UNDERSTRAPPERS' INCIVILITY.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 116, 2 December 1882, Page 179

UNDERSTRAPPERS ' INCIVILITY.

The pranks played by vain men " dressed in a little brief authority " are sufficiently numerous and diversified ; but of all such capers, the most inexplicable and utterly silly are those which take the form of glaring incivility on the part of underlings in Government and even in commercial

offices. We have on various occasions drawn attention in a general way to this form of snobbishness ; but unless there is some reformation in certain quarters we shall have to make our allusions more particular. The latest complaint which reaches us has reference to a certain Insurance Company in Auckland. Behind the counter in this office are two specimens of the genus homo, who distinguish themselves by their insufferably bad manners in dealing with customers at the office. It is time these jackanapes uaderstood that common decency is expected from them, in their position, towards people who are really their employers, inasmuch as they bring the business to the company which pays these surly fellows their handsome salaries. No doubt their supercilious airs are put on in the belief that they thus assert the importance of the Company and their own dignity as " gentlemen" ; but there never was a more egregious mistake. Their own status and that of the Company must indeed suffer severely from these tactics ; and we hope they will mend their manner in time and save us the trouble of more specifically designating them and their doings.