Category Archives: Rants

Posts about petty annoyances as they relate to The Three RResolutions

Mini-Blog 4 – Telephonicus Interruptus

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

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People have become telephones.

You’ve all, I’m sure, had that experience when you’re in a meeting or engaged in a conversation with another person, and a phone rings. Without question, the party whose phone it is will respond, occasionally by picking it up and hanging up straight away but more often than not they will answer it. Since the event of the mobile phone, particularly the smartphone, this occurs more often as we don’t have to be in a formal environment to experience this phenomenon any more. It happens everywhere. In addition, we expect someone to answer a phone immediately we call, because we would do the same.

It’s Pavlov’s Dog for the 21st Century. What is funnier is that if someone in a group takes out their phone, it is 90% certain that the others in the group will check theirs.

Now it might just be me, but here’s what I’ve noticed. If I am in a conversation with somebody, it’s now common for someone to walk up to us with the intent of speaking to one of us and then just interrupt. And, strange as this is, whoever they seek to speak to will immediately disengage from their original contact and start talking to the newcomer. It happened to me last week, it was always happening at work. And what is really odd is that, even knowing this, if someone interrupts my conversation with another to speak to me, I am just as likely to turn away from my original chat to engage with the interrupter.

Is that your experience? Have people become so accustomed to the immediacy of the mobile ‘get me anywhere’ telephone that now people have to be answered immediately, too? Are we so familiar with the phone’s impersonal and intangibly reasonable ability to interrupt without being judged that we think we can do the same and interrupt people in person? Why isn’t this seen as incredibly RUDE?

At least the telephone has the manners to ask first.

Mini-blog 3 – Popular television. Is it really?

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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My daughter is a bit of a slave to soap operas, where characters, usually minority stereotypes with the same predictable problems and an inability to call the authorities when appropriate (because doing so would solve the problem too quickly for any plotline), repeat the same old mistakes in the name of entertainment. I can’t stand them and am quick to point out that (in the UK at least) they have their own Awards because they don’t deserve any awards from legitimate sources.

The problem I have with them is that they are not, as they pretend to be, reflective of society. We are not all dishonest, adulterers, liars, drunks, hiding something from anyone and everyone. And (as a retired copper), police officers are not automatically stroppy, arrogant power freaks with no sense of humour. Contrast the reality cop shows with the characters in soaps. BIG difference.

Another thing is that they do not educate – bringing some situation to ‘the awareness of the public’ is not a true description of what they do because (a) the public is already aware or they wouldn’t know what was going on and (b) it’s dramatized to the point of inaccuracy. It’s just an excuse to sell what’s on in the adverts.

In the final analysis, soap operas are popular because they are addictive. They draw us in to see what happens next as if that was important when, by virtue of it being ‘pretend’, it is not. Like any addition, The First Resolution is the antidote. These programmes are not popular because they are good. They are popular because the media insists they are, and we (you) believe them and provide the loop they need to survive. Deny yourself the ‘pleasure’ of this pointless pretence and find some informative programmes – or even an alternative medium – and study that, instead.

As the (ironically titled) programme said in the 70s: Why don’t you just turn off your television set and go out and do something less boring instead?

Mini Blog 1 – Trends – cool, or what?

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Reading Facebook this morning I noticed someone use the word ‘trendy’, which I shall redefine as ‘descriptive of a fad’ which Wikipedia describes thus: “A fad is any form of behaviour that develops among a large population and is collectively followed enthusiastically for a period of time, generally as a result of the behaviour being perceived as popular by one’s peers or being deemed “cool” by social media.”

In other words, followership. And it is following of something for the worst possible reason – ‘everyone else is doing it’. I think of such people when I see iPhone 5 owners queuing for an iPhone 6 while their expensive contract still has a year to run. I see it in queues of girls screaming at One Direction because the publicity machine tells them they should, and they’re too young to see it. I see it with people who are in professional positions (lawyers in particular) who have boy band haircuts and shoes jutting 12 inches from the end of their feet. Not impressed.

Fashion is the science of appearance rather than true being – and I’d rather ‘be’ than ‘seem’. People who ‘seem’ frequently have no sense of identity so have to comply with the (faddish?) societal norm – and therefore to be judged by it as ‘in’ or ‘out’. (I sense irony there, but I shall go on.)

Meanwhile, here’s another contradiction – school kids complain about uniforms “’Cos it makes us all look the same and we are individuals.” Then, on non-uniform days they all turn up in their own clothes but still all looking exactly the same!

How can you get ahead by mere compliance with the status quo?

Resolution 2 promotes character. Character is not a fad, nor shall I call it trendy. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was?

High Standards – a Cross to Bear?

31 Sunday Aug 2014

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When I was allocated a new position in the police service, I was also required to undertake an advanced driving course. Hitherto I had prided myself on being a talented driver, having tried my advanced driving test (failed twice); completed a racing driving course and done a few laps of Brands Hatch, and had a few amusing off-road type experiences. I’d even driven Land Rovers on tank courses. Over the years I’d read widely on advanced driving theory and practice and I felt I was quite skilled, even if my attitude stunk and I occasionally took the odd silly risk.

But in 2001 I went on this course, run by a ‘proper’ pursuit trained police Grade 1 Instructor, and my eyes were opened wide to new thinking, better observation skills and, one could argue, a higher expectation of what was expected of an advanced driver.

(For the purist I was an ‘intermediate’ advanced driver – not driving the full-blown Volvo T5s, BMW 535s etc. but a Volvo S40 area car. My take – the road’s the same shape and the pedals are in the same order, the rest is pursuit responsibility, familiarity with a slightly faster vehicle and even higher expectations. But traffic officers have a tendency to be a bit anal about their abilities/training so I dare not say all that out loud.)

Anyway, as a result of these higher expectations and a slightly more mature desire to comply with the new training and associated skill levels, I drove to the new system until I got to the point where I couldn’t drive the ‘old way’. My attitude still stinks a bit but the car control part is much better, as is compliance with protocols like observation skills, lane discipline, indicating, and so on.

The reason my attitude stinks is because I am very much more aware of the s**t skill levels of the ‘average’ motorist around whom I have to negotiate. The non-signaller, the ones who pull out on roundabouts in your path without signalling or accelerating swiftly enough NOT to get in the way, the lane hogger who switches his brain off on arrival in the middle lane and stays there from London to Edinburgh. And the phone user – a***holes whatever excuse they might think justifies potentially fatal consequences. You know the type – in fact, you may be one. (In which case change your attitude or get off my site! 🙂

At the same time, not driving related, my ‘high’ standard of verbal skills and the ability to write using sentences, correct grammar and punctuation means that the inability of others to do so, particularly when some of them are (on paper) cleverer than me – gets on my nerves. And the reading of Stephen Covey and Anthony Robbins on how we can reactively allow our environments to condition us to act in a certain way has made it abundantly clear to me why people use the word ‘obviously’ seven times a conversation and why teenagers say ‘like’ a lot; in fact, on holiday I heard a man use the word three times in one sentence – and that was three times in a row in one sentence!

Unfortunately, having (or at least striving to have) higher standards makes it abundantly, abundantly clear how low other people’s standards have become. Let me be clear – their standards are not necessarily low by intention (although they often are), it’s usually because they give no thought to how they are conditioned by their surroundings and the people in them, or they excuse their lowering of standards (driving being a very good and common example) because they aren’t being tested or examined any more. The lack of accountability for higher standards results in them being socially permitted to drop their standards to the common level.

Remember the Anthony Robbins experience with the US Marines I mentioned in an earlier blog? In one audio recording he described how he was asked to coach US Marines on leadership and motivation, and in doing so he was told that the men and women present were at the peak of their performance ‘lives’, and that when they left the Forces their standards slipped. When Robbins tells the story he opines that the reason their standards slip is because the expectations of the veterans’ post-service peer groups – new colleagues, friends, communities and society in general – are lower, and so the new standards displayed by those veterans are a reflection of the lowered expectations of the new peer group. In the Marines expectations were very high. Outside, they’re more ‘whatever works in the moment’.

One of the objectives of application of the First and Second Resolutions is to develop the self-discipline to behave in accordance with your higher values and to become exceptionally competent (expert?) in your chosen field of work – and competence can include competency in ‘routine’ life skills. To develop a higher sense of personal integrity as you discover what is important to you, to strive to act in accordance with those needs, and to achieve them at the highest possible level.

And that’s why it is annoying when I see what goes on around me. I see people capable of better who either don’t, or won’t, seek to behave at the higher level of competence or character. People who just let life dictate to them whether their behaviour is acceptable, convenient, just enough or even dangerous. Instead of taking action to make sure that they dictate to life what their standards are and how they will keep acting in their accord.

I’m still trying – are you?

 

Blog Part

I was rather pleased to discover that  I lost 6lbs this week, which means I lost the holiday weight gain (as expected) and a further 2lbs as well, meaning that I am now only 2lbs above my 2009 Half Marathon weight. That means I am ‘only’ 7lbs behind my lead measure of 210lbs by tomorrow (September 1st), and will hopefully be back on track by the 1st of October. At worst, I’ll be at target weight by Christmas provided I continue losing weight at the planned rate.

The running continues, although I was remiss twice this week – I still did the 4 runs I promised myself I would do every week in acknowledgment that occasionally life intervenes in your plan.

 

Opinions – influenced by falsity?

27 Sunday Apr 2014

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On a theme of ‘being lived’, another question arises. Is the media to be believed?

In the UK, there is a lot of press attention being given to one particular party at the moment, one which is pro-British and which some take to be racist in intent. I am not considering whether it is or is not. Parties, like any other organisation, are made up of people and if they all thought the same they wouldn’t need committees, so the occasional nutcase will always come out and say something stupid, or contrary to a popular ‘ism’. Again, I do not want to get into that – it’s too dangerous.

What I DO intend to get into is this – can we trust the media, and if so, to what extent?

The Press have done some wonderful things – but.

They expose corruption that we should know about, but they sensationalise misconduct that we really shouldn’t give a toss about. They keep us informed about the facts, but they also twist and exaggerate using adverbs and adjectives which are theirs, and are not necessarily designed to support the facts as much as they are intended to sell newspapers. They expose the ‘surveillance society’ and then take pictures of holidaying ‘celebs’ and focus on their cellulite, or camp outside people’s houses harassing them into submission. (All the time demanding private investigators be licenced for doing far less, but that’s my focus group and I’ll say no more!)

I am amazed by how often, at 6am in the morning, I buy a newspaper that tells me that I (aka ‘the public’) am outraged by something that I don’t know about, yet. So – is that true? Is the public ‘outraged’, or do they just want us to be so we’ll buy their rag?

The BBC is now in the habit of having one journalist report a headline, only to turn to another reporter to interview them – giving us the impression that the latter is an authority on the matter, as opposed to another journalists who has a bit more information than us but is otherwise just as uninformed as us. That air of authority warps our opinions because like it or not, it comes across as authoritative opinion – which it patently is not.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the papers reported “just the facts, ma’am”? No emotive language, no sensationalist descriptive terminology – just tell what is true and leave us to decide whether we care or not. Perhaps then we’d start living in a world where the opinion of the press was no longer relevant, or that there was at least a clear distinction between the facts and the fluff?

I say all this because whether we like it or not, if we are not properly proactive about deciding whether what we hear is accurate, or not, we will allow ourselves to be influenced by things which are INTENDED BY OTHERS to influence us, not things that SHOULD influence us.

Which will really annoy the advertisers!

(Have you noticed how, despite the media’s insistence that their channels are about entertainment and information – all the adverts seem to come on at the same time so you can’t avoid them by channel hopping? )

If it wasn’t for ‘people’ …….

31 Monday Mar 2014

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I have a tongue-in-cheek saying for my own role in a public service sector, and many readers will sympathise a little (in private) with it. It goes

“If it wasn’t for the public this would be a great job.”

They call us expecting us to deal with their problem as if it is the only problem we have to address. They see the TV and how things are sorted in half an hour (minus ad breaks) and expect us to do the same. They also seem to think that we don’t have time off at weekends and after hours, like they do.

But in absolute fairness, if it wasn’t for ‘people’ life would be a little humdrum. When you think about it –

“Everything we do, we do for someone, because of someone, or with someone.”

Consider your own circumstances. In truth, is there anything you do that does not come under one of those headings. Think broadly, because things you think you do on your own usually require either direct or indirect involvement of someone else – perhaps, for example, the inventor of the equipment you are using. (I lose count of people who hate ‘personal development’ books because they are ‘so American’: I ask them to give up their computers because they are pretty much American, too. Microsoft and Apple pretty much run the world in computer terms, after all.)

So, realising that all you do is because of, for or with the help of someone, perhaps your attitude towards the interference of ‘people’ in your life should mellow, just a teeny bit.

Then you can start to Think Win-Win with people, as per Habit 4 of the 7 Habits. That’s a whole new challenge! On courses I have attended, when asked what Habit 4 is, participants often shout back ‘Win-Win!’ and have to be gently corrected because the emphasis is as much on the Think as it is on the Win-Win. Habit 4 is the mindset of the Public Victory; Habit 5 (seek first to understand, then to be understood) is your part in the Technique, and Habit 6 (Synergise) is the combined execution that brings the desired result.

Just entering into a conversation, negotiation or situation with the mindset of mutual satisfaction with an end result makes a massive difference to the interaction between people – even the ones who you don’t want to interact with. So here’s a question Dr Covey used when he sensed the beginning of a dispute (for example with someone who opens with ‘the policy is….’).

“What is the nature of your concern?”

This requires an answer that comes from behind the initial objection to you getting the result you need. It asks, “If this policy is preventing us from agreeing, what is behind the policy – what caused that policy to come about?” All too often, the policy is designed as a safety blanket to prevent a problem that will not necessarily apply in your own situation, and is therefore changeable ‘just this once’ because a sense of trust and understanding – resulting from your own approach in Think Win-Win – allows it.

People – treated with respect and understanding they can be soooooo much nicer…….