Free Gift

Your free gift is this template for a Fridge Magnet

Image from Bob Sutton's Blog site http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Inspiration

I do a number of Tao Chi classes during the week. One of my favourites is the 2nd year beginners’ class because it allows one to smarten up and refine the moves. And there is an interesting and nice bunch of people in this class.

There are 2 very old ladies in the class; Woody (I am not sure of her proper name) and Mrs Ho. I know Mrs Ho is 91 because her daughter told me they celebrated her 90th birthday last year. And the class has made some fairly good guesses of Woody’s age; we think she could be anywhere between 85 and 93. These 2 old ladies pitch up most Tuesday and Thursday evenings regardless of weather. They wear little socks to compensate for the cold floor but otherwise stick to our Tai Chi “uniform” of black trousers and white T shirt.

There are over a 100 different moves in the short form we do and, depending on how slowly we do it, it can take anything from 10 minutes to half an hour to work through all the moves. And then there is also the straight sword form and that also has a lot of moves, and you have a sword to think about as well as what your body is doing!

The inspiration: These 2 old ladies keep up with the class. Occasionally they end up facing the wrong way but then so do some of the youngsters. They make a damn good effort to do everything including all the lunges, squats, touch their toes and they sometimes manage a really good balance on one leg whilst holding their swords above their heads. Amazing.

Have a Good Moan

The other day in a restaurant I listened to guy moaning at the waiter about his food. It appeared that what he thought he ordered and what he got was different. The waiter tried to explain to him that he had received xyz and pointed to the item in the menu, but the customer’s problem was that he had eaten the same item somewhere else and he expected the same thing. Often menu items have the same names but are slightly different from restaurant to restaurant.

This guy went on an on about it…. He asked to speak to the manager as well and went on and on at the manager. He used phrases like “you people”, “don’t you know how to do things properly”, “you take advantage of customers”, “you don’t care about your customers”, “your menu is misleading”, “I am very disappointed”, “do you think I am stupid” etc etc. It was quite awful. And then he went on and on about the meal to his dinner partner. The manager offered them a desert on the house but the guy was not having it and this set off another round of moaning.

So what do I mean by having a good moan? Don’t treat small, trivial issues as if it’s the end of the world. Deal with the problem and move on. Get on with your dinner or whatever you were planning to do. This guy in the restaurant could have just told the waiter that in restaurant x they made the dish with white pepper not black pepper. End of story. His dinner partner looked like all she wanted to do was go home and the waiter probably wished he had spat in the food!

Deal with the issue accordingly. This guy made this a really personal issue - the fact that he thinks the butcher/baker/candlestick maker didn’t care about him and they were out to rip him off is a mind thing, it's not real – it’s an illusion. Don’t blow small things like this out of proportion – don’t make it personal, it is not personal.

Happiness and the Workplace

I believe that when you say you love your work, what you really mean is that you love the environment, you love the people you work with, you love the vibe and excitement of the workplace. You don’t necessarily love the actual process of “the work” itself.

I am hearing stories at the moment of happy work environments going belly up – bully bosses and bully clients seem to be thriving in the current economic climate; their victims having to bite the bullet and unfortunately this provides a Petri dish for unacceptable behaviour to thrive.

Understanding why people behave the way they do helps. Hopefully this list, compiled by Scott Berkun, of 11 reasons why bosses become assholes will make you feel a whole lot better if you have to deal with asshole bosses and clients.

1. A boss they admired was an asshole.
2. They are insecure in their roles
3. They prefer intimidation to leadership
4. Their life sucks
5. They lose their way
6. Promotion chasing
7. Their management chain is toxic
8. The Peter Principle
9. They're not assholes, they're just insensitive or oblivious
10. Madly in love with themselves
11. They always were assholes

Scott’s explanation for point 2. is extremely insightful:

"They are insecure in their role. The psychology of opposites goes a long way in
understanding human nature. Overly aggressive people are often quite scared, and
their aggression is a pre-emptive attack driven by fear: they attack first
because they believe an attack from you is inevitable. Management makes many
people nervous since it’s defined by having have less direct control, but more
broad influence. A huge percentage of managers never get over this, and
micromanage: a clear sign of insecurity and confusion over their role and yours."

He expands on each point so go and have a look: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/top-ten-reasons-managers-become-assholes/

Something else you’ve gotta watch

With all the long weekends coming up you will have plenty of time to go to your Video/DVD shop and take out “As it is in Heaven”. It is 124 minutes long and you don’t want it to ever end!

Claude, my ex-husband, told me about this film when I mentioned that I might be taking singing lessons this year. He said he loved the film so much he actually bought a copy and has watched it a number of times. Claude is a musician and sings beautifully so this film has a permanent place in his heart. But it isn’t just for music lovers, it is the most beautiful story and has the most delightful characters.

The film was made in Sweden and naturally enough is in Swedish with English subtitles – Don’t be put off. I was ¾ of the way through and was amazed at how much Swedish I understood hahaha…. Not really – I just wasn’t aware of reading sub-titles… I was so caught up in the story, the people, the wonderful acting; I felt as if I could understand every word…..

You've gotta watch this.

If this doesn't make you feel good; bring a tear to your eye; make you want to laugh out loud then I just dont know:

Was on telly on Sat in the UK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

Gullibility and the 1st April

April Fool’s day always has my gullibility genes twitching and quivering in the vain hope that they will spot the tricks and jokes that abound in the papers and news broadcasts. I admit that I am helluva gullible and a number of friends have had a good laugh on occasion at my expense *grin*…. So this day is one that I work overtime to spot the joke.

But gullible or not, some of the April Fool’s jokes going around this year about politicians (ie. Firing Hogan and bringing back the Great Manto) sounded quite plausible to me….. our political environment is such that anything could happen.

And a little snippet in the Sunday paper had me running for my PC to fire up Google. It said that Pieter-Dirk Uys has written a play called MacBeki and it starts in Johannesburg on 1st April…. Hahahahaha – this is not a joke – it really is showing at the Market Theatre. He chose his date well.