Bill Nelson

One of the things that I find difficult when I go on holidays is to completely switch off. To turn your phone off, don't get caught up in the constant flow of dealing with emails. Just shut down on the business sense and fire up on the 'take it easy, kick back and have fun', no great dramas.

But it's the observing people, what they do, and how they do it, that I find a little harder. Now, before I go on I should explain myself here, or everyone that reads this will be thinking if or when I meet this guy will he be analysing me and what I do?

The simple answer of course is no.

The observations that I am talking about here are observations from a far. Watching people as they go about their day to day. Observing what they do, how they do it and then attempting to figure out their motivations. I find this very interesting. It may sound strange, but for me it is a wonderful opportunity and experience to understand and learn.

I am writing this whilst on the Gold Coast of Queensland. Joanne and I took a week off after the passing of my mother, Barbara Anne Nelson. My beautiful mother passed away on September 5th 2010 after a very short, but highly intense battle with cancer.

We needed a break and went to the Gold Coast as an opportunity to get away, recuperate, re-energise and talk through some things that were important to what we had just gone through.

But during my time there I had witnessed a number of incidents where people put their needs WAY before those of anybody else. Now probably, and to a certain extent, nothing new there but it was the degree to which they put themselves in front of another person that blew me away.

I think it is important however to point out that in most, if not all of the cases from what I could tell, was that the people involved in each situation did not know each other.

But let's take a quick look at each of theses incidents.

1. Car Broken Down
Here it was the middle of the Gold Coast Highway outside lane and this guy's car had broken down. I was about 700 meters away but started to walk towards this gentlemen and his car to help push. All of a sudden the guy in the car behind stops and gets out to help the stranded driver get his car off the road.

As they start to push the car across three lanes to get it to the side of the road, a guy in the inside lane blows his horn and charges through, in the process almost causing an accident, giving the guys pushing the car a heart attack and hence stopping the momentum of the guys pushing the broken down car.

2. Shopping Centre
We are behind an elderly lady that is using a walking aid to help her make her way around the shopping centre. We have come around a corner and due to numerous reasons the width of the corridor has been reduced somewhat. Walking towards us, a lady with her four children, five abreast and basically taking up the entire hallway.

As things continue to unfold the old lady in front of us realises that the children are not going to stop walking five abreast, and even more so, the mother is not going to ask them to do so. The only thing left is for our older lady to stop, to back against the wall and put her walking aid beside her so that Mrs Here I Come and her 4 children can pass uninterrupted.

3. The Lift
Basically as we are about to get on the lift, the people in it press the close the door button and tell us they are in a hurry.
Now in each of these, and with the other situations I didn't mention I have no doubt that each of these people were in arush, that they were important people, with important things to do.

But when does your need to be somewhere become that important that you just totally and consciously ignore the needs of others?

What becomes that important that simple good manners just go out the window because you are going to be inconvenienced for all of about 1 minute max?

When did you become that important that you show no respect to anyone else or to what they are doing?

Simple courtesy is the fabric of any civilised society. Maybe these incidents I witnessed were isolated,
but I am not so sure they are.

The Journey Continues!