Recognition

Dear Kell and Cat

If you’ve been wondering about that glow around me recently then check this. The other day as I went to pick product from the shelf for a customer her four year old son pulled at her skirt, pointed at me, and said “Mommy that man looks like god”. I’d always thought so but it was nice to get this recognition from an outsider. The shocked Jack in Box peal of laughter from mother and Megan who was nearby, was the most recognition this young lad had ever received and he immediately set about repeating it in a lust for more of the same. I hope his mother had the sense when relating the story to his father, siblings, or anyone else to do it out of his earshot least it become one of those stories that haunts him into adulthood and turns him into a twisted stand up comic. For my part the story does have legs around Bunnings but though it has been suggested I don’t think God will replace The Colonel as my nickname.


‘Passionate about Retail’ read the tag on the recruitment advertisement for a Woolworth Project Manager in Saturdays Herald. It kept recurring in my feverish dreams last night (I’ve got a bad cold) of Bunnings style marketing taking possession of the whole CBD. Yes a drive through town of fixtures and stacks of pointless product complete with chicanes, traffic lights and barriers around shelf stackers in progress. Is that a nightmare or what?

I can imagine being passionate about football, cars, collections or collecting, about causes, music, art, reading and romance novels, about politics, pop stars, pine nuts and popcorn but I find it impossible to link this adjective to ‘retail’. I guess it is an example of ‘very specific advertising’ for if there is some sicko out there passionate about retail he or she is certainly a loner who I don’t want to meet. What devious use Woolworths intends for such a misfit only enhances my conspiracy theories about big business.

My preferred theory is that someone in IR, not unlike Kelly I suppose, armed with a thesaurus and the desire to be noticed has gone in with an old standard such as ‘committed’ and come out with ‘passionate’. Unfortunately it was Friday afternoon and Glenis’s birthday so no one noticed and it went to print.

The upshot of all this is that I began thinking about the phrase ‘having a passion’ which I suspect, many can identify with. Certainly there are many around our lunch room who are passionate about Rugby League as expressed in their attitude to Sonny Bill Williams and his mate Anthony Mundine. Many are passionate about motor vehicles and you’d be well advised to excuse yourself if the topic arises. Some are obviously passionate about food but very few are passionate about opera. I know of course that there are folk passionate about opera because I read the Herald letters wherein I also meet people passionate about theatre and the arts in general. It’s possible to be passionate against as well as for some things. The Olympics is a very good example of this.

All of this discussion arouses in us a curiosity doesn’t it? Have we passions and if so what are they? Let’s see I’ve always been passionate about some girls and these days I can even apply this passion to some women. In a different way I’m probably becoming passionate about little children but that’s something that can be misinterpreted and is probably best kept between myself and trusted friends. I’m not really passionate about the arts though I do like to read and there are probably some who would say I overindulge on newspapers, especially The Herald. Speaking of overindulgence you might say I was passionate about alcohol but I’m sure I’m just addicted. If I were passionate surely I would indulge more in quality rather than just quantity. I feel no attachment to sport, cars, horse races politics or shopping.

I guess if I am passionate about anything it is about silly little linguistic points like the inappropriateness of passionate as an adjective in relation to retail and this probably places me in as lonely a position as that lad who is Passionate about Retail.

What are your passions?


Well all entries in The Spanners for Comment Competition are in as the secret deadline for new entries has passed. The neatest corectest entries will be placed in a hat for the draw at another secret time and the best three can expect their prises as soon as they stray nearby as postage would be prohibitive.

Love

Aunty