The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 9

Health B2 Word game B2 Entertainment B3.4 television B4 The Honolulu Advertiser Monday, February 9, 1987 rl By Lcnorc Magida fiprnai in the Miertiter c- "I have served in the minority for all of the years I have participated in the (state) legislature. If anything, I think I know better how to deal with it." Washington It's easy to tell, walking into Room 1407 of the Long worth House Office Building, where this member of Congress is from. Visitors from home have i I fl. GJ Ij" -f. brought pineapples and Maui Chips.

Anthuriums overflow a vase. And staff, members say "aloha" when they answer the telephone. Pat Saiki is settling in and, as she put it. "spreading a little aloha spirit" among those who stride the heady, fast-paced, often self-absorbed halls of Congress. "When I'm introduced, everyone smiles," she said.

"That's a wonderful isn't a reception 1 go to that five or six people won't stop and tell me what a wonderful time they had when they visited Hawaii." Few members of Congress, whether freshmen or veterans, are lucky enough to have a guaranteed smile-inducer to carry around the nation's capital. It's a nifty beginning asset for Patricia F. Saiki, whose career has taken her from high school history classes to 14 years the Hawaii Legislature and now to Washington, to a small suite in the Longworth House Office Building, and to the great domed building that sits atop Capitol Hill. But Washington's a serious, demanding town, where new kids on the block even new kids bearing smiles have a chance only if they learn the ropes quickly and start working hard. For Saiki, in office since last month as the representative from Hawaii's 1st District, that means the heat is on.

(Heat, however, may not be quite the right word for the slushy capital, recently KO'd by two storms that brought nearly two feet of snow in four days. Til never learn to drive in the ice and snow," lamented Saiki.) Saiki had a fair idea of what to expect when she came here; membership on three national commissions has taken her "in. and out of Washington over the past 10 years," she said. "I knew the pressures. I knew the exhilaration of the pace," Saiki said.

There is one important difference, of course: "Before, I always knew I would be able to go home." Saiki, who helped get Hawaii's Republican Party back on its feet, had greater preparation her entire political life- 1 see a picture of a beach," Burke said.) Saiki inherited the office equipment used by her predecessor, Ccc Heftel, and is augmenting it with a "technologically current" computer system. "We hope to be much closer in communication quicker with our district office," she said. So far so good, but then there's the matter of furniture and of why Pat Saiki points indignantly at the large dark pieces of it provided here. "Look at this desk this is for a man," she said. "Look at that chair that was designed for Tip O'Neill.

Look at that couch that's a man's couch." AVhile Saiki would, given her druthers, restyle her office today, she's philosophical about the decor and other remnants of Congress' longtime men's-club aura: "Women will adjust That's us. We've always adjusted." Women's issues are among the areas to which Saiki plans to devote considerable attention as a U.S. representative and in which she hopes to make some contribution. "I want to help women in our nation become truly productive in the economy," she said. As it is now, she said, "just because a woman decides to work doesn't make her equal." Saiki said she especially wants to focus on making child care more available she suggested that a tax incentive to employers might help and on having the government "take a look at what we're doing with our divorce laws." However, education may be the topic that has the greatest hold on Saiki.

"I just feel that education is at the very base of the foundation of our country," she said. Now, however, "We're not taking the brightest people and giving them the opportunities they should have," she said. See Daughter on Page B-2 Rep. Patricia Saiki in her office in the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C. Representative Saiki A daughter of the Pacific in the nation's capital she requested.

Saiki has 12 people on her staff, eight in Washington and four in her district office in Honolulu. "Most people have 16 or even 18," she said, "but we are going to try to function with a staff that's lean and The staff, praised by their boss for their' "talent and enthusiasm," includes two imports from the Aloha State. Floyd Takeuchi, a former Advertiser" reporter, is Saiki's press secretary and also her "point man" on Pacific issues. Maile Burke, who used to work in marketing for HMSA, has moved east to be Saiki's receptionist. 1 get homesick, like when high-caliber people representing them in Congress.

But since Hiram Fong retired from the Senate, the people of Hawaii haven't had a Republican here." Having arrived to change that situation, Saiki sees herself as the right person at the right time. "There's a Republican administration in Washington, and I feel I can be the one to reach them to open the avenues of communication," she said. So for the next two years, Saiki will be a Republican in a Democratic Congress, a daughter of the Pacific on the Eastern seaboard. And she's revved up about it: Pat Saiki seems to have a touch of what folks here call "Potomac Fever." "Here in Washington everything is moving all the time. I find that challenging," she said.

"This is the legislative arena at its highest level. I'm talking and meeting with people that in Hawaii we only read Those are the people with, whom she'll be dealing on pet topics education, health and women's issues. They're the people who'll be her colleagues on the committees to which she's been assigned Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs; Merchant Marine and Fisheries; and the Select Committee on Aging. All, she said, are committee assignments that time for being in the legisla-1 ture's minority party. It doesn't seem to faze her.

"I have served in the minority for all of the years I have participated in the (state) legislature," she said. "If anything, 1 think I know better how to: deal with it. "You have to have a loyal opposition the majority must be monitored," Saiki continued. But. she added, "That doesn't mean I have to be antagonistic" and she was quick to praise the Democrats who Hawaii's voters have sent to Washington.

rp he people of Hawaii have been very lucky in having very How to get your way over the telephone 1 I 1 i'pimi 4 1 C2223 i 'tifam I ff that sounds obvious, but must not be because businesses are clamoring for their services. Always answer the phone with a smile on your face, says Friedman. "Not being friendly enough on the phone is the number one problem. So smile, it may be the boss calling." And never say "no," "I don't know," "I can't" or "Just a If you are waiting on a customer and the phone rings, there's a good way to handle it, says Friedman. "The person -should say, 'Excuse me, let me expedite this call and I'll be right Then they should take a message and get back to the customer standing there." The Friedmans also advise how not to be telephone victims of such abuse By Beverly Creamer Advertiser Staff Writer Five years ago Nancy Friedman was not the "Telephone Doctor." She was a woman fed up with her insurance company.

The receptionist had treated her so rudely on the phone that she called up the agent to cancel all her business. Being a clever insurance agent he asked why, and Nancy Friedman told him. Boy did she tell him. For most of us, things would have ended there. Not for Friedman.

Her insurance man asked her to come and give his staff some tips on phone technique. She did, of course, and a business; was born. "What Dr. Ruth does for sex, I do for as "the bureaucratic bounce" or someone's bad temper. You can say "You sound like you're having a bad day," then "redirect the conversation so you can take control," says Friedman.

For. instance, you can say "I'm sorry you're having a bad day but this will take just a minute of your time." "Remain pleasant," she advises, "otherwise you're being as bad as they are." When calling to make a complaint over the telephone, prepare yourself first, says Friedman. "Know what you're going to say. Get your facts straight Don't blame the people, blame the thing. You're out to get tion from the person on the other end, not hostility." the telephone," she maintains.

With her husband, Dick, Friedman now travels the country from her St. Louis headquarters giving three or four seminars a week on how businesses can improve the phone technique of their employees and, hence, their bottom line. They've been in Hawaii for workshops with Communications and Trac Systems. The Friedmans have discovered that the natural paranoia of business (you'll lose out to the competition) works to their advantage. "You can have the most brilliant management team in the world," says Dick Friedman, "but if you have a bad receptionist you have a bad company because that's who the public deals with." And so the Friedmans peddle advice -V vv" i of? people by milt gust Advertiser copyeditor I Wright Winfrey water leaked from the bed.

She escaped with a broken nose and broken wrist, but it was a rude awakening at 1 a.m. Roses are expensive and candy is fattening. So some sweethearts will receive an intimate gift on Valentine's Day via the "Panty of the Month" Club. The mail-order lingerie service, headed by Lila Williams of Rahway, N.J., boasts 200 subscribers. Next month's color will be a bright St Patrick's Day green.

Maybe it can be combined with an Erin go bra Helen Cochrane was heartsick when she reached the airport in Chicago. She'd lost her purse containing cash and $700 worth of jewelry. Fortunately, Chicago cabbie Sheikh Aman Ullah found it and sent it to her Wichita, home by United Parcel Service Justice of the Peace R. George Molina is just a romantic at heart He's offering $1 weddings on Valentine's Day in Fresno, Texas. Each bride gets a flower.

Senior citizens will be married free Frank Sinatra has just about recovered from intestinal surgery and will return to a full schedule later this month Robert Redford, honored with the Dartmouth Film Award, recalled that he was a dropout from Colo. The women are attractive and stylish. They could be taken for teachers or stewardesses, says Fort Lauderdale Det Jim Ives. But the ones who get taken are wealthy men. The ladies stalk rich men in nightclubs and hotels, knocking them out with drugs and ripping off valuables $10,000 to $20,000 in each caper Combined Sem Srrticet head of the Nat'l Security Council unless Reagan recommends him to the Senate for another three-star post.

He cannot retire as a three-star admiral without the OK of the president and the Senate. Since the Iran arms scandal, Poindexter has not been a Senate favorite Diane Keaton, an agnostic, is making a documentary about heaven. Keaton strolled Hollywood getting people's impressions of heaven. A small boy was asked if there was sex in heaven. "Sure," he said, "but what happens? You make little dead people." The Fort Worth Star Telegram notes that editorial cartoonists are zeroing in on Texan Jim Wright's bushy brows.

Chicago Trib's Jeff MacNelly says the House speaker "looks like a riverboat gambler." An amateur artist. The Rev. Hosea Williams, who organized the racial protest in Forsyth County, said yesterday he will picket the Oprah Winfrey talk show today because blacks have been excluded. The show will be telecast from Forsyth and only county residents can participate. No blacks live there.

Winfrey responded that she's coming to ask "why this community has not allowed black people to live here." As if President Reagan didn't have enough problems. Vice Adm. John Poindexter will lose his third star 90 days after his early Dec. resignation as Wright signs autographs with caricatures of himself, accenting the eyebrows. "I met him once and he drew me, so I've been waiting to get him ever since," quipped cartoonist Patrick Oliphant Kenneth Crider lost control of his car and barreled through a house in Butler, Pa.

The car roared into the bedroom and landed on a waterbed where Cheryl Knox, 30, was sleeping. She was pulled free after the.