URSABLOG: No Time for Heroes

The evening was warm, the drinks were cold, the company was agreeable and the music was cool. In a bar called Rockfellas, down on Marina Zea, the yacht harbour of Piraeus, the summer party of the Greek branch of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers was getting into full swing. I had come straight from class, and was circulating with past and present students, catching up with their news and gossip and generally having a good time. After a while, well after midnight, I went inside to try and take the party up a notch.

Soon however there was a noticeable change in atmosphere. A group of guys had come in, and although they were not causing trouble particularly, no-one knew who they were. They were not Greek, they had had more than a few drinks before they arrived, and they were trying to ingratiate themselves with the company, particularly the female members. People were subtly trying to exclude them from their groups, but they seemed to think that this was a free for all, a club. The vibe was becoming unbalanced and a little aggressive.

A couple of the guys were told it was a private party, and asked to leave. They were cool, and apologised for their mistake, and asked where else they could go. A hard core remained though, and I mentioned to them that it would be better if they too left with their friends, but they were reluctant to go. Things were getting a little more tense, and they started to complain.

It was a delicate situation. You want the guys to leave, but not to throw them out. There had been a genuine mistake on both sides in letting them in, but to be honest if they had been a bit more cool, and a little less drunk, I’m sure no-one would have minded them staying. But it was rapidly becoming no fun for anyone, them included.

Greeks love a party as much as anyone, more perhaps, but real drunkenness, of the sort more familiar to the those of us brought up in the UK, is very rare. Falling over, vomiting, fights and other such anti-social behaviour is rare, especially in larger gatherings. I’m not for one minute suggesting that no Greek ever gets drunk, but the police in the centre of Athens on a Saturday night have little to do except breathalysing passing drivers, and generally keeping an eye on things. I bet the police in Liverpool wished they had a similar life. I have Greek friends who when they visit the more ‘notorious’ hotspots on Crete, Rhodes, Zakynthos and the like, drive into the tourist drinking centres (places like Malia and Faliraki) to observe the goings on, as though they were going to see the animals at the zoo, or the third circle of hell. They are rarely disappointed with the spectacle.

Living as I do in the centre of Athens, I notice the difficulty many visitors have enjoying the nightlife here. For a start they begin drinking too early and they drink too quickly. By by the time things really start warming up in the bars, say one or two o’clock in the morning, the visitors are already beyond the pale. For Athenians, being cool and relaxed is of paramount importance for everyone. And no one ever drinks alone.

This is what made the situation at Rockfellas so ridiculous. There was I, just outside the door with the barman, with a few of my friends watching my back, gently explaining to the three remaining guys why it really was a good idea for them to move on. I offered to reimburse them for the drinks they had already paid for, and I thought that everything would pass off quietly. But then things took a bit of a bad turn.

They were, I think, Australian crew from one of the big yachts in the marina. Their skin was burnished a deep brown that can only be got at sea. One of them, their leader, understood that I wasn’t Greek but English, and that really pissed him off.

“I don’t mind the other guys, but you are a real asshole.”

I said nothing.

“What right do you have to keep us out of here, you dickhead?”

Again I said nothing. Feeling emboldened, the bigger of the other two guys started complaining that he had spent fifty euros to get in or on drinks. He wasn’t entirely clear, but it didn’t really matter because they had found a target they direct their frustration towards: me. The leader resumed his onslaught on me:

“You’re a prick. Believe me, I’ve done some high-end business in the past but you’re a nobody, a nothing. Fuck you!”

I didn’t think that this was the right time to tell him I was a ship sale and purchase broker. We’d all had a drink, as they say, and they were trying to goad me into what can only be described as a cock fight. A few more rather strong but banal insults came my way. I felt somebody restrain me from physical action, which was slightly pointless; not because they were bigger and younger than me, but because the very fact of me doing and saying nothing was reducing their negotiating position, such as it was, to nothing. So after giving me the finger a few times, and a little bit more invective, they strode off into the night. They had found a reason why they were asked to leave, a dickhead of an Englishman, a whinging pommy bastard, me, and having roundly abused me they walked away with their masculinity and honour intact.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and chattered amongst themselves about what had just happened. I went back in to dance, but as the adrenaline high wore off I felt tired and empty. I said my goodbyes and left, downhearted and pissed off.

I should have felt better about myself but I could not. Being insulted in front of other people is never comfortable: what if they’re right? What if people will believe them? Why didn’t I react more forcefully and stand up for myself? Well fear, maybe, but fear is a perfectly natural and necessary instinctive reaction to a threat. The fact that I faced it down, apparently calmly, is nothing to be ashamed of I suppose. Then there was the ridiculousness of the situation: grown men sizing each other up in front of a bunch of other people. It was like being sent back 40 odd years into the school playground. A cock fight in both senses; dogs barking at each other; who is the king of the castle?

As I reflect further however, there are some positive lessons to be learnt. In any negotiation, we should always remember why we are in disagreement in the first place. What is the end goal for both parties? I got involved because I saw some members of staff, students and members of the local ICS branch, my people, upset because a cool party was being spoiled by inappropriate behaviour. So getting the guys out and restoring the atmosphere was my goal. I am sure the guys wanted a good time, or their idea of one, but their goal in the end was to leave with their honour intact, and if they were able to provoke a scuffle or even a fight out of it, even better. I suspect that this will not be the last time that they will be asked to leave a bar in Greece this summer.

It also reminded of the power of silence. Too often in life, business and particularly shipbroking, negotiations degenerate into a cock fight where strategy and tactics are replaced by aggression and ‘winning’ at all costs, pushing as far as they can  before reaching a dead end. More often than not that dead end is also the end of negotiations and the deal itself. I have found that when someone is presented with silence, then they feel they have to fill the vacuum, and by doing so they reveal their position or create another front for bargaining, and negotiations can move on.

This of course takes a lot of patience and energy of course, and at the end of some negotiations I feel like I did last night when I got home: empty and hollow. The temptation is to assert our rights, and our pride, and fight back. But this rarely ends successfully, and even if it does, there will be bruises and scars to show for it afterwards. Nobody comes out of it very well.

Let us also not forget point of view. Everyone looking on at the incident last night would have viewed it differently, from their point of view, some thinking I was indeed a dickhead, others thinking the guys were just trying to have a good time, and so on. How can we ever be sure that we have achieved what we have set out to do? A good friend of mine in shipping believes – and I tend to agree with him – that the best deal is one where both sides are unhappy to what they have agreed. If one side is disproportionately happier than the other then resentment builds and the deal may become more difficult to delivery smoothly, and may even unravel completely. But if both sides have given away more than they originally intended then the deal is more likely to stick: compromises have already been made, so more can be made further down the line within the frame of the bigger picture.

There is no point in going for glory just for the sake of it; we have to remember what we are doing it for. As one of my old colleagues in London used to say:

“No time for heroes! Just get the job done and move on!”

Simon Ward

www.ursashipbrokers.com