I don't Need No Invitations

Or reminders.

I don't want my reincarnated blogging life to consist entirely of mini rants, so I'll just write this one and slope off and try and think of something more jolly to publish for next time.

But seriously what is it with these people and institutions who insist on sending Outlook and Google calendar invites, followed by fourteen reminders as you approach the meeting time?

As far as calendar / meeting type stuff goes I reckon I'm pretty British. Despite my Lankan blood I am almost always early for things. And I mean properly early, like half an hour or more. The rationale is that by turning up early I avoid any chance of the loss of control lateness involves, that hustle and bustle of trying to rush and all that goes with it.

The non rationale is that I'm a bit obsessive about it, I just feel better for it.

Talking of calendars does anyone else have an issue with spelling the word? I always have a moment when I wonder if it should be "calandar" or "calender" before settling on the right way forward.

As I was saying, I reckon I'm quite well behaved and organised as far as my time management goes. I arrive early, I run my calendar on three different devices, all of which are synced (in theory), I play in three bands so have to make sure I know when I'm doing which gig with which band.

My life is totally governed by my calendar and task list. There are few things I have to do that aren't stuck into my task list and marked as completed when done.

I'm sure I could improve but I'm quite happy the way things are.

So, if you and I make an appointment, I put it in my diary and it stays there.

I don't then need you to send me a Google or whatever calendar invite. As the septics say; I've got this.

I don't need you, like my Chiro clinic and most places these days, to send me a reminder the day before. I know I've got an appointment with Nisha tomorrow at 3pm, I know I've got a hospital appointment on Friday at 9am too. They're in my diary.

Got to go, I'm running late for a meeting I'd forgotten about.

Bless His Heart...

Do you know something that I've noticed that has really been getting on my nerves lately?

It's people using the phrase above; "bless his heart?"

I've been talking to chaps lately and they've chucked the BHH thing into the conversation. At first thought it's as innocuous as one can imagine, a little inoffensive, probably even nice and complimentary, three words.

But something about the use of it, on all these recent occasions, nagged deeply inside me. So much so that I devoted some thinking time to it to try to figure out why.

I realised why this has come about. This little trio of words is a farce, a trojan horse of a phrase, a cunning way of disguising an insult as a compliment.

Why am I saying all of this?

Well it's used when people want to assert their superiority and patronise someone else. They use it as if they're talking about a dog or a small child, wrapped in a bundle of smelling like a compliment.

One person was telling me about a driver recently, of how helpful he had been and how good he was. All very nice I hear you think. But then the person came to narrate details of a specific incident and said:

"And L, bless his heart, was very protective"

The implication, in a very indirect way, was that L knew no better, that he was like a faithful dog following his master off the edge of a cliff.

Another friend was talking about his child and used BHH in that context. And that's when people use it; when they want to portray the person as childish or pet like.

That's why it's my current bone of contention.

Just saying like.

Bless my heart.

Passionate My Arse

You know when you look at a crowd of people, perhaps at a match or something, and you just see a load of random beings. Then, you decide to look for the ones wearing red tops and, the more you look, the more they seem to spring out at you. Then you change to looking for the ones in yellow shirts and suddenly the yellow shirted fellows are jumping out towards your eyes all over the show.

Or when you take notice of a particular car and within a few days you spot these cars on every road and it seems as if one in every three drivers owns one of these (obviously for women this

doesn't apply, perhaps recipes or a particular species of cat may suit). Well the fact is that usually these phenomenons are merely our mind seeking and making connections. It's pretty obvious really, just because I decide to look for red tops doesn't mean more people are wearing them. Or cats, I wouldn't want you to think of me as a cattist.

But I've noticed something recently, something that I think is not just me making a connection, something that I'm sure is real, that maybe you'll start to look at after reading this post, then send me messages praising my fantastic observational skills.

PASSIONATE. Read it, it's the new enemy, that's why I typed it in capitals. You know me, I rarely type a word in capitals, I'm not one to make a shouty statement at the best of times, but this needs one.

Everywhere I go, every way I turn I seem to come across a person or a company telling me how passionate they are about this or that. It's become a cheap and easy way of convincing your fellow man that you're good at something.

Want to make out that you're a great photographer? Simple, just say on your website or stationery that "we're passionate about photography". That'll do the job. And many people are passionate about photography. It's an arty thing, it's something that one can easily imagine a chap being passionate about.

But then we go to the mundane and non creative end of the spectrum and that's where it gets extremely muddy and cliched. When your cleaning company boasts of its passion for cleaning and your dog food manufacturer, your car hire company and your local cinema jump on the passion wagon too then there must be something going drastically wrong.

Of course I blame this mostly on the Americans, all of them, well except drummers. EQ, being in touch with our emotions and our creative side is all well and good. A few years ago when the first few companies used the passion idea as their USP (unique selling point) it sounded powerful and different. It sounded as if, not only was the company or person pretty good at what they do, but they also loved it, they lived and dreamed it.

These days we're led to believe that, unless someone says the dreaded P word, they're disinterested in their craft and not up to the level of the other passionate types. All the specialness and excitement that we used to associate with people who really were passionate about their vocations has diminished.

The musicians, the artistes, the writers and the inspirational leaders. The eccentric inventors, the mad scientists and the tireless nurses who genuinely worked with a passion have been replaced by regular people, not that there's anything wrong with them, who we're told do everything with passion. There are sandwich makers so we're told, who are passionate about what they do. Really?

Are they busily bunging egg and cress into a sandwich and dreaming of the next tasty recipe they can introduce to the marketplace? Is my office cleaner really thinking about the new innovative way he can clean my office? Not bloody likely, though the sandwich person might well be working on a new way of cleaning that he's come up with and the cleaner might just be dreaming of a dhal and rice sandwich and wondering if it would sell. (of course it would!)

Now I've mentioned this I'm hoping you'll be out there and will notice the "passionate" issue everywhere. Or you might spot red and yellow shirts on every other person and blame me for that.

Bring back the passion I say, the real and true passion, not that passion that the copywriters have decided we all need.

Let's start a movement, let's attempt to tell others how much we enjoy doing things, how good we are at them and how much we love them. Let's do all that and do it without using the word "passionate".

Obviously.

You can't polish a turd

The other day I had social intercourse with someone who I don't like.

Said fellow is a "moneyed" type, somewhat rolling in the green stuff. That in itself is not an issue for me. As Rudyard Kipling almost said, in between baking cakes and stuff, rich, poor, smart, not so smart, it matters not to me. For I can treat them all with equal scorn when they're twats.

I've noticed an issue about true class and true style. Blindingly obvious and we all know it but I feel the need to repeat it. It's that fact, the indisputable truth that class and style are things some people have, they can learn them, but money won't buy them. As my good friend P often says

"You can't polish a turd"

Sometimes people have a need to try to assert their "superiority" over you. My interpretation of this is that they are people who are actually lacking in self confidence. A truly self confident person wouldn't say or do things that have the effect of enforcing, or trying to enforce, the hierarchy that they want to exist.

I can't remember where it was that I first read about the concept of the scarcity or abundance mentalities, I think it may have been Stephen Covey, but the ideology had a rather profound effect on me. My very brief summary is that people with an abundance mentality are those who believe that they can attain success or happiness without doing so at the expense of others. The people with a scarcity mentality are the ones who think

"in order for me to succeed you have to fail".

When I read about this I was in my early twenties, and I immediately thought that I wanted to be seen as a person with an abundance mentality. My measurements of my own success are based on my contentment, the contentment of those involved in my life and whether I feel I have done my best at something. There are some segments of my life in which a scarcity mentality does exist, like when competing for customers or in auditions, but I try to take the abundance mentality approach when given the choice. This post by Ian S touches on the subject in a tangential way, you may find it interesting.

So, if you earn a million pounds a week and I earn twenty pounds a year that's fine, as long as I am earning as much as I think I can. If I'm not the best drummer in the world, or even in my house, that's cool, as long I'm being the best I'm able to. If you employ three thousand people and I work for you as one of them, you've guessed it, that's fine too.

I keep my standards within myself.

Frankly, this post is turning out to be a bit more deep than I had intended it to be. I had only wanted it to be a brief narration of a snippet of conversation that rather pissed me off and now I've digressed into all kinds of psychological analysis, of which I know sweet FA about.

It all came about because, during this encounter, the person was looking at something I had done. He said (in as patronising a tone as is possible)

"Oh, you're pretty good at that. In fact you're so good that I could employ you to come and do it for me."

He's not involved in this subject at all. It's not as if he is a professional "doer" of it, nor does he own a Company that does it. It would be a bit like me saying to you

"Oh, you're pretty good at reading blogs, in fact I might employ you to come and do it for me."

It's a bit of a compliment, but it's meant to "show me my place" at the same time.

Do you know what?

Bollocks to you.

Texting is gr8 but convers8shun is better

I do try to keep my rants to a minimum but lately this thing has got on my nerves and I feel a need to blog about it.

When used appropriately I think text messaging is a great concept. I appreciate that each person may have a different opinion on what is appropriate but, for me, texting is best used when the spoken word is not practical.

Texting is useful as a step down from the spoken word. If you want to communicate with a person and they, or you, are unable to talk at the time then texting is a damn fine substitute. You send the message and they can respond when they get the chance. It's also handy for communicating with people in other countries, where time differences or high call costs may be a prohibiting factor to a voice call. Another valid use for it is to send very specific figures that the recipient may need to refer to at some time. It's easier and more practical to send a phone number of person B to person Y, if you are indeed person $.

It's also quite pleasant to receive a nice personal message from someone on a special occasion. A "Happy Birthday Rhythmic" on a birthday is always appreciated. That's if you send it to me, if you send it to just anyone they'll probably take it as a compliment to their rhythmical skills but otherwise be rather perplexed. Unless they're a drummer, in which case it would be a bit too coincidental for comfort.

But I get really fucking fucked off with these blanket messages that some people send out to all their phonebook, particularly at Christmas and the New Year. Over the festive period I received one which said:

"Happy Christmas from John, Sue, Neik and Ian".

The number didn't come up as a recognised one from my phone book, so the chances are that the sender didn't intend me to receive it, but, if they did, then I haven't got the faintest idea who these people are. On top of that is the added insult that they couldn't even be bothered to check it before they pressed "send" and the person whom I assume to be a son called "Neil" has now become known as "Neik".

I got about ten other messages over the holiday period that were clearly sent out to all the addresses in a person's phone book. I didn't reply to any of them. The messages I replied to were the ones that were personalised and showed that the sender had put a bit of thought into.

Personalisation - That's what matters to people, whether it's in direct mail (something I know a bit about) or in sending out text messages. It doesn't have to actually be personalised, the trick is to make the recipient feel wanted, to feel as if they have been chosen to receive your message.
If I opened a window in my house and shouted out "Happy Christmas" just once, that doesn't mean that I have said "Happy Christmas" to all my neighbours.

If I print off a load of Christmas cards, each with the same message inside, and I print out some address labels and then post the items out, it's not personalised and the message doesn't come across as meaningful.

But, if I knocked on the front door of each of my neighbours and wished them a merry Christmas or if I wrote a small greeting in each card, it makes all the difference. Even more so if I knocked on the door of the blonde two doors down and she invited me in for a Christmas cracker and a rummage in her stockings. That's true personalisation for you.

Rant over. I have a hunch that the older readers here will agree with me.

Texting is great, but real conversation is even better.