A geology lesson

Do you think Cicero should start to tweet? Thought it might help keep you in touch with his musings and with each other. What do you think?

As pointed out here a few weeks back when telling you about the tear in our local road, it is a source of constant amazement how long it takes us to get things done in this green and pleasant land, especially when anyone connected to the State is involved. But fair's fair, even though the Japanese would have built a high speed railway in time taken to repair this tear, our road has at last been sutured. Well done to all concerned.

Only one teensy weensy problem now-flushed with the success of repairing one one hundred yard stretch of tarmac, our Navvies have now moved up the road a wee bit and are now repeating their exercise of painfully slow inactivity. We are now promised another 6 weeks of traffic disruption. Are there no Japanese Navvies going spare?
We will keep you posted on this, in event you might be interested.

Well it would seem that Cicero’s comment last week that family and health more important than work caused a wee storm. Really don’t understand why that might be.

One colleague approached Cicero during the course of the past few days puzzled that he had allowed his Acolyte to leave his post so easily.

‘Let me tell you a story, my dear, ‘said Cicero (for colleague was a Distaff), ‘that was once told me that might help explain better.

‘One day a philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large jar and proceeded to fill it with some rocks, about 2" in diameter.

‘He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

‘So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

‘He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

‘The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

‘He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "Yes."’

‘"Now," said the professor, "Think that the jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your health, your children -- things that if everything else were lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter - like your job, your house, your car...The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued "there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out for a meal. There will always be time to go to work and do all the other stuff.’’

‘Now’, said Cicero to his Distaff colleague, ‘do you understand why I said what I said and did what I did? In my book it is imperative that you take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

‘I get it’, said Cicero’s colleague, ‘wandering off to sort out the rocks and pebbles in her life’.

Now you might think that that is where the story ends. You would be wrong. For there is another, and equally helpful way to look at the rocks, pebbles and sand.

From time to time many of us will have a problem with prioritisation, not just of things personal but also in our work.

Now see the rocks as representing our most important activities in our in tray, the pebbles our less meaningful activities and the sand just the chaff.

Most of us focus our attention on the small things in life, the sand and pebbles. But if you fill up the jar with the pebbles and the sand there is no room for the rocks, those tasks that really matter, the tasks that will really drive our businesses forward.

To get the most of our time in the office the lessons are clear-put the big rocks into the empty jar first and then the pebbles and finally the sand and all three materials fit inside the jar. It is the only way it works.

You can learn so much from geology these days.

Is it only me.............but this doesn’t add up.

The other day I was in a well known High St Emporium buying some treats. The kid manning the till did as all kids in these places do-she swiped my treats to calculate how much I owed her. The bill came to £6.14. I can be very abstemious when buying treats.

It was my mistake. I handed over £10 and in an instant the machine the kid was operating had calculated the change.

But not wanting my pockets bulging with all sorts of coppers and other small bawbees thereby ruining the line of my toga and to make things easier for the kid, I handed over an additional 14p so that she might just return me four shiny bronze coins.

It was like I had asked the kid to calculate pi to 29 decimal places.

I kid ye not but the kid did not have the brain cells to calculate in her head how much she now owed me. ‘I have it rung up now’ was the answer and no amount of patient reasoning would encourage the kid to forsake the machine and to calculate the change for herself.

Now it might only be me but just what are they teaching children in today’s schools?

Clearly it is not the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division without the aid of a calculator. It is staggering that we are sending kids out into the world of work when their brains cannot fend for themselves without electronic aids. And these are the ones in work, God knows what the ones not in work are not capable of doing.

Might I suggest that if our education establishments are so incapable of teaching our kids to calculate change correctly, and it is shocking that they are not taught to do this, that our retailers give them some basic lessons in arithmetic. Taxi drivers have to pass ‘The Knowledge’ so why can’t our in-store kids be made to do something similar before they get to serve the Public.

Just a thought but it seems to me to add up.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.