Knowing Me Knowing You

I started but abandoned a meme that Gordon did, but decided to retain one of the questions.

What characteristic do you despise?

I encountered it yesterday in the coffee bar at work, and I was shocked. Mainly because I haven't seen this behaviour at my current employer (five years) but I saw it frequently at two previous employers.

The man in front of me was struggling to be understood by the woman behind the counter. Partly because English is not her first language but mainly because he was talking fast, quietly and with poor enunciation in a cut glass posh accent (educated to talk proper and to look down on people) Perhaps in his situation I might have been frustrated, but, strangely, she understood me perfectly, although I'm as common as muck.

I took exception to his condescending tone of voice failing to mask the sarcasm, and I further resented his sotto voce Tourette's expiration of 'Stupid, stupid, stupid". What was worst of all, except for the contempt with which he treated her, was his increasingly desperate attempts to get me on board in sympathy with him. I knew I was going redder and redder, and I was staring at the sandwiches desperate not to have to catch his eye.

Strictly speaking this was none of my business, I was merely a random onlooker but I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me.

I've turned this into a 'how this affected me' which is not what I intended; I just hate it when people in a position of power or authority treat catering staff with disdain. Conversely, when I observe or hear about them treating the 'lowly' with courtesy and respect I know that that's a decent person.

The last time I have seen such disgusting condescension in such a situation was two days before the 2001 General Election. Iain Duncan-Smith and a then Tory MP whose face is imprinted on my mind but I can't for the life of me name him acted similarly condescendingly towards the woman serving them in Ravellos. It turned my stomach and to this day I regret not confronting them and saying "And that is precisely why, despite all considerations of policy, you lot will get hammered at the polls on Thursday".

In those days, we used to get many political hacks in Ravellos. Ken Livingstone frequently bought two coffees. At the time we speculated who the other one was for; later we realised it was for her who is now mother of his children. He was his usual cold self not prepared to meet the eyes of people like me but unfailingly polite if business-like with the staff. Trevor Phillips exuded his usual awkward air of self-consciousness but always seemed warm to the staff. Andy Marr would spend ages dithering around and changing his mind, but doing it with such self-deprecating charm it was clear he was a favourite customer with the staff.