A reasonably educated person trying to make sense of it all, and a little tormented as a result. Thinking aloud, mostly. These opinions rarely reflect the ideas of any of my employers.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Coles Self Service: Why do you do this to me?
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Saying no - the key to perceived reliability
1/ Say what you're gonna do and
2/ Do what you say you're gonna do
So the old salesman's trick of "under-promise and over deliver" still holds true. I think these days it's also known as "managing expectations".
Moral of the story is to resist being coerced into making promises that will be hard to keep. You're only delaying the pain and setting the scene for a bad reputation.
I - too - should learn to say "no" more often.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Kids' resilience: The bubblewrap experiment has failed
It saddens me when people only listen to the latest new agey thing. But at least the latest new agey thing is useful this time.
Hopefully we can call bubblewrap experiment closed and the results in. It's perhaps too strong to declare a generation of dud kids as a few of my colleagues have. But for sure we have a generation that is learning the importance of resilience a lot later than they could have.
In our loving quest to protect our children from anything that might harm them I feel we have done them a great disservice. There is a place for htfu and I suppose it might as well start in the home.
The greatest gift a parent can give their child is to suspend their own anxiety and allow their child the chance to make mistakes. My mum called it benign neglect.
Some kids take to it better than others. One might just hate you more than the devil and that might just be a cross you have to bear.
So for all those parents who avidly supported the self esteem movement over the last 20 years you have a new new agey next best thing. It's called the resilience movement. And never mind, we did the best we could with the 20 year old kid.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Cucumber wrap: Quietly spoken clever manager
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Friday, September 2, 2016
Respect: Three good rules for life
If we're looking for simple rules to live I heard a simple approach that makes great sense some time ago. As you go through life you should have respect for three things:
Respect yourself
Respect others
Respect property
Sounds very sensible. I suppose it's in the actual doing where it gets hard.