A little bit of praise can go a long way

IRISH people used to never complain. Just a few decades ago, you could have peed in someone’s soup, in front of them, and they wouldn’t have called the manager. There is no such national reticence now and as long as it is done respectfully, registering a service failure is a good thing. But it is also well worth the effort of going to the manager to praise someone when they do a great job. Sometimes a little can go a long way.

My parents are from the North and for many years to get across the border you had to go through a certain border town. If traffic can be directed with panache, the garda who did it there did so, and his personal charm was legendary. For example, on one occasion in 2004, my parents were on their way to a wedding when the garda complimented their car, then he spoke to my ever glamorous mother and said she was “the icing on the cake”.

Shortly afterwards a bypass meant that the route would no longer take them ’neath the directing arms of this charming man so they wrote to the superintendent in the town just to say that the garda was a credit to the force and they would miss seeing him.

Fast forward 16 years and there is a knock on my parents’ door.

There stood a man with a piece of paper in his hand. It was the charming garda, with the letter my folks had written in 2004. He explained that the letter had meant a lot to him, that it had lived framed on his wall at home and that he had often meant to come and thank them personally when he was in Dublin, but, better late than never, he said. He was effusive, they were delighted. Good, happy things happen every day.