HUMANS OF ŌTAUTAHI: MARK
“People don’t take you seriously if you are wearing a bowtie these days, do they? Especially in NZ, you get double-takes – is he wearing a bowtie and a pocket watch?
“So, I thought, ‘oh well, I didn’t know everyone’s name, and they are all my customers, so it’s far easier to go around greeting everyone’. You could walk up to people, and they’re busy looking at your bowtie, and they think I’m harmless. I get to know them and charm them hopefully, and then they’ll do what I want!
“So that’s why I did it originally – because we don’t know each other. To create that sense of you are not working in isolation. This is one big team. Now, of course, they’ve got this overblown sense of entitlement!
“I was born in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, but I was brought up in the most rural counties in England – Dorset. So, I’ve got what people might know as a west country accent.
“We wanted a change of lifestyle. I was working 14-hour days – with the six-hour commute there and back. My wife was working as a nurse, and the kids were in permanent childcare. Come the weekend, we were knackered; I got depressed, and it was like, ‘why are we doing this?’.
“I can remember arriving [in New Zealand], and it was like the England of my childhood. People would stop for a chat. I went to get a newspaper, and it took me an hour and a half; my wife was worried that something had happened to me! And the number of smiling faces in traffic jams was amazing,
I’d never seen that in the UK, they are a miserable bunch.
“The problem is, it’s getting busier. We have got less time. And being human, it’s all about communication and connectedness and helping people. It’s not about ‘I’ve got to get this report in’, or ‘I’ve got to get this thing done’; it’s not about material things that just fall off the shelf in an earthquake. Who cares, you know?”