A fishy tale

Sometimes you come across something that you couldn’t make up. This is one such time.

In deepest darkest Derbyshire they are currently spending vast sums of taxpayer largesse to widen the Via to reduce congestion. No doubt the driving population there can’t wait to get to where they are going without snarl ups and hold ups. 

No doubt too the roadworks are adding to aforesaid snarl ups and hold ups. And everyone will be pleased to see the back of the diggers, cones and men standing around leaning on spades that typify building works on the viae, no matter in what part of the country you live. It is the price we pay for a smooth travel experience by chariot.

However it now appears that this multi-million pound socially useful scheme has been held up because the navvies have found….wait for it….a colony of…….are you sitting down?......crayfish. Well admittedly White Clawed Crayfish as if that makes a difference.

And because of this all digging and standing-around-leaning-on-shovels work has ground to a halt while the eco-mentalists celebrate this find as if we had just opened Tutankhamun's tomb.

To the drivers of Derbyshire, Cicero feels your pain. To everyone else, you really could not make this sort of stuff up.

It surely is not beyond the wit of man, who after all can send rockets into outer space to arrange in short order the technology to lift and transfer said fish from the roadworks to some other stretch of H2O nearby. It is not as if Derbyshire is short of H20.

And nor is the technology all that complex. When Cicero was a lad he used regularly to transfer goldfish from the fair to home. And some were even still managing to swim around by the time home was reached.

Cicero estimates that this could be done in half an hour at the outside. The cost impact would be minimal.

But once again we are in thrall of the eco- and enviro-mentalists who no doubt believe that in their warped logic the destruction of this crayfish habitat will no doubt lead to more wonky weather and the demise of the polar bear.

Cicero often does wonder who and when these greenie sandal wearing bearded vegans (Bill Oddie is pictured in the article Cicero read on this narrowly averted ecological disaster which proves the point) were given the power and responsibility to hold up, delay and even postpone anything they like just because they think a tadpole is going to be crushed. Did you vote for these people? No. Neither did Cicero. So where does this power without accountability come from?

So bag up the fish and let’s get back to work and get the via finished. Can you imagine Thomas Telford or John Macadam or Isambard Kingdom Brunel stopping work because there was a little fishie in the way? Mercifully they didn’t.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

And what do you do?

Greetings.

Hopefully you have coped well with the lack of musings from Cicero. Now He is back and the waiting for fresh insight and learning is over.

You may have noticed that clearly the Two Caesars, or at least one of them, have been reading our thoughts or conversations. You will recall that for some time now Cicero has been bemoaning the lack of urgency our navvies demonstrate when repairing our roads, well specifically Cicero’s road. Clearly this has struck a chord with our esteemed leaders and therefore while Cicero was away sunning and refreshing Himself, they announce that those digging up our highways and byways will be charged rent for the road. Now why didn’t Cicero think of that! And about time too-for Cicero was aghast to see that on his return from warmer climes, his local via had yet again been dug up and as we speak remains unsutured. This is fast becoming a farce.

Before Cicero left you to fend for yourself intellectually, He was fortunate to attend a dinner with a bunch of Head Honchos and Marketing Grands Fromages. It was mightily interesting with much swapping of business cards and exchanges of promises to get together and to swap business opportunities. Have you ever wondered just how many of these ever come to anything?

But there is one aspect of this ritual that habitually annoys Cicero-the need to have a meaningful and impressive sounding job title before you will be taken seriously.

Now it is Cicero’s custom never to have or use his job title. You will not find it on business cards, e-mail signatures or on letters. No matter the job or the organisation it has long been Cicero’s wont never to have his name associated with a job title unless absolutely necessary.

Indeed Cicero has often said that the only time he uses his job title is when he is writing to or speaking with a customer so that the customer might know that their concern is being taken seriously and is being listened to?

Is Cicero being his usual awkward self just to be contrary (as if!) or is there a point being made here?

Naturally there is a point to be made.

For in Cicero’s world a job title says nothing about you. It is a label that tells people what you are but not who you are and for Cicero the who is always the most important.

For who Cicero is and what he can be, is not defined by some arbitrary corporate job title but is shaped by education, experience and expertise and this is the basis on which Cicero will engage with people.

In many organisations leaders will not deal with people, no matter the potential and ability, simply because they did not have an impressive enough sounding job title. This is wrong with a capital W.

A common complaint from many of the people Cicero has led over the years has been ‘this place is so hierarchical’. No wonder if we judge each other by the label printed on our business cards. Wouldn’t it be better for us all if we learned to judge people by their ability rather than what we called each other?

For many of us, our labels are a status symbol, a badge of honour, which we might be loath to give up. But if we truly want to be seen for who we are rather than what we are; if we are serious about working in a non hierarchical business where the what doesn’t matter; where we don’t obsess and fuss about what we are called, then we need to surrender these baubles.

As someone far brighter than Cicero once said ‘it is your aptitude not your altitude that matters’. Beautifully put. Let us campaign from this point on to put an end to job titles and fancy labels. Do you agree?

Now it might only be me...............but who is my community leader?

You will note that I have refrained from passing any comment whatsoever on the recent outbreaks of madness, looting and violence that have occurred. I thought it wrong to add any more incendiary to an already well inflamed situation. But having held my peace for so long I now want to add my two penny worth.

In much of the reporting reference is frequently made to ‘community leaders’ but who exactly are these people? How do you become a community leader? What experience, skills and qualifications are required to become one of these? How do they get selected? Who pays them? How much do they earn? Any fringe benefits? Do they get a company car? A final salary pension? Health insurance? I think we should know.

Given that these are seen as key people with a considerable amount of influence and great skill whom everyone in any kind of authority wishes to speak with and listen to, I can only surmise that it takes years of education, training and working on the job to become of these privileged members of society.

Now it might only be me but given that I have never met a community leader and as I am not sure even if I have one in my community, I would love to find out more about these shadowy people, especially since the media seem to love them to bits. So if you know any community leaders, and if you know my community leader, we would love to hear from you and to find out a bit more about you, the role and how you got it. Now don’t be shy, you can come out of the closet. And given how important you are to stopping us from imploding, now is the time to stand up and be counted.

We look forward to meeting you.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

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.