On Blogging Australia

Helen and I are looking at moving house soon - more room means the possibility of more furniture, so we’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of days looking at lounge and dining options. Apart from sore feet, we haven’t really achieved much so far, but at least we’re coming to a common understanding of what each of us likes and is prepared to live with.

Today’s foray took us into the industrial area of Fyshwick - reknowned for it’s X-rated video stores, houses of ill repute, and of course, dozens of furniture shops. The quality of service was quite variable - on one hand, we had some excellent sales people that really knew their products who were incredibly helpful (Timberland furniture was probably the best). On the other, a lot of the smaller stores had some very casual weekend casuals not bothering to come out from behind the counter, and others ignoring us completely. It happens.

The casual casuals were fairly useless from a sales perspective but they were at least not actively harming our quest for the perfect dining table - they weren’t helping, but they weren’t harming it, because we could at least wander around unhindered and see what we needed to see.

Then we got to Harvey Norman - their Fyshwick store is fairly large, and we’d had a great time looking through their Woden store yesterday (and Julie from furniture, if you are reading this, thank you once again for your help - they should clone you!). They were a little busy, which is understandable because by 3PM on a Sunday afternoon in Canberra most people have done everything that they need to do and are either heading into work to do some last minute weekend tasks or furniture shopping. We did find a helpful salesperson, eventually, but not before nearly being knocked over several times by other members of the sales staff rushing along the narrow walkways between furniture stands. One salesman in particular barged past Helen, not once but twice - this without a word of apology or even an “excuse me”. Both times he was upon us and gone before I could do anything to prevent it. Please understand that I am not a violent man, but I was sorely tempted, if only to prevent him from physically harming someone not agile or young enough to get out of his way.  We did find a helpful bloke shortly thereafter, but by then I was convinced that I wouldn’t be parting with a cent in the furniture department there today (or any other day, probably). Anyhow, I digress.

The point is, if you can’t help, at least don’t make things worse. If you are too busy to help someone, at least don’t stop them helping themselves. If you can’t help, at least do no harm. In blogging, as in all areas of life, to lead is to be of service - helping wherever possible. And I think that being helpful is the best thing that we can do.