Needless to say, the sales team at the car dealership were very attentive, helpful and friendly ...
Even though their polite little notice was right in my eye line and earlier that day, I had freaked out when I learned that the virus had reached Milton Keynes, well it felt uncomfortable not to do so!
I needed to take part in a greeting ritual too. I had the need to be polite and build trust as I was buying an expensive item. This overrode the concern for my personal safety or sense of public duty not the spread this new disease. I dealt with that afterwards by washing my hands, so as far as I know from this encounter, you don’t need to avoid me as a carrier of the plague.
However, as this disease spreads remorselessly, Facebook abounds with stories of a breakdown in trust with people looking warily at each other on the train, in queues and gatherings. So, we’re now looking for new ways of establishing that trust at the beginning of our encounter.
Did you know that the English reluctance to being kissed as a greeting stems back to a ban on the habit introduced by King Henry VI in 1439? This was in response to the Bubonic Plague sweeping across the country, and so the firm handshake was born.
Are we now going to see a change in our behaviours, expectations and rituals when meeting and greeting? What are the alternatives we will go through during a period of experimentation? And we see that happening already. From fist bumps, elbow touches to the tongue in cheek Wuhan Shake (the video of which reminded me for some reason of Morris dancing). Now, there’s a thought.
Total refusal to touch doesn’t seem to feature in western culture, although there are cultures which have long histories of no-touch greetings. The Japanese bow and the Hindu Nameste for example. However, these are still formal rituals and not just a refusal to touch. I’d love to know their origin.
What seems to be emerging is summed up by Terrett Drake a New York businessman in the New York Times. While he will no longer shake hands with people he doesn’t know, Mr Drake said he is continuing to hug those he does, acknowledging the illogic. "I don’t know why I still feel comfortable touching friends," he said. "Maybe it’s a false sense of security? I am sure a stranger will give this to me if it happens.". Hmmm, the link between touch and trust is incredibly strong.
My tactic is to go back to what we were taught as children and yet don’t practice as often as we could when out and about. I'll wash my hands before and after eating and drinking, also on arriving and leaving a venue, and replace handshaking with whatever norm is developing in that social group.
I’ll leave you with one more suggestion that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Why don’t we emulate the Queen and return to the 1950s? We could revert to wearing gloves. As I pursued that line of thought further, I couldn’t get past disposable gloves which would just add to the plastic pollution we are trying to deal with. Sadly, material gloves are fiddly to wash and would disintegrate quite quickly. The best solution I could come up with is that we should all wear those heavy-duty reusable Marigold gloves.
Yellow wellies for hands! What do you think?
If you'd like to learn more about referral marketing then do give me a call on 07970 638857 and let's have a chat and see how I can help you.