“Being polite to the underling who delivers the message that the corporate is letting you down does not mean we accept the poor conduct of their bosses, not for a minute. It just means we are connected and good to each other.” ANTONIO DI DIO continues his Short History of Kindness series.  

Don Gregorio, was announcing the movie listing for the upcoming church-sponsored film festival.

Two American flicks would be shown, one about a car called Herbie who was alive and did not appear to be German at all, and a scary one about an airport.

Exhortations ensued to give money to poor people in distant lands. Mum wondered how anybody could be poorer than us, but found a thousand-lira note secreted somewhere in an old handbag that doubled as a Tardis, connected to every object in the universe by physical laws obeying only the commands of cricket umpires and Sicilian women.

I felt sorry for the bishop. Dad reckoned that priesthood was a vocation as you were basically dirt poor and under the thumb of the bosses in a hierarchical structure that would put an ant colony to shame.

The only advantages he could see was that you got fed without having to worry about it, and at the end of it all you got to Paradise without really having to make an effort beyond showing up to work every day. Also you were never unemployed. 

Come to think of it, dad would add, not too shabby. However he noted that Don Gregorio had many in the audience who were in mortal fear of his boss, but didn’t respect him too much personally.

Not unlike, dad said, the three others in the same category he lived with through life – the black shirt fascists in the 1930s, the mafia underbosses and the Sisters of Mercy he met in Australia. Ordinary, quite pleasant sorts of people, whose overlords he found frankly terrifying.

I never quite understood dad’s concern about mothers superior, but even in the harmless Sound of Music he loved so much, he would always cower slightly when the chief penguin warbled to the unsuspecting Julie Andrews.

The poor young woman had just popped in for career advice on babysitting 16-year-old girls going on 17, and got four octaves of wimpled mezzosoprano shouting at her to take up mountain climbing. HR has improved since then.

Anyway, it got me thinking about those times in life where we all find ourselves dealing with the underling – the caller from the bank or ATO, the parking inspector giving you the bad news, the poor bugger advising you that the computer says no.

I was in a northside Maccas a few years ago when I saw some brave wonder shouting relentless threats to the child behind the counter that he was going to sue the organisation and her personally because his Happy Meal was only moderately cheerful.

There’s a trend. I know folks who manage big call centres, public and private, and two things are clear. They care more about those staff than they ever have, and Joe Public is getting more demanding.

People get understandably frustrated at some corporate conduct chasing profit over service, as some are a little slower than others at getting their ethical house in order.

But when a board and CEO in a different city, or different country, make decisions to reduce services or otherwise frustrate us, and the face of that organisation is the 16-year-old pouring out the soft serve, I’m not sure we are entitled to give them any feedback other than thanks and you have a nice day, too.

A large supermarket retailer in Australia once made a decision to remove a great number of their checkout staff at our local Canberra branch and I saw a small conga line of amateur ethics professors lining up to give the lone checkout person a gobful. When it was my turn the poor kid looked up mournfully and said “not you too, dad!” 

We live in an interconnected world where loneliness is on the rise and the anonymity of social media emboldens cowards to greater forms of rudeness. Empathy comes a distant second to performance in that cruel circus.

When the underling serving you delivers the message that the corporate is letting you down, it’s worth remembering that they are moonlighting that weekend in the fundraising koala suit, and can effect about as much organisational change as a double cheeseburger.

Being polite to them does not mean we accept the poor conduct of their bosses, not for a minute. It just means we are connected and good to each other, and share the same joy of shared humanity, love of the sun and inexplicable fear of singing nuns.

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader and nerd. There is more of his Kindness on citynews.com.au