Daisy’s World: On manners, I will lead by example

I received an M-Pesa money transfer by mistake sometime this week. I waited for a while because I knew the sender would reverse.

After about five minutes, I decided to call. Please note: I used my own credit (that’s what we call a recharge card in Kenya), and my own time (which I would have used to check what’s trending on Twitter), to call this individual to alert them that they had sent me money by mistake.

Fair enough, the person on the other end said she mixed up numbers and requested me to send the money back to her. Now, I was not too keen on this (I wanted her to reverse the transaction on her end), but the Christian in me, with the fruit of patience and kindness, decided to take time out and send back her money. Again, I sent her the full amount and bore the M-Pesa charges.

Also read: Put best manners forward

At the time of writing this piece, this lady has neither contacted me to say thank you, nor even acknowledged receipt of the money. I was disturbed by this because magic words such as “please”, “thank you” and “sorry” are the bare operative minimum when engaging with people in a professional or social context. We learned this in pre-primary, no?

You cannot sustain a friendship if you do not appreciate when someone helps you, because that makes you come off as an entitled brat. I do not know many people who enjoy the company of entitled brats.

I know millennials and Gen-Z’s are the disrupters and people with great ideas looking to reinvent every possible thing we know today.

But I have bad news: You will not get far in life without the very bare minimum show of manners.

I do many interviews in the course of my work (obviously, I am a journalist) and it worries me when an interviewee doesn’t keep time and fails to communicate. I have waited for an interviewee who has been up to three hours late – no call and no show.

Please note this doesn’t happen when I am interviewing a CEO, a managing director or a renowned surgeon. It happens when I am interviewing a 25-year-old who also complains about how ‘toxic’ their workplace is.

I have, unfortunately, had to cancel interviews because even with the best of intentions on my part, I have other things scheduled in my diary, beyond waiting endlessly for a 25-year-old to honour me with their ‘prized’ presence and time.

And by the way, I hope you guys are not showing up late for job interviews.

Also read: Imparting good manners

Here is the flip side: I meet many disciplined, eloquent, and organised young people. They are structured, they have ambitions and they communicate when plans change.

Newsflash: In the highly competitive world we live in today, while you treat everything as a joke, the people you are competing for the same opportunities with are showing up on time, they are reading their books, they are not losing good connections because of a meme that says “you don’t owe anyone anything”, and they are certainly apologising for mistakes and saying thank you when help comes their way.

Perhaps you are reading this and thinking “well, I will set up my own business and sell bags on Instagram, this 9am to 5pm thing isn’t for me” or “I know Tiktok millionaires who do their stuff and don’t need the discipline you are talking about.”

I have another bulletin for you – no one really makes it on their own. Successful entrepreneurs, painters, musicians, fashion stylists and so on, have to manage relationships with sponsors, partners, managers among others.

I will lead by example: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my article today. Please, do not let basic things such as manners deny you a fair chance in a very competitive world.

The writer is the impact editor, NMG; [email protected]