One Thing Killed Rudy Giuliani
I do not tolerate incorrect sales clerk behaviour. For example, on the very few occasions that I make a purchase with cash, I do not want coins and bills to be shoved onto my hand altogether on top of my receipt. That is, if the sales amount is $1.40 and I hand the clerk $5.00, the clerk should first lay the bill perpendicularly on the note trays of the cash register (as proof of what denomination was handed him in case the customer mis-remembers) and then announce the result of the transaction in a voice I can hear, that is, "$1.40 out of $5.00, here is your change, three dollars and sixty cents" then put 60 cents into my hand at which point the customer can do one of two things: transfer the coins elsewhere or keep the hand open for the rest of the change. Then the clerk should put three singles onto my outstretched palm, at which point the customer can do one of two things: transfer the coins/bills elsewhere or keep the hand open for the receipt.
If I notice that the clerk is about to take the entire conglomeration and hand it to me all in a bunch, I instruct him that I want the coins first, then the bills and finally the receipt -all separately. In this manner, done often enough at the same establishment, the sales clerk will be taught the correct way to hand over change.
In the same way, if I see a clerk on a cell-phone and I need help or information, I tell him or her to kindly hang up on the call, serve me first and then go back to the call. If someone is ringing up my purchases at a cash register and their cellphone starts going off, I get very annoyed if they answer it and I tell them to cut the conversation right then and there or demand another sales clerk to help me.
I do not want any service person talking on a cellphone or even to answer it while they are helping me. Obviously clerks like these have not been properly trained. Read my Employment Manual.
And I Don't Want Presidential Candidates Answering Cellphones Either
There is much speculation over Rudy's recent precipitous fall in popularity. Some attribute it to ignoring the first states to vote in the primary season in favour of concentrating on Florida and Super Tuesday (1) or his politicizing of 9/11 (2).
I think it's much simpler than that: I was a Giuliani fan until I saw him answering his cellphone. The only person who should interrupt a speech in front of any gathering to answer his cellphone is the President of the United States in case we are attacked or to be notified that we started bombing Iran's sorry ass, otherwise it is completely rude. His campaign strategist should have told him never to keep his cell turned on during a speech and never, never, under any circumstances show that your are a pussy-whipped wimp who has to answer his wife whenever she calls. It's not Presidential.
Notes
(1):
The Guardian, 30 Jan 2008, Giuliani's disastrous strategy
The New Year's Eve memo that landed in the inboxes of Rudy Giuliani's campaign team was buoyant. Written by Brent Seaborn, one of the former New York mayor's key strategists, it rejected "the old Clinton/Carter approach" of securing the first states to vote in the primary season in favour of concentrating on Florida and Super Tuesday.
"History," Seaborn confidently declared, "will prove us right."
In truth, history will show the unconventional, and ultimately catastrophic, strategy to be one of the biggest miscalculations in US campaign history - and one that has brought Giuliani's ambitions to be the 44th US president to a humiliating end.
(2):
Crooks and Liars, 8 Jan 2008, For The Love of God, Someone Please Stop Him
I swear, the man just can't help himself. It's got to be an involuntary reflex now.
When asked to comment on Hillary Clinton's show of emotion just before the NH primary, Rudy Giuliani invoked once again the sum total of his campaign platform: 9/11
I think everybody is their own person and they have to be their own person and this is not something that I would judge anybody on, one way or the other. And the reality is, if you'll look at me, September 11, the funerals... the memorial services...there were times it was just impossible...not to feel ...not to feel...not to feel the emotion.He is now a parody of a caricature of himself. How can anyone take him seriously?
