Читать книгу Blaikie’s Guide to Modern Manners - Thomas Blaikie - Страница 11

Mrs Gibbs went once with her nephew to Sorrento. ‘I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t like his room in the hotel so he asked for another. I’d never have dared.’ This is the traditional British ‘don’t make a fuss’ approach taken to extremes. But Matt, almost half Mrs Gibbs’s age, isn’t much better. ‘I don’t like complaining,’ he says. He tells a story of getting one of those bargain first class deals on Eurostar and a ‘ludicrous woman’ who made a terrible fuss because the attendant allowed someone to sit in her seat while she was in the bar. ‘She was away for hours and everyone thought she’d got off. When she came back the person gave her her seat back immediately but still she had to complain. She kept on saying over and over again, “It’s not what you expect in first class.” The whole point was to tell everyone that she was in first class but we all knew that because we were there too. My wife Lucy thought it was very funny but I wished the woman would belt up.’

Zoe, on the other hand, is an unhesitant complainer and really rather good at it.

 If you have reason to be dissatisfied, you should complain. You are paying after all.

 If you complain in a public place, such as a hotel lobby, a railway carriage or a restaurant, you will almost certainly have an audience although you might not know it. People nearby will be listening in.

 For this reason a lot of people take a huge amount of trouble – staging their complaints as if they were giving a presentation at work or reprimanding an employee in the modern manner, i.e. constructively, with huge emphasis on the positive, suggestions for the future etc. On the whole this is a good thing, but be careful you’re not making a mountain out of a molehill. There’s no need to spend ten elaborate minutes going through all the strong points of your hotel room as a prelude to asking if the bedside lamp could be fixed.