Silent

If your child is in a 4-term school, then you, like me, are doing the dance of joy because the morning school runs are done for a few weeks. No lunch menu, no school meetings, no checking on school laundry, no managing the diary to do afternoon pick-ups. I don’t know which is worse. That period before and during exams or the actual break – because now the thoughts revolve around how to keep them occupied. And you know I’m not talking about small kids. The one still in school has been told many times that I am counting her school life in months. The number of months I have left to pay school fees!!

 For years, Roland has had this tradition where he takes the girls to celebrate at an exam party. No. Not a party where you haul out the books and study but a party to celebrate the end of exams. The mid-year exam gets a party. And so does the final year end exams. A milkshake here, a muffin there. A pizza. A wonky gag gift like a pen or slime. Just something to mark that the hard work is over and it’s time for a small break.

On Sunday, we ventured out for a slightly fancier lunch exam party, and we invited my niece along, who is also a student. She has also been ‘working’ since year one of university because her degree requires a lot of practical work. Off we went to play Harry Potter trump cards, make jokes and chill around a good meal that I didn’t have to cook.

Lo and behold, like many businesses these days, the service sucked. Let me start by giving you a few examples of things that have going on in my world. Let’s kick off with a booking issue on an App, which, after I logged a call took TWELVE days to sort out. Nothing in between to say, “Hang in there we are working on it.”  Or “We are sorry you experienced this; we will provide a solution shortly.”

Nothing.

Then there was the episode where I asked for a bank account to be closed, while it still had funds in it. I mistakenly emailed the wrong email address. And they handed me over for collections for R200 bank charges that had accumulated in that time before I realized I had emailed the wrong email address. A client who made a mistake.

There’s standing at the till at various retailers having to argue that this and that item was advertised at Rxx but you charged me the normal price. Sigh.

The barista who gave me normal coffee not decaf, topping it with normal milk not almond. An insurer who sends inferior plumbers out and has ‘fixed’ the same problem several times in the last three years and refuses to acknowledge how ridiculous this is or to permanently fix the problem. A colleague who orders salmon and it arrives looking like a grilled burger with browned edges. Not at a fast-food joint. NO. A high end restaurant charging very high prices to match the high-end setting. Tons of examples in the last few months alone.

Which brings me to the exam party. Where I say, “No beef please. Can you replace the beef with extra chicken instead?”

‘Yes, of course we can.”

“My niece doesn’t eat beef, and we are sharing this platter.”

“Please,” I say. “The other food must not even touch the beef,”

“No, it won’t, it won’t.”

Platter arrives. Do I even need to type this??? With beef.

The meal continues and the service remains pathetic. Again-not at a fast-food spot. My niece and daughters know me very well. They can read my body language and well, if you know me, my face is an open book. They know what’s coming. They try to pre-empt the inevitable.

They start the conversation of how we (their parents) always have to say something in such a situation. Why can’t we just walk away? Why must we question the people about the bad service? The food was good. Part of the experience was fine so why must we ‘make a scene.’

Making a scene (according to these girls) involves saying, ‘You got the order wrong. You didn’t check if we needed anything else during the meal, although we did, you stood behind our table and had loud conversations, you made us wait ten minutes for the bill and then another ten minutes for the card machine. We are not happy with the service.”

The point is not to make them feel bad. We still tipped the third person who was assigned to us after person one and two disappeared. The point is for them to fix the service, train a little more so that it doesn’t happen to someone else or to us again. It’s not a fight, it’s not an argument but a pointing out of something that was wrong and speaking up about it. This applies not just to bad service but all of life issues. Change your behavior, change your approach, change how you do things. Maybe someone is even unaware-how and what they do has a negative effect.

Which brought our table conversation to remaining silent versus speaking up. How entire communities can collapse when people remain silent. How families can break when people remain silent.

How someone can continue for a lifetime behaving badly, leaving a carnage behind, because no-one speaks up.

I eventually resorted to, “Have you never heard this quote, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing?’”

It is often attributed to Edmund Burke but people have disagreed over the real source for decades.

Now, I know the things we have experienced does not fall into the category of evil. Of course not.

My focus was, however, on drawing their attention to the good men (and women) doing (or saying) nothing part. Not just about bad service, which is the smallest of problems our world is facing.

For the bigger problems. Speaking up against injustice. Speaking up for those who cannot. Speaking up when it matters. Which are biblical instructions in the book of Proverbs 31:8-9

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.

There are various translations to this particular scripture. It has also been debated by biblical scholars as to whether King Lemuel is in fact King Solomon. The verses are said to have been penned as King Lemuel’s mother gave him advice on what constitutes a good leader and further on in the chapter, how to choose a good wife, listing the characteristics he should look for. Verses 8-9 in particular encourages us to challenge injustice. We should, in fact, we must, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. Not just in the physical sense of someone who is mute, but for someone who lacks the power or means to ‘fight’ for themselves. Failure to protect the afflicted is failed leadership. Whether we choose to give ourselves this title or not -are we not all in some shape, form, or manner – a leader?

I don’t have a problem with people who remain silent on certain issues. Given the context of things, there are instances where silence is actually an advantage to have. I have a problem where someone is always silent no matter the topic or cause. Where someone is always neutral, unwilling to speak up or even join forces or lend support to the ones who do speak up.

You will never discern when to speak up or not if your default setting is to be quiet.

I know my default setting is, “I’m going to say something,”

I would like to think that over the years, I have built up the skills of knowing when to walk away and address it at another time, when to shut up if all I have is an uninformed opinion and when to rally the troops so that I am not one lone voice. The truth is you will never be popular for speaking up. You will be disliked. You will be spoken about in less than favourable terms. You will be unpopular. You will be the bad guy. You will cause anger. You will ruffle feathers. You will cause irritation. Heck, you might even be excluded. I am happy with any or all of these eventualities.

My other niece, who wasn’t at the exam party, on the same day, had the nasty experience of sitting in a restaurant and listening while a father verbally abused his son (who she says looked to be about 8-9 years old) while the whole restaurant remained silent. When they spoke to the manager, they were told the man was a regular. So, I guess that meant his big bill was more valuable than the child being abused. My niece and fiancé decided to approach the table. And told the adult what needed to be said. They comforted the child. I don’t know if that will cause the man to stop. I don’t know if a few kind words from strangers were enough to mend that kids heart. But it was something more than anyone else did that day.

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, If I were to remain silent, I would be guilty of complicity.”

Martin Luther King Jr announced,” In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

The girls (mine and my niece) are adamant that their problem is not about speaking up. It’s the way we do, which borders on rudeness. I was adamant that nobody starts off rude. It’s a buildup. Also, let’s not misinterpret firmness and authority for rudeness. Let’s not misinterpret tough but true words for harshness.

We meandered off to Exclusive books and Kelsie got gifted a poster while I got gifted a book by for my efforts of doing the daily school run, especially during exams and especially during winter. The book? John C. Maxwell – Be a People Person.

I’m willing to accept I can speak up in a nicer and better way. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing in the context of speaking up. It might mean I may never shut up. Well, that’s a chance you have got to take with someone who will never ever remain silent on issues that matter to me or someone else. Bad service or anything else.