WWGSD

I am in Texas.

Where, incidentally, some of my favourite people are from.

And where I am, in Forth Worth, is an excellent place to deploy a taxonomy that I learned from someone from the Pacific Northwest, but which is applicable beyond its origin:

There are two types of people.

Women who get shit done.

Everyone else.

It is elegant, economical, and probably other things starting with ‘e’.

I got to use it today at breakfast, at a Holiday Inn Express.

There was a person around 18 years old whoses tasks included filling a plate with food, filling a juice glass, and - most challenging of all - opening a refrigerator door to retrieve yoghurt. This feat was attempted while holding a cell phone. You might think that a cell phone could be put away for a minute or two. This person, for reasons inviting broad speculation, did not think that. Perhaps they could not even imagine thinking that. It was, in the end, successful, but only after several attempts to move the plate of hot food sufficiently far from the fridge door, so that opening it would not swoosh the plate onto the floor in one horribly efficient manouevre. I admit I held my breath, like a child at a circus.

There was a person around 10 years older, whose tasks included all of the above, while holding a toddler. The only things about her person that were mobile were 2 other small but independently capable persons. This involved several deft movements but - most impressive of all - issuing instructions to small person #1 that would result in smaller person #2 getting to eat the breakfast items that they might prefer. Small person #1 embraced this exalted responsibility with due seriousness and had some suggestions for improvement to which the administrator gave appropriate approval. Lots of attention to detail, within a limited scope, and in the end very satisfied small people. Poetry in motion.

What I particularly like about the taxonomy is that, while the family manager was clearly a WWGSD, and the teenager was clearly not, there is an added poignant twist.

This younger specimen of ‘everyone else’ has time to get their shit together. And I can well imagine that in 10 years’ time, they will themselves be able proudly to identify themselves as a WWGSD. It is not a fixed taxonomy. There are possibilities as yet unrealised.

In other news, ever since IHG (the British hotel company that now dominates the international hotel scene, including here in Texas) banned tip jars from breakfast areas, it has become quite a task to leave a tip. You have to find the person, find some non-awkward way to initiate things (I ask, ‘do you have a tip jar?’, knowing that IHG have banned them), and then hand over the cash.

This is quite bad. It makes what should be a routine matter of justice into an exaggeratedly purposive action. There needs to be talking. (I like talking, but what about people who do not, especially at breakfast?) And the recipient has to say something disproportionate to the gift, which is after all modest. Although these days: rare, as well as modest, and so having a strangely inflated value.

Why did IHG ban breakfast tip jars? I do not know. I can imagine some boardroom discussion. Its outcome is unfortuate and unnecessary.

Anyway, I have heard a few times now - enough to discern a pattern - a form of words that is a delightful alternative to ‘thank you’ or ‘that’s kind’.

I ask about the tip jar, and receive a disappointing answer.

I declare my intention to leave a tip.

I hand over the cash.

And then:

‘Oh! I appreciate you’.

It is said that each person is unsubstitutable.

And that is, from a theological point of view, doubtless true in an absolute way.

But in everyday life there is probably a limited number of folk for whom any one of us is unsubstitutable.

And in hotels most of the other folk in proximity are profoundly substitutable. Indeed, we are substituted on a daily basis: that is how it works.

But for one brief moment, because of a pleasant illusion created by being a stranger in a strange land, unfamiliar with no doubt quite ordinary local linguistic habits, I appear unsubstitutable.

Someone said, ‘ I appreciate you’.

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