Editor’s Choice | By Maryke van Rensburg
A mother’s simple words about crowns and dignity. Our editor reflects on quotes that never arrived, feeling judged in your own home, and why Klerksdorp is big but also small. Read this week’s Editor’s Choice on North West Insider.
My mother used to say: keep the other person’s crown on their head.
I have thought about her words a lot lately.
I have asked a number of local businesses to come out and give me quotes for work at my home. Some never arrived. Others came, but left me feeling small in my own home. Remarks about my garden. Derogatory comments about how things look. And all I had asked for was a quote.
I am not the only one. I have spoken to many people in Klerksdorp who tell the same story. The appointment that never happens. The promise that is not kept. The visit that leaves you feeling judged instead of helped.
And there is something else that is harder to say, but it needs saying. A woman should not need a man standing beside her to be treated with respect. Yet too often, when a woman deals with a service provider on her own, she is talked down to. Explained to as if she cannot understand. Made to feel that her questions are an inconvenience. This is not every man, and it is not every business. But it happens often enough that it needs saying.
Here is what I keep coming back to. When someone invites you into their home for a quote, you know nothing about their life. You do not know what they are carrying that day. You do not know what is happening behind that front door. The garden you want to comment on might belong to someone caring for a sick parent, working long hours, or simply doing their best with what they have.
That is why my mother’s words matter. Keep the other person’s crown on their head. It means treating people with dignity whether or not you understand their situation. It means empathy, not sympathy. You do not have to feel sorry for anyone. You simply have to remember that they are a person, the same as you.
For businesses this is not only good manners. It is good business. Klerksdorp is big, but it is also small. Word gets out. People remember who arrived when they said they would, who spoke kindly, who explained the work without making them feel foolish, and who kept their promises. They remember the opposite too.
I am not writing this to scold anyone. If you recognise yourself somewhere in this column, I hope you will take it as an invitation, not an attack.
Arrive when you say you will. If you cannot make it, make the call. Do the quote you promised. Be friendly. And when you stand in someone’s home or garden, remember that you are a guest there, and that the person in front of you deserves the same respect you would want for your own mother, sister or daughter.
We do not know what other people are carrying. We do not need to know. We only need to treat them with dignity anyway.
Keep the other person’s crown on their head. It costs nothing to have grace for people, and if we can manage that, Klerksdorp will be a better place to live and a better place to do business.
