local Safeway store to do a little grocery shopping. I went there out of convenience. The store is close by and it has a good array of products. But unfortunately, convenience is often synonymous with poor or inexistent service.

When in a supermarket, after your shopping is done, you ultimately have to pick a cash register line. Your goal is to get out of the store as quickly as possible and go about your business.

You gauge the people (and their caddies) waiting in the different lines, the employees in charge and you place your bet: you pick a line. But many things can go wrong. You can have pesky customers, a slow cash register handler or both.

My cash register jockey this morning happened to be an elderly black woman who was either very inexperienced or brain-dead. It also looked like that she desperately needed a pair of glasses. She was so agonizingly slow that I felt like screaming.

Some people should never be in a position to interact with a customer. You could be a great chef, a great mechanic or an outstanding engineer, but this alone does not qualify you for dealing with the public.

If you lack personal skills but are efficient, that will work for me. If on the other hand you are not up to speed but have an engaging personality, this will also win me over. But it you lack both qualities, we are in a confrontational course; it is more than probable that I will never deal with your business again.

In Marin County by the way, I highly recommend a hardware store called Pini. It has the best customer service anyone could wish for. In a perfect world, all stores would be Pini clones.

Dealing with the public is a difficult job. If you don’t have the inherent skills, don’t go against the grain. Become a prison guard, a fisherman or join the Marines but don’t interact with (often difficult) paying customers.

Alain

One goal of law – as we learn in law school from the first day of contracts – is to deter bad behavior. Marvin Ammori

Bad behavior is not (and should not be) tolerated in any society. It usually reflects a lack of good manners, insecurity and a great deal of selfishness.

People or nations’ bad behavior  is usually penalized by sanctions. When I was a child, misbehaving in the classroom meant banishment (in a kneeling position) to a corner of the room.

Sanctions can take different forms; it can be restriction on admission, freezing of assets, economic sanctions, but the most feared punishment is ostracism. In ancient Greece, it was the temporary banishment from a city by popular vote. In modern times it is the exclusion of a person from a society or group.

Especially relevant, if you misbehave repeatedly you will be excluded, denied access to activities enjoyed by all.

Different societies have been using different types of ostracism for a long time. During the Black Death plague epidemic in seventeenth-century Venetian, all ships were required to be isolated for forty days (quaranta giorni) before passengers and crew could go ashore.

In Amish society, shunning is imposed for bad behavior. It means emotional distance, social rejection by an entire congregation.

Many pétanque players unconsciously abide by the same Amish code. If you clash repeatedly with your fellow players, soon  or later you will be shunned. And you will live to regret it.

Remember, you sleep in the bed you made. If dark clouds come your way, there will be nobody to blame but yourself.

Alain

So-called “victim” Jimmy Bennett is a creep… of the worst kind.
This opportunist sleezeball is nothing but a low-class blackmailer.

That Italian actress Asia Argento took him to bed is plausible, but extorting money from her after their interlude is low, extremely low. And if I am not mistaken, extortion is a federal crime.

While a sexual encounter is usually a pleasurable happening, it can also be problematic. A venomous serpent could be hiding in the mattress grass… Beware of virginal looking partners… They have the annoying tendency to spill the beans.
For any human being though, lovemaking is usually an alluring and fulfilling experience. But above all, this encounter has to be consensual. If it is not, it is a criminal act.

While a man sexually assaulting a woman is a fairly common occurrence, a woman “molesting” a man is rather unusual.
If it ever happened, I doubt very much that Jimmy Bennett desperately resisted Asia Argento’s advances. Any man (especially an immature teenager) would feel grateful that a woman allowed him to share a moment of intimacy with her.

So I don’t believe for a minute that little Jimmy strongly objected to being “abused” AND is “trying to seek justice.” What justice?

“I did not initially speak out about my story because I chose to handle it in private with the person who wronged me.
My trauma resurfaced as she came out as a victim herself. I have not made a public statement in the past days and hours because I was ashamed and afraid to be part of the public narrative. I was underage when the event took place, and I tried to seek justice in a way that made sense to me at the time because I was not ready to deal with the ramifications of my story becoming public.”

Do you believe this baloney? I certainly don’t. I tend to think that recently accused men seeking vengeance have orchestrated this charade against Asia.

Anybody engaging in any kind of extortion should be prosecuted, regardless of age and status.

Finally

People usually take sides in controversial cases . In this one, I firmly stand in the camp of Asia Argento. Lovemaking is not a crime, extortion definitely is.

Alain