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Showing posts from April, 2015

Eighty Percent Water

Odd blog title. Thought it may be worth explaining it here.  According to someone* I met recently, we are 80% water. We as in human beings. All of us. That probably explains the water cooler business, Evian's profit margin and why I almost always need a pee in the middle of the night. Or maybe that's age. Anyway, the point is, if we are all 80% water then we really aren't all that different are we? You, me, the boss, the boss's boss. We're all human. We all need to drink, we all need to pee. And if you boil it down to 80% water we really shouldn't be that scared of each other. Or deal with each other as if we're all that different. And yet we often are, we often do. People very often approach other people as if they are a completely alien race. Managers do it with teams, employees do it with management. Shareholders do it. Bad marketing departments do it with customers. But we're not a different race. 80% of us is water. So at least 80% of us

Beyond the bobbly cardigan

I work in HR. Human Resources. Just let that phrase roll around in your head for a while. What comes up? Rules? Policies? Paperwork? Getting told off? Getting fired? Doesn't sound like the stuff of inspiration or joy or wonder, does it? What about the ladies who work there? It's always ladies, isn't it? "The lady in HR said I must...". (Or girls; "the girl in HR got my holiday dates wrong"). Ladies in bobbly cardigans with glasses on rope and chiffon scarves. Ladies with boxes of tissues kept neatly next to their myriad of forms. Ladies who look motherly but will fire you with a sympathetic head tilt. I once worked with a Marketing Director who would breeze out of the office via our department, trilling as he went; "Goodnight Human Remains!" Oh, what a card he was. Hark at his punning - see what he did there? Human Remains - like dead stuff. Such fun! Do I sound bitter? Maybe I am a little. I love my job and I really don't like injus