Wednesday 26 October 2011

Paying it No Mind

Last night the phone rang, and my friend of 17 plus years called to talk about our latest installment of recreation. We were a group of 7 turned 6 and we had gone distant on each other’s lives for some time, and decided we would make the effort to spend at least one weekend with each other a month. A public holiday was coming up, and she and one of the other girls thought of a great idea to get everyone together. She suggested we all have a bottle of wine some light cutters and as the wine simmered we would be a little loose to let our minds, and our conversation run wild. Because I would always host get similar gatherings at my home, I then asked her what I was required to walk with.

She then said the most interesting thing. She explained “well, you and Millie work for the least amount of money in the group, not that I am trying to sound bad or insult you,  so I don’t want to suggest things to you both that might be out of budget. As she said this, I was looking into my fridge trying to decide which chocolate I wanted between a kit kat, or a rich caramel, rich chocolate or cookies and cream hersheys kisses, or whether in fact I wanted to bite into a piece of my Swiss milk chocolate toblerone. Yeah not exactly things you would find in the fridge of the underpaid right?

I ignored the comment as best as possible and continued the conversation for about another 7 minutes . We said our goodbyes and as the called ended, I smiled as I thought to myself, the old adage about its not what you say but how you say it. Now granted that Millie and I were in fact underpaid or not in receipt of as glorious a salary as she and our other friends were, Millie and I were both Government workers and if you know anything about those, they are normally paid on the last working day of the month. Funny I was made to sound like I was barely getting by when two weeks ago, I was parading Magical Kingdom at Walt Disney World, followed by nightly dinners at the Enchanted Estate and then detoured to two private parties in Miami where alcohol greeted you at the door and every manner of spare ribs seemed to be staring at you begging you to try them.

Probably if she insisted she wanted to make that a focal point of her conversation, she could have said ‘I know that you and Millie are the last to get paid”, or “I know that public servants will not get salary until  Friday” or, “what do you have at home that you can bring” without going about her own financial assessment to decide what she in her opinion felt we qualified to bring or buy, her statement would have been better received. Oh well, I guess that is just the banker in her, making assumptions based on her own intuitions. Lucky for her, I withdrew her comment from my memory bank, rebuked her negative deposit and refinanced my faith knowing my payout is due for maturity any day now.  

2 comments:

  1. I certainly agree its not about what you say but how you say it......well said Kiff

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  2. hey some people have to find a way to feel better about themselves someway some how...
    lol @ resolution. quite apt!

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