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feeling lost? there is always an answer, and you can always ask the way
At the time of writing this I know that I am about six and a half miles up in the air and that it is Thursday 12th May, but otherwise don’t know what time it is or where I am. Well I know that I am in seat 36K on a Boeing 747 registered in the UK as G-VFAB, but I don’t know where the ‘plane is if you see what I mean. Below me is solid cloud and so I have no sight of the ground to help show where I might be.
The last few weeks have been very hectic and fraught. I have had to be here, there and seemingly everywhere at someone else’s beck and call. Pretty much every waking moment has been devoted to doing something that I have had to do to avoid letting someone else down. Not all of it has been a chore, but I have been driven by other people’s needs rather than my own clock. A quiet potter in the garden fiddling with the horticulture when I feel like it is nice and relaxing; having to fit in getting the beans, spuds, tomatoes etc planted now because it has to be done now takes the pleasure away to a large degree.
Today I had to be at the airport in time to check in, and had to be at the gate in time to board, but thereafter I am just sat here for 9 hours, or whatever, whilst a couple of folk up the sharp end take me to another continent and some of their nice colleagues bring me food and drink now and then. All I have to do is to sit here and behave and so I decided that time and space can all be relative until the moment that I have to get off and face the immigration officials.
So last night I turned off the clock display in the toolbar of this laptop and, as I don’t wear a watch these days, I am sat here with no knowledge as to what time it is or where I am.
Well that’s the theory, but in practice I do have some clues. I know that my destination is south west of where I departed from and I know what time the ‘plane was due off the ground. Going the way that I am I am racing the sun across this day and, at this height, can see the sky up here above the cloud below and can see the subtle change in colour. The shadow of the fuselage that was falling across the wing beside me has gone, but I do not have the sun through my window, so we are heading towards that orb.
Knowing the time difference between where I started from and where I am going and I know what time I am due in, so I know where the sun should be in the sky then. Given all of that I would say that we have little more than an hour to go before arrival.
In aviation circles we have an expression “temporarily unsure of position”. It doesn’t mean lost as such, just that you know where you should be, but not exactly where you are.
This is quite often the case in business; we’re not exactly sure of how things are for a whole range of reasons, but there will be information that we can use and clues that we can follow to help make an informed decision on, and you can always make enquiries. You only have to ask for help.
come in number 6, your time is up – when the boatman calls….
I wrote here the other week about how we might be remembered, a thought brought on by having seen a couple of the buildings I used to manage demolished. Time passes; things move on.
This week other incidents have sparked me off along the same lines though. One was being reminded of two 40 something ladies meeting on a road I frequent two or three times a week, and the other was the pictures of the water sweeping in across North Eastern Japan.
Like many of us I watched in awe as the water swept in. I’ve been through three earthquakes in my time, including one in California that I slept through, as well as a couple of hurricanes, so I have some feel for what nature can do and the sheer power that can be unleashed, but to watch helplessly as that tidal wave swept ashore was a humbling experience.
We sometimes forget that the gift of life is a privilege and not a right. It will take a while before we know what the death toll is in Japan, and other parts of the region affected by the earthquake, but it seems like we could be talking about a six figure number. None of those folks knew that this was the day that they would die. They went off in the morning to do whatever it was that they had to do. Some will have had to be in what became the danger zone, other will have been sent there by the law of chance; the maintenance engineer sent there rather that to higher, safer, parts because of a call for help for example. Fate is a fickle mistress.
When your time is up and the boatman calls your number it is all over and your time here is done. The meeting of the two ladies is a case in point. I was 6 miles up over the central Atlantic when they met, but it was a time that I might otherwise have also been on that road at about that point in space and time. Their meeting was no social encounter; each was alone in their respective cars when they both needed the same piece of tarmac. Travelling in opposite directions they met at a closing speed over around 100 mph and neither survived*. Up until four or five seconds before the impact neither would have had any notion that this was their time. Had I not been elsewhere I might have found the finger of fate pointing at me that afternoon, but the Berkshire Belle had booked us to fly on that day rather than the next as planned and I was safely parked in a window seat on a 767 at the time of the crash rather than driving myself home on that road.
In the words of the legendary Sid Collins we are all speeding towards death at the rate of sixty minutes in every hour. We don’t know when the call will come, so what we do with our time here is important. If we can do something positive for the world and the people around us then our time here will not be wasted.
As I say, our time on Earth is a privilege and not a right. We all have a choice of what we do with that time. What are you doing with your time here? Remember, life isn’t fair either, and we may not get as much of it as we would like, so never mind what you’d like to be remembered for; try and make a difference and do it today: You may not get another chance.
* I had been told this by one of the locals, but in 2013 I found that it was not true. In the accident one of the ladies died and the other was severely injured, but later recovered. In one of those awful examples of fate it was the innocent party who died instantly in the collision, but the survivor was the one who caused the accident. Having been observed shortly before the crash driving at high speed and erratically, according to reports, she had over twice the legal limit of alcohol in her system. She fled abroad to escape justice, but was returned to the UK where she received a jail sentence. Her recent appeal against the severity of the sentence was turned down.
The local paper summarised the incident here.
putting customers first takes more than just calling them customers
At one time there was great trouble throughout the land. The people were not getting their just desserts, but this had gone on for so long that they had ceased to complain and they had become stoic in their acceptance.
It came at first as a whisper, as the first stirring of a breeze breaks the calm when a hurricane is due and, like a hurricane the word was to sweep through the land uprooting the trees of resistance in its path. And the name of this hurricane was Customer First, although it was to have as many names as it had priests, for each was to brand it according to their own ways (and fee scales).
And Lo! The people did become customers; not just those in the shops and retail premises, but no longer they that travelled by train, ship, ‘plane or bus would be called passengers. No longer would those who occupied premises, whether domestic or for their trade, be called tenants. No longer would those in ill health and needing to see the physician be called patients. No longer (yes, yes, all right; we get the picture – ed).
From that day hence they would all be customers and all would be well. Their time of strife would be over and they could rest easy for, when they handed over their hard earned coin, all would be well and they would be treated in the manner to which they should.
And so the priests, gurus, mentors, consultants and trainers did prosper, their pockets full of their client’s gold, and there was great rejoicing throughout the land. Those who proclaimed the way of the Customer grew rich and, in some cases, famous. Those who had sought their help (he’s off again. Enough! – ed).
Ok, let’s cut the pseudo biblical stuff, leave this fantasy world behind and consider ours. Are you getting better service because your train operator calls you a customer? Or anywhere else where you have become “a customer”? I doubt it. Sure there have been improvements in some places, yes, but that is because people have been better trained, not because of a name change. You might argue that the name change brought about a change of thinking, but I would suggest that such influence was limited. When I travel in someone else’s vehicle I am a passenger; when I have treatment at the medic’s I am a patient and so on. I find inappropriate use of customer patronising, how about you?
Maybe I am in a minority on this (that would be good, I might have rights), and I know I am being a bit obtuse here, but the point of this missive is that you have to mean it to make a difference. Just calling something by a different name doesn’t, on its own, make a change. For me it is the equivalent of the old dodgy car dealer’s “change the plates and give it a re-spray”, and is about as salubrious.
My train of thought here came from having been pulled up for referring to the people who were renting premises as tenants. “They’re customers” I was told, but then the attitude towards them would not have been out of place for the inmates of a labour camp. Calling them customers made no difference to the way they were seen or treated, so why bother with the pretence. OK, this is an extreme example, but does calling me a customer improve my rail service? No, but what would make a difference is changing the service I get for my money. That’s the challenge.
Another postcard from America
I first discovered America through TV, then later through the movies. It was 1993, by which time I had turned 40, before I finally got here. On that first trip we arrived in Tampa in one of its legendary thunderstorms. We’d been en route for a long time and, with a delay in getting our bags due to the storm, I decided to drop anchor for the night. The next morning the sun was shining and we headed off from the airport across the bay and up US19.
Everything was instantly familiar in so many ways; the traffic lights swaying in the breeze, the roadside motels, many of the names of various retail and food outlets. “It’s just like in the movies and on TV” said a voice from the back seat. Blindingly obvious really, but it was, and much more so than, say, when we’d been to France or some of the other European countries.
Since that first trip I’ve been here more times than I can remember. We’ve been to many parts on both coasts and have owned a home here for several years. One of the things that we try to do is to get amongst the people rather than stick to the tourist haunts. That has led to a number of experiences that would each take up a 600 word blog, but the point is that you need to reach out to people, to listen to them and to ask them about their lives if you want to grow yourself.
Trying new things is fun anyway. I still have a list of things that I want to experience over here, but it has been a great joy to try some of the things that I’d read about or heard about. I’ve done this wherever I’ve been, here in the UK or abroad, and it has always paid off for me. Sure sometimes I’ve tried a local dish and not enjoyed. I can recall the huge disappointment of trying pastrami on rye in New York, for example, I just didn’t like it, but that has to be balanced against the Cuban sandwich in Miami, the chowder in Boston, the Cioppino in San Francisco and many more.
Sporting events are huge over here. At one time we used to rent a villa over on the gulf coast of Florida and I became quite a follower of the local high school football team. They would draw half as many again more fans for their home games than Swindon Town could manage in what was then the second division of the football league back home. And this was a school team. This week I was talking to some USF students about their upcoming came against Syracuse. As it turned out the Bulls lost, but the attendance was over 41000. Eat your hearts own premier league. Motor sport has long been a passion for me and I’ve been able to attend several races over here, including the Daytona 500 (Indy is still on the to do list), but the scale is again vast compared to back home. Over the last three years or so I’ve started to get my head around baseball enough to at least follow most of what is going on.
These things are all so much fun. They are family events and the organisers make them work for the fans. And the fans are just fans; who they are where they live or work doesn’t matter. At the track or the game they are fans and they get to enjoy the event for the spectacle that it is.
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Home thoughts from abroad; a postcard from America
Oh to be in England, now September’s here? Not really, no.
I’m taking a few minutes of quiet time in between business and the essential hospitality that goes with it, at least it does more so here in the USA that maybe back home. Shortly I will be back on show when my host’s guests start to arrive and we get down to some serious socializing and, it has to be said, networking.
So, home thoughts from abroad? For me this is more home than home in the sense of where I live. Yes I know that I am British, and I am proud of that, but I am more at home here in the US than I am back in Wiltshire and, if I had the chance, I’d set up home here for good.
For me there is a lot about America that we have seen wiped out in the UK. People do care about each other here and there is a much greater sense of community spirit. In many ways it is like the England that I grew up in in the 1950s and 1960s. Nostalgia may not be what it used to be, but I am nostalgic for a time when people were far less self centred; my Monday Musing last week talked of the Musketeer’s motto of “One for all and all for one”. So much of what I see back home is more like one for all and every one for themselves.
Here there is a much simpler attitude in most people, and it shows up in the way that I am being looked after. The whole concept of me being over here and staying alone in a hotel is an anathema to the people that I’m meeting, so a range of hospitality gets lined up for me to meet families and friends. This isn’t expense account stuff either; it is a genuine desire to welcome a stranger and look after them.
Back home people often mock the “have a nice day” culture, but here it is, in most cases, genuine. This morning I went for a walk down a couple of blocks to buy a newspaper. I’d not got far before I fell into step with someone heading the same way. By the time we got to the news stand I knew his name, what he did, the names of his wife and his children and how they were doing at school and he’d had broadly equivalent information from me. When I used to commute into London by train there would be the same herd of us heading off to the station each morning for the run into Liverpool Street, but in three years of doing that I got to talk to two other people. Everyone else just kept their heads down and ignored those around them.
The Americans bring this warmth into much of business, whether that be BtoB or BtoC. In most cases there is a real need to give the customer service that goes a bit further and that’s great. It makes doing business a pleasure. Sure they are hard negotiators, and yes there are sharks, but doing a deal here is a very different experience to doing one back home.
Maybe some of this is just because it is a change for me. It’s nearly a year since I was last over and it could just be the grass being greener on this side of the hill. Maybe I would find it less attractive if I was here full time. Maybe not, and I have to come home soon anyway.
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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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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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