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let the train take the strain, or is the car better by far?
Recently I had a meeting near London Bridge, but which way to travel? I go up to town about 15 times a year on average these days, and I’ve had bad luck with trains to and from Swindon one way and another in recent years.
An additional issue is that the cost is very high if I can’t book well in advance, and I try to keep costs down regardless of whether it is I or my client who is paying. A spontaneous run up to The Smoke from Swindon will cost about £120 including the car park for example. Another problem is the latter; car parking is a bit hit and miss if I’m not there reasonably early and, if I get there and can’t park, I’ve driven 15 minutes in the wrong direction and have therefore wasted about half an hour by the time I get to the M4 heading East to try an alternative.
Over time I’ve developed options for driving part way, usually to Reading where there is covered parking next to the station, a connecting walkway to the platforms plus extra train options from other routes that converge there. Nett journey time from my house to Paddington is about the same as going from Swindon, but the rail and car park charge is so much less that, even allowing for a mileage charge at HMRC rates, I can still do the run for about £35 less that by rail from Swindon.
Another option is to drive to Basingstoke. The extra mileage cancels out the slightly cheaper rail fare making it on a par with the run to Reading, but the traffic is easier and the cross country drive via my home town of Newbury is pleasant. The trains take me into Waterloo, so it is an easy walk from there to London Bridge, or across the river into central London if I’m going to, say, the IoD or Whitehall.
So I favour this hybrid journey of road and rail combined. Certainly it is less effective in terms of my green leanings, but it provides me with a cheaper and less stressful journey and, for the part I do in the car, is far more comfortable. Trains these days I find appallingly uncomfortable, and yes, I do understand that my size has something to do with that, but, whilst I accept responsibility for my girth, I can’t do a lot about my skeletal height and width. Train seating these days is clearly designed for dwarves and midgets and the lack of anywhere decent to park my carcass takes a lot of the pleasure away from what used to be a treat.
I loved taking the train, especially in the 80’s when I travelled around a lot of the UK by British Rail. And also trains in Denmark, Germany, France and the USA.
Even in my various spells of commuting into the City during the 60s into the 80s there was a bit more space and the seats were tall enough for me to have somewhere to rest my head, but then some idiot design team came in and refurbished all the carriages with small seats, plastic and strip lighting and the world of rail travel went on a downward spiral for me.
Now we have these ultra modern trains with their garish and lurid colour schemes that offer a period of torture rather than the pleasures of old. Yes, they are usually clean and reliable, but are they what we need to attract people onto public transport, especially given the, often extortionate, cost?
Such is progress.
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there’s a gunman! – another day on the facilities front line
The clatter of the helicopter blasted through the room, the windows wide open to seek respite from the sticky heat of early afternoon allowing the sound to penetrate what had been another quiet session in the office for our facilities management team.
Ten feet away Phil, my maintenance manager had picked up the phone and was crouched forward over his desk, one hand clamped to his ear as he tried to listen. He was duty manager that day, as evidenced by the words emblazoned on the hi-vis waistcoat slipped over the back of his chair. This was our HQ from which we ran 27 sites across the UK of which this was by far the largest with a perimeter of almost 2 kilometres.
Phil banged down the phone and motioned me out into the corridor. There we could talk. “It’s the police chopper” he told me, “they’ve had a report of a gunman”.
This was a few days after the Columbine murders in the US, and the memories of Hungerford, just up the road, were still very fresh for most of us. “The incident team are on their way” he said, and the sirens were audible in amongst the helicopter noise.
We grabbed our radios and Phil went to the main gate to meet the police and I went to reception to use the tannoy. We had around 1300 people on the site with over an hour before any workers were due to be finishing for the day, but there would be the inevitable delivery vehicles and visitors who might want to get on or off site to be dealt with and we had a well oiled process to put in place.
Having briefed heads of departments to keep people inside and away from windows as best as we could I went out to meet Phil and get the story. A passing motorist, reckoned to be a reliable witness by the police, had called in from his car phone to say that he had seen a youngish male in camouflage trousers kneeling and pointing a handgun at a pedestrian exit gate down at the south west corner of the site.
The police had the situation in hand with armed response units, dog handlers and others dealing with the situation outside of our perimeter. The helicopter had thermal imaging gear and was still cruising low over the site.
I left Phil to work with our security team to monitor the situation and liaise with the police. If we were dealing with a handgun we were fairly safe indoors because of the distances. Our only weak spot was the main exit which was an automatic barrier, but there was some cover for a potential gunman and a risk that an employee might decide to sneak out early. I laugh about it now, but I put on as many layers of clothes as I could and made my way down to the gate to make sure no-one tried to leave.
After an hour we were stood down with no gunman found, but it could have been real; we had had violent domestic disputes before including someone wielding a knife to deal with.
The moral? A well drilled facilities management team working professionally with the police handled something a bit out of the ordinary. These things come out of ordinary days at the office. Leadership and teamwork, knowing your processes and systems, mean you handle the mundane day to day stuff at the top of your game and allow your people to handle such extraordinary occasions with aplomb. Just another day at the office.
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press cuttings that feature or quote me
I often get enquiries about various articles, interviews and other press reports that I have written, or articles that have quoted or featured me, so here are the business related ones that I’ve been able to track down:
Jackie Le Poidevin, editor of LexisNexis publication Facilities Management, covered my interactive session on good practice in FM procurement with the Rising FM group in London on June 2nd and will feature that in an article for the August 2011 issue of Facilities Management.
FM World give me a kind mention in their preview of the Public Procurement Show in London, where I will be speaking on FM procurement good practice, see pages 16/17 of the 2nd June 2011 issue.
In the April 14th 2011 edition of Supply Management magazine, the CIPS journal, I helped out in the Adviser Q&A section. (Unfortunately they spelt my name incorrectly).
The March 2011 issue of Truck & Driver magazine features a tongue in cheek article by me on the life of an agency truck driver.
FM World kindly feature the Monday Musings column in the FacilitiesBlog section on their web site and in the fortnightly magazine that goes to BIFM members and other subscribers.
FM World featured the Monday Musings column of 28 June 2010 on its web front page. You’ll find the full bog on this WordPress site, but the FM World link is: http://www.fm-world.co.uk/comment/blog/could-you-recognise-a-customer-if-you-saw-one/
A feature in the 20 May 2010 issue of FM World magazine where I was quoted on the impact of purchasing in the FM sector http://www.fm-world.co.uk/features/feature-articles/fm-and-procurement/
A report in the November 2009 issue of Swindon Business News on my assisting the British Council with providing strategic purchasing training to the Jordanian Government http://swindon-business.net/index.php/2009/10/30/local-firm-to-assist-jordan-government/
A feature in the 1 September 2009 issue of FM World magazine on a Public vs Private Procurement round table debate organised by BDO Stoy Hayward at which I was one of the invited panel. http://www.fm-world.co.uk/login/?ReturnUrl=/features/roundtables/pound-for-pound/
Editorial in the 15 March 2007 issue of FM World magazine where I was quoted on the 2012 Olympic site project http://www.fm-world.co.uk/login/?ReturnUrl=/news/fm-industry-news/articles/olympics-procurement%3a-look-at-t5/
Editorial in the 25 January 2007 issue of FM World magazine where I was quoted http://www.fm-world.co.uk/login/?ReturnUrl=/news/fm-industry-news/articles/fms%2c-purchasers-need-to-cooperate/
A Day in the Life style feature on me in Romec Business magazine from 2003 http://www.romec.com/pdf/business/issue2/RB2-page14-15.pdf
At the time of writing all of these links are functioning, but some may require you to subscribe to the sites to obtain the full text. I’ll update this list as I track down other links.
Thanks to those who have enquired for their interest. I am happy to speak with journalists on business topics, especially in the procurement, facilities management, supply chain and logistics sectors.
working from home – my 10 tips
I first worked from home in the early 1980s and I’ve now been doing it full time for 8 years. My ten top tips for survival are:
1 – Have a timetable. I’m an early riser, and usually working around 0600. I make a point of going no later that 0800 before getting upstairs for a shave, shower and get some clothes on; at least smart casual – going native is not clever. If you’re smart and looking ready for work, you’ll think like work: Behave like a slob and it’ll show in your work,
2 – Schedule your day in whatever way works for you, but take breaks. I don’t do more that 90 minutes on the computer without stopping to do something different. A brisk walk round the block a couple of times a day is good. It gets the blood flowing and that gets oxygen into the brain. Other 15 minute distractions I’ll use include time in the garden doing a little weeding or pruning or to do some prep work on tonight’s dinner.
3 – Set yourself deadlines and monitor progress. Plan to get x number of calls made, write x hundred words or to finish certain tasks (or make a start on them). Use a desk diary or put it on Outlook or your phone or whatever, but do have a plan for the day/week/month.
4 – It’s easy to forget to eat and drink properly and neither omission will do you any good. Avoid too much caffeine, and eat sensible foods. One way of taking a break I use is to prepare a decent lunch. I take my food break at the dining table as well, sat up properly to aid digestion. Always aim to take your refreshment breaks at regular times.
5 – Try to have a working area set up in the home so that you do, if effect, go to the office and leave the office. It is an important psychological break point. If you don’t have a separate area and have to use the couch or the dining table then have a couple of stacking crates that you keep your files and working stuff in so that you can pack away and put the boxes in the corner. You have to maintain separate home and office regimes.
6 – One of my cyber pals talks about life – work harmony. He doesn’t like the term Balance in this context and I think that he’s right. It is more about harmony in your life and ensuring that you, and the other people in your life, feel good about your lifestyle.
7 – Replace those water cooler moments with some other form of business contact. For me that’s a business club. What you need is a couple of hours every couple of weeks where you can relax and chat with fellow business people from a variety of functions. If there are presentations you’ll learn from them and get the chance to do your own which practices another skill.
8 – Don’t feel guilty about time shifting your hours. If you want to use daylight or weekdays for something personal, as long as you hit your deadlines, do it, but try to make the time in advance by putting the evening or weekend hours in first: It’s hard to play catch up.
9 – Stay safe: Take care with cables and extension leads even if you are the only one home. Keep information and equipment secure, and do your back ups. It’s your office.
10 – Have fun – otherwise there’s no point.
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what goes where
I started this blog with no clear idea of what I was doing. Social networking was new to me and I just wanted to get started.
Today I’ve put into place the thoughts that have been coming together thanks to the input of others around cyberspace that have helped me.
This blog will now become my area for blogging thoughts on leadership and team building together with sharing my own experiences so that others can, I hope, benefit from my failures and successes.
John J Bowen’s blog will take the more random thoughts that I sometimes come up with and be a bit more of a personal blog.
Gulfhaven News will blog updates from my primary business identity.
Links to the other blogs are over on the right of this blog page and, when I’ve worked through the mill later today all three blogs will have links to each other and my various web sites.
You’ll also find links here on this page to some of the other business sites and blogs that I find useful.
Thanks for dropping by, or following me, and I’ll try and keep it interesting and relevant. Let me know what you think.
The Principles of Warehouse Design 3rd edition
I was honoured to be invited to contribute 2 chapters to this latest edition and am pleased to confirm that the launch has been announced for 10 March 2010. More news will be on the web site of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT) and I’ll update this blog and my own web sites as the timing and venue are confirmed.
Congratulations to Peter and his team for their efforts in pulling the project together.
Bowen’s 1st Law of Public Transport
If the service before the one you are now waiting for had been as late running as the one you are waiting for is, you’d be on your way by now.
This is an old adage, coined 30 odd years ago when I used to travel by bus a lot. This blog entry was prompted when I had a trip by train to London. Knowing that there were 3 trains at about 10 minute intervals at that time of the morning I headed for the station. The first train had just hove into view as I locked my car, but pulled out bang on time as I walked up the steps to the platform. The next train was shown as 25 minutes late and that had pushed the one behind back as well. If the first one had been just 1 minute late I would have been on it. Such is life.
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