Rain of terror

Oh, such care people are taking not to offend. So fragile have we become. How thin our skins are. How easy it is to wound with a careless word or two. It must be so, or we wouldn’t be scolded for using what seem to be essentially harmless terms. A friend who runs seminars for a living tells me she was berated recently for asking the attendees to do some brain-storming. A fine phrase, I’d have thought, full of the electricity and imagery that suggests the zipping and zapping of lively debate. But... no.
Brainstorming is no longer allowed less it be deemed to refer to the electrical disturbances that are a part of epilepsy. The approved phrase to use now to describe a hectic exchange of ideas is ‘thought shower’. How pallid. How wet that sounds. Let’s not get excited, folks. Let’s just sit and hear the drip, drip, drip of opinions wafting down from above.
Not long after hearing that, I noticed a couple of terms that are supposed to be now out of bounds in business circles, lest women be outraged. Surely, I thought, surely, after something like 40 years of feminism, there can’t be any ways left to get it wrong? But yes.
Be advised that it’s possibly offensive today refer to anyone as your ‘right-hand man’ (even, or maybe especially, if she’s a girl). And that something personally affirmed by two parties should not now be called a ‘gentleman’s agreement’.
Of course, because we get so much news in mere sound bites and headlines, clever manipulation of words is now mandatory in politics and business. Some people make a good living out of telling people how to do it. Thus we hear about oil companies benignly ‘exploring for energy’, not wantonly ‘drilling for oil’. Some expressions have become famous in themselves – and not in a good way. When we hear, for instance, of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ the phrase is no more appealing than ‘torture’ ever was.
I just read an article by one of America’s most influential word wranglers, Frank Luntz, author of a book called Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say, it’s What People Hear.
Frank says that if you’re a leader of a country or a business, there are five words you should be using. They are: consequences (because people think there should be consequences); impact (because we want to know what’s really happening); reliability (because we’re sick of things not working); mission (because we want to know our leaders care); and commitment (because we care that leaders are personally committed to things, and are not just making empty promises).
Being on a mission, says Frank, is different from dreaming up some cold corporate mission statement. I remember those from my corporate years. What a crock they all were.
There are a few more words I’d add to the good-words-for-leaders list that. Like truth, authenticity, and honesty. Though if someone in charge says they’re giving us the ‘honest truth’ it’s just the sort of statement to make me imagine every shade of dishonesty possible. It’s got to the point where I hardly believe anything I hear on the news.
These days, I’m more interested in real, everyday people and their rich, juicy, tender, amazing stories of real life.
• Give yourself time out to write about your life. Do it for you and your family – for memories not kept are memories forgotten. I'm running workshops in Orewa and Auckland in October and November. All you need for an intriguing and uplifting day is a pen and your personal storehouse of experience. For info go to www.storyofmylife.co.nz

All shopped out

I think that in future we’ll look back at the designer carrier bag as a symbol of the era just past. Think of every TV ad you ever see that reflects city lifestyle or tries to promote the joys of destination shopping. Every one features at least a few seconds of some babe sashaying along with bags swinging from each hand.
There’s an ad on New Zealand TV right now (for Tower Insurance) where two guys are standing talking outside a house while, in the background, a woman is unpacking a shiny SUV. She lifts up the rear door to reveal a sea of bags like the one I’ve drawn here.
Her man looks on glumly as she carries them into the house. They are rectangular, sharp edged and prettified with logos – because, of course, that’s the whole point of these bags. They’re not just for putting stuff in. As you carry them along, they also turn you into a walking, free advertisement for the store or designer to whom you’ve just handed cash or card.
Thus encumbered, you are proclaiming, ‘I shop. I consume with a capital C. I am playing my part by buying stuff that others make, therefore ensuring enduring employment for everyone involved in the manufacture, packaging and transport of these consumables. Not only that, but I’m smart and I’m loaded and can afford the latest gear and am therefore to be admired.’ There’s a whole lotta snobby yada-yada embodied in every paper carry bag.
There’s been a feeling abroad for a long time that not only must you tote shopping bags to keep the economy spinning, you should also see shopping as leisure because everyone knows (don’t they?) that shopping is fun, fun, fun. Tell that to someone who’d love to buy lovely things that nestle in bags like that, but can’t afford them. For them it’s yearn, yearn, yearn.
We forget about the newness of shopping culture for the masses. Time was when those with the money to enjoy top-ending shopping would never have consented to carrying their own purchases. Things were delivered. At the tradesmen’s entrance – if you had such a thing.
More recently, stores would let trusted customers take things home ‘on appro’ so you could try on clothes in the privacy of your own home, or check if those cushions really did match the drapes. There was no deposit, no taking of credit card details. The merchant would know the customer would return them in good order if they were not wanted. The customer would know that if they failed to do that, or failed to pay on time, their name would be mud. The system worked on trust.
But now we have little trust. Now it’s, ‘Show me the money’. Or at least, ‘Show me your gold card’. Only then can you walk out with that thousand-dollar suit wrapped in tissue in a loopy-handled, ego-booster bag. Which you’ll chuck away as soon as you get home.
As the world struggles to climb out of recession, economists everywhere are desperate for us to go back to the mall with the same old devil-may-care ease. But I think the mindless-shopping era is over. We may not be going back to brown paper parcels, wrapped up in string. But all of that just-put-it-on-the-card, got-to-have-it attitude? It’s feeling very 20th century.