Stop complaining you ungrateful wretch!!!

Those of us of a certain age don’t tend to complain much generally about the poor service we receive or the bad attitude of the person we are dealing with. Ok we complain and bitch to each other about the bad meal we had or the bad tempered taxi driver that brought us home but we rarely have a moan at the time of the actual event.

We seldom tell the offenders what we think of them, preferring instead to keep our mouths shut and grumble later to anyone else that will listen. We might even ring the local radio station because it’s a lot easier to crib into a phone than it is to confront someone face to face.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, when we were growing up we were taught to mind our manners, speak when you’re spoken to and to say please and thank you. If you didn’t, you either got a clip around the ear or your mother squeezed your arm so tightly that she cut off the circulation while chatting away to the neighbour without missing a beat.

We were also regularly advised by mothers and grandmothers to stop complaining. We had no right to complain unless we had experienced a famine or we were on deaths door. If you complained at anything less than a terminal illness then you were simply an ungrateful wretch. It was drilled into us, so much so that we were afraid to say anything that might cause offence and we carry that with us today.

Secondly, there is a more practical reason for us keeping our mouths shut and it involves self -preservation. Somewhere in the back of our mind we are afraid that if we complain about the steak being too tough at the local restaurant, the waiter will take it away and replace it with a piece of meat that has tested positive for mad cow disease and has been sneezed on for good measure by the entire kitchen staff.

Or if we dare to complain about the wine not being to our liking, it might be replaced with a bottle of vinegar containing the bodily fluids of an angry chef. If we give the taxi driver a telling off about his bad attitude he might bring us home via Sneem and charge us an arm and a leg for the privilege. So to be on the safe side, we say nothing until we are safely out of harms way and then we can let rip.

I remember as a young lad going into a local hardware store one day. The owner, long since dead, was a well- known character and his short fuse was legendary. You could get a good bargain from him but there was a cardinal rule, don’t ever return anything. He was a big guy and was very imposing.

A lady who obviously hadn’t heard about this unwritten rule had brought back a coffee table that she told him was wobbly. He picked it up, studied it for a bit then raised it over his head and threw it the length of the shop. It hit the floor and exploded with bits of it flying in all directions. Then he looked at the shaken woman who feared that she was about to suffer the same fate as the unfortunate table, and he said; “Now mam, it won’t wobble anymore.”

Professional people were never complained about either. They knew what they were doing so if something went wrong it was obviously your own fault. If your dentist drilled through the roof of your mouth and stuck you to the ceiling, then that was your own fault for moving your head. If your doctor removed one of your kidneys when you were in fact suffering from an ingrown toe nail, then that was your fault too. You should have explained yourself properly.

If you were ever foolish enough to complain to your parents that you got a talking to from a rude garda then heaven help your innocence because that would surely lead to another dose of discomfort. No matter what reason you had for coming to the notice of An Garda Siochana, there was absolutely no excuse for upsetting one of them. That point would be emphasised with a kick up the backside.

If you didn’t perform well in school then there was a simple explanation for that too. Either you just weren’t making an effort or your brain had only a limited capacity in which case you got a pat on the head, “Poor boy, sure you’ll find something.” It had nothing to do with the teacher, even if he did smell of drink and had trouble standing up most days.

I know many genuine, decent teachers who try to do their best for their students and I have heard many stories from them about abuse they receive from parents. That might be about to get worse.

A new mechanism has come into force to deal with teachers who are accused of misconduct. The provisions allow any person to make a complaint about a registered teacher to the Teaching Council. This includes members of the public, employers and other teachers. The mechanism is similar to one in place for doctors by the Medical Council.

So now it will become easier for mammies to complain that the little darlings are not on the list of the top ten best performers or that they aren’t playing the lead role in the school play or that they are not on the first team in football. This won’t alter the fact that many of those particular kids will never be high achievers and the only top ten they will ever reach will be Interpol’s 10 Most Wanted.