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Sunday, April 3, 2016

Decorum...


From the City of Miami Springs' monthly City Council agendas:

Decorum: “Any person making impertinent or slanderous remarks or who becomes boisterous while addressing the City Council, shall be barred from further audience before the City Council by the Mayor, unless permission to continue or again address the City Council is granted by the majority vote of the City Council members present. In accordance with the foregoing, the City Council has determined that racial or ethnic slurs, personal attacks and comments unrelated to City matters or issues constitute prohibited comments from the podium.” 


My mayor interrupts my community's citizens when they speak at our council meetings.  He uses sarcasm.  He calls them "liars". He's impertinent. He should probably, according to the required decorum at city council meetings, "bar himself from further audience..." 

I have to admit that I am sensitive to decorous behavior. I'm a retired flight attendant and, working flights, I learned to paste on a grin no matter what.  Over time, I found that if I was proactive and pleasant, I would minimize my stress. I learned, for example, to check in with seats "B" and "C" if "A" wanted another Coke.  Many times I'd get the Coke for "A" and then "B" and "C" would say something like "Hey, that looks good!  I'd like one too! Shoot, bring me a bottle of rum while you're at it!"

During my 26 years of flying around the world, I'd get tired and irritated on occasion. But in general I had a lot of "flight attendant fun".  I anticipated going to work. People interest me and I am nice to them.  I'm respectful. 

There are some who might say that I'm too positive; too naive, really. That, for example, a mayor sarcastically interrupting residents speaking at council meetings, is to be expected; that on a scale of 1-10 on the decorum spectrum--one being presidential candidates referencing the size of their (ahem) hands and ten being the pope addressing an Easter Sunday gathering, a sarcastic mayor is closer to....the pope. 

But perhaps I'm confused on expected decorous behavior from community leaders or presidential candidates. Innuendo about the size of presidential penises and interrupting mayors pale in comparison with my experience in a public school. I worked for a principal who used the expletive: "F#@K!" a lot. I once heard him on a walkie-talkie held by my female assistant principal, yell at her and for anyone listening (including nearby children), "GET THE F#@K OVER HERE!" 

"F#@K!" he yelled when I was assisting him with a data oriented task.  

"Why the F#@K can't you stay out of things!?"; he screamed in fear after he found out I'd helped an employee who didn't feel safe at our school.

Maybe if he'd said "please" I'd feel differently.  

Hey!  I'm getting better at the sarcastic thing!

Never during my flight attendant career did any supervisor use the word "f#@k" with me. Nor did I with them.  I never once stood in the aisle of any airplane and yelled "F#@K I am tired of this!"  Never once, standing in the galley following a meal service and ready for a break and THEN interrupted by a passenger needing just a little more coffee or conversation, did I yell in exasperation: Why the F#@K can't you leave me alone?!"

"What the F#@K is decorum, anyway?" I wish Donald Trump would keep his hands to himself; that my mayor would just LISTEN to residents' concerns and that my former principal would learn not to say the "F" word.

Or maybe I'm just too f#@kin' naive.
 
11:17 am edt          Comments


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