Archive
So it’s been a while
After umpteen years of writing a weekly musing I have become more and more lax of late. Not that I have less to say, perhaps more because I have been saying it in other ways, face to face primarily, but also because my working life has changed somewhat substantially over the last year. Read more…
Musings from the facilities front #5
Timing is everything; when you get it right life is good, but the margin between hero and twit can be very small indeed. Luck plays a big part of course, but Lady Luck is a fickle companion and sometimes experience is what you need to avoid landing in the smelly stuff. Read more…
an FM Christmas Carol
This public holiday’s attempt at a little humour sees a stab at a Christmas carol for those of us in the FM world. You should know the tune, so feel free to add your own verses: Read more…
Musings from the facilities front #4
The Case of the Vanishing Bog Roll is not one that you will find amongst the cases of Mr Holmes nor, perhaps, is it likely to crop up as a plot on Midsomer Murders, but it has kept us amused for a day or two and has added to the range of memories I have of this mundane, yet essential, consumable. Read more…
Musings from the facilities front #3
Life is never dull as an FM; I have heard or read that so many times over the years. People expound about how great it is not knowing what you will face at work each day, but I do wonder if that is the best way to be working. Read more…
Just do it
Things that need to be done can sometimes seem hard, complicated and daunting. Finding a place to start can often be hard and as for trying to get diverse groups of people around the table, let alone to agree to anything, looks impossible. There are all sorts of platitudes that can get trotted out at times like this; the journey of a thousand paces starts with a single step, or eating the elephant one bite at a time being two of my least favourites, especially when they are trotted out by people who don’t have to do the hard jobs. Making things happen takes all sorts of things, but there is one tool that works every time. Read more…
but in the end nobody did it
We all know the lines about everybody knowing that somebody would do it, but in the end nobody did it; it’s a little off pat, but rings nicely true and it sums up one of the basic issues of leadership that is often overlooked (see foot of blog for the full story). Read more…
Musings from the facilities front #2
Service Level Agreements; where would we be without them? A lot better off in the case of most of those that I have inherited and I would like to tear them all up. Read more…
Musings from the facilities front #1
As regular readers may have spotted I have been back in an operational FM role for a few weeks now and that is one of the reasons for my not having been writing so regularly here. That’s not to say that I haven’t been writing at all, but I just don’t seem to get the time to write the regular blogs. Read more…
Knowing the other party
After my last blog I took some stick from a colleague over my using the term “Know your enemy” in the context of colleagues. In this PC world maybe they have a point, for the phrase as used more than forty years ago was one that we all, at the time, applied a different meaning to. So here I am going to change it to “Knowing the other party” which is more neutral. Last week I was talking about site visits in general and one that we had coming up in particular and I want to carry on that theme to consider things from both the view of the host and their visitor. Read more…
I support this charity
British Blogs
the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 