Greville's good guide to stress reduction

Wednesday 6th November 2013 was Stress Awareness Day.
The ever conscientious HR at my open plan office sent out this bulk email.

Quite aside from the rather relaxing font size to start the mail, STOP! is in no way a stress inducing first word to read from your Human Resources Department.

Then there is the odd Zen style, "mystic" instructions following it.

"Be Curious"
"Can you watch the thought without judging yourself for it?" and the self referential "How interesting" in parenthesis.
"Curiously, what could you do to release tension?"
"What are you noticing about your feelings now?"
"Are you wondering where your breath is too-ing and fro-from? Shallow, from your chest? Deeper...? Or Deeper...?"

I mean, just... what??

Why must I release tension curiously?
If a thought passes across my mind without judging it, does it make a sound?

It all came over as a weird sort of $ex chat from a frustrated therapist who heard I might have had an unproductive morning meeting.

But there was more. There was an attachment. Here it is:

Now, I am no councillor, but I am not sure just how practical this advice is. It is, to me,  little on the shallow side. It seems, well, a little patronising to sending this out, unsolicited, to people who might be going through real tough times. You might be stressed in any combination of complex situations but just, you know, "Sort out your worries". Ta-da!!

It is a little like sending someone who has had their home, family or life destroyed by war a "Keep Calm and Carry On" postcard.

Why not put a shell up to your ear and listen to the calming sea which is also you blood pumping round your body at an ever increasing pace through your panicking heart?

Of course, I am no psychiatrist and so maybe it is this simple. Maybe I could do one of these little notices for next National Stress Awareness Day?

So, I have:

So now I have taken care of the scourge of stress - let's see if I can't show the tricky field of boredom what for in the months to come. Watch this space!
[starts making a poster with the phrase "Do Interesting Things, Like Trying To Watch Your Thoughts Without Judging Them"]

This call may be recorded for training purposes

My phone rang on my desk. My phone never rings on my desk. This is the genuine [aside from the anonymity I am granting] conversation I had when I picked it up.

GT: Hello, Greville Tombs, Open Plan Office?
PH: Hello? This is TexisMexis Publishing House. Can I speak to Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes, I am Greville Tombs. Can I help?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: I have your letter here regarding your request to cancel your subscription to the Series Title.
GT: No you don’t.
PH: Yes, Mr. Tombs, you wrote us a letter dated 13th December.
GT: No I didn’t.
PH: You have a subscription with us for the Series Title, Mr. Tombs.
GT: No I don’t.
PH: I have your letter dated 13th December. But you say you didn’t send it to us?
GT: I didn’t send any letter to you. I don’t believe I am the person you want. Can I just check your contact details for me and how you came to be phoning me?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your address is Open Plan Office, Building, Town?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your subscription reference is DX-34-45-67-RTY?
GT: No.
PH: But you are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes. And I am talking to you from the Open Plan Office.
PH: This is TexisMexis Publishing House.
GT: I know.
PH: This is strange. I have your letter here. It is dated 13th December. I have your details on my screen of your subscription with us at TexisMexis Publishing House. I just need to confirm I am talking to you in order to proceed with your cancellation request.
GT: But you can’t confirm it, because it isn’t me. You are talking to someone else.
PH: This is strange.
GT: I didn’t send you a letter, but I am Greville Tombs.
PH: Will I continue your subscription?
Me: I don’t have a subscription. Never have. What I am more concerned about is how you got my number. Was it on the letter?
GT: Let me check. You have signed the letter “Greville Tombs”.
Me: I can’t have.
PH: Let me look again at the subscription details on my screen.
GT: Good idea. Is there anything in them which might suggest a different contact name, as I am the only Greville Tombs at this address?
PH: OK. Can you now confirm your name is Greville Turns?
GT: No.
PH: You are not Greville Turns?
GT: No. I am Greville Tombs.
PH: But why have I got your address and phone number?
GT: What is the phone number? The phone number you dialled to get me today?
PH: 1111 222 3333
GT: That’s not my phone number.
PH: This is very strange.
GT: You have dialled the Open Plan Office switchboard number and you asked for Greville Tombs and have been put through to me.
PH: Yes.
GT: Only you wanted Greville Turns not Greville Tombs.
PH: OK. I have your email address on the subscription screen.
GT: What is it?
PH: Greville dot Turns at Faceless dot org dot uk
GT: That’s not my email address. I am Greville Tombs. But I think I know what has happened. I am checking to see if we have a staff member named Greville Turns.
PH: Hmmm, it is very important I talk with you about your subscription – there are big changes to come in the New Year and I need to confirm them with you.
GT: I don’t have a subscription with you and I am Greville Tombs, not Greville Turns.
PH: This is funny.
GT: It is a little confusing.
PH: I will email instead, I think that this is the better idea, bye!
GT: I think so too. Bye, now!

It was the girl’s steadfast refusal to accept it wasn’t me, when her sole reason for calling was to securely confirm she was talking to the right person, which left me laughing!

She was her own paradox.

Which, incidentally, is the name of Greville and the Tombstone's touring support band next year, I am led to believe.

2 weeks later, I only go and get another phone call. I know!:

“Hello I am calling from Different Publishing House my name is Echo, Victor, Alpha,
November, November, India, Alpha. Am I speaking to your company’s payment
account department?”

Whoa, Love! I need a pencil. OK Bravo Two Zero!

"No, I am not in this department. I don't think we even have this department."
"Oh! Do you know about payment accounts in your company?"
"No. Can I take your details and get someone to call you back?"
"Can I call this number again and leave a voice mail instead?"
"SIGH!"

I mean, what is going on these days with publication house telephonists? Clearly these people are sat at a computer screen with one of those headsets which Rachel Stevens used to wear on stage and, like Rachel Stevens, totally unable to think sideways or deviate from the prescribed question/response they are trained for our gentle entertainment for.

All this made me think quite hard as I sat tugging the cable out the back of my phone.
What happened to Rachel Stevens? Is she still recording? Tell me she is still putting out calenders, at least.

Why, oh why does February have the fewest days in?

A social quandary

Hi guys, if you have been following my tweets you probably already know that I very much enjoy the TV show New Girl (C4 and C4+1... and 4OD). I may very well blog in detail the reasons why at some stage soon. However, suffice to say for now that if New Girl was a beverage then it would be hot chocolate in a Christmas mug and Zooey Deschanel is a legged, winsome mermaid whose cookie words are a psiren call to me.

Tomorrow evening I am diaried to go out for a fancy meal with my work bosses. A real posh affair. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the waiters take your coat when seating you, that sort of style. But the meal starts with canapes at 7. It means the meal is in direct conflict with New Girl. Whereas I much more need it in alignment.

So, you see my problem, clear as the many blue eyes on Zooey.

How should I excuse myself?

I am thinking either:

A: Be honest from the start.
Chances are your bosses will all be New Girl fans and understand. Someone might even give you a lift home.

B: Be really honest.
Chances are you will have eaten at least half your main by the time you need to go. Simply explain that you feel the conversation has now ceased to be of interest around the table and you will miss more of life through missing New Girl than staying here a minute more. Thank your bosses for what was, until this point, a charming evening and leave without looking back at them.

C: Be deceitful.
Set your phone alarm to ring in good time to catch New Girl on the TV. Act as if a phone call is happening. On “answering” the “call” look concerned and say: “I understand, Commissioner” at least 4 times. Explain to your bosses that there has been a breakout at the local prison for the criminally insane and you need to contact your friend,  Super New Girl Man to alert him and go with him in order to document him saving the city. As you rise from your seat, begin to loosen your tie. Look stern and steely eyed. Do horse like gallop-jumps out the restaurant.

D: All of the above.

If any of my Revelairs Society or Twitter followers want to vote or give me advice, feel free.

Follow my tweets tomorrow night to see what I decided!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post meal round-up for those who missed the exciting live Twitter happening!
Well, I did consider option B...
Especially at the point of the conversation where one of my bosses spoke to me: "I took the boat out round the coast on Saturday. Did a bit fishing off the stern, that sort of thing, you know. What did you do on Saturday?" To which I replied: "I watched Gillette Soccer Saturday. It's basically a scrolling computer graphic on TV that tells you the football scores... erm, well..."

But the evening turned out to be very enjoyable and I ended up breaking the glass on Option E: To stay until the end of the meal and ensure that you tune into T4 and watch New Girl then. It is only for one week. You can put up with T4 for one week.

And I did watch it on T4 - And I did it for you, Zooey.

Music fan

I was out this week at a work function. As most work functions go mine was no different, I knew the other people there but not well. The conversation was staid and often missing all together. It was this backdrop of shuffling and using wine glasses at metaphorical and actual defences against saying anything, which led to one of the work group asking me: “So… do you like music?”

I thought that people only asked this to highlight awkward moments when eating out with a Ben Stiller character in one of his chronic rom-coms.

Do I like music? Come to think of it – do I like food? Am I an appreciator of colour? Is the human notion of what we express as time passing, my bag?

Naturally, I like music. I am almost certain everybody likes some form of rhythmic noise. And those that don’t I would imagine look a lot like this:

Believe it or not, I would often hear some music and then a few days later go into a music store and buy a music cassette tape of it, back in the day. That was proper devotion to liking music – not simply downloading it from any mobile device that is in reach like the youth of today. And my music taste has changed from pre-teen bedroom playing of the latest Jean Michelle Jarre opus through teenage angst Elliott Smith and Radiohead and then into the broad musical church of high-energy techno.

In fairness it did lead on to an ice-breaker of conversation:
If you could choose any musician to give you a personal serenade – just the two of you, on a veranda overlooking a private, white Pacific beach under the pomegranate reddening late sunset of a warm summer’s night – who would it be?

For me it was easy, pop rocket of the moment: Lana Del Rey
Someone else said: Robbie Williams
A third went for: Christina Aguilera, singing Dirrty. Twice
Further round the group a vote went for: David Gray

I am sure, dear reader, you get the idea.

So when the question came steadily round to settle at one of the women and, after a further 15 seconds giving it serious thought, still went for: Whitesnake, it was not surprising that we all quickly resumed to nursing our drinks in silent contemplation of having perhaps revealed too much and trying once more not to catch one anothers’ eye.

How Friday office e-mails work

You know how it is. It's a Friday afternoon. You e-mail a colleague about transport arrangements for a meeting and before you know it you've digressed. I am not sure how it happens. Possibly it was my fault for the digression.

Here is the he said - then she said - then he said of it below. See if you can spot when the conversation went off course:

Hello,
Just thinking about the means to get to the meeting on Tuesday. I take it the 5:30 meeting time is confirmed?
Almost certainly looking at getting the 4:15/4:30 carriage from the station.
Would you like to join me or have you other arrangements?
Greville.

Sir, I will merrily join you in the horseless carriage - shall we rendezvous at ticket barriers?

Yes. Sounds good. Er… that’s that then.
Ok… I still have a bit of time to fill so here is a story I was told last night.

DTD has a friend who has a holiday home in Spain. DTD's friend spotted a little stray dog outside for a few days in a row and so began leaving food out for it. Quickly the dog became more confident of her and before long was happily staying with her. DTD's friend decided since no one was claiming it, to keep the little dog as a pet.
At the end of the summer holiday, she decided to return to her house in Britain and took her new dog with her. Apparently it is pretty easy to get a dog from Spain to the UK without too much interference from officials.
Now in the UK, DTD's friend was worried as she also had a pet cat which stayed in her UK home and it was clear the two pets did not get on. One night she heard a commotion and yelping and by the time she got to the source she was greeted with the dog sitting in the corner and a dead cat in the middle of the floor.
Unsure what to do, the next day she decided on taking the dog to the vet so it could be examined. The vet looked at the dog and said: “That’s not a dog – that’s a big rat”

It turned out that what the girl thought was a dog was a hairy, giant, mutant rat.
I’m not having it though.
Greville.

Ahh, the old "Mexican Pet" gambit, eh?
http://www.snopes.com/critters/lurkers/mexicanpet.asp
Rats look like rats. It's hard to disguise their rattiness.
Although The Killer Shrews (a 1950s...erm...classic that I bought) did try it the other way round: dressing collies (badly) to look like giant, killer rats/shrews.

That actually happened to my generic friend. He had a collie dog but recently bought a shrew as a second pet and then there was a spate of apparent ritual killings of women in the local neighborhood - the killer leaving a skinned frog as a calling card at each scene. An eye-witness described the killer as definitely a collie dog. Well, my generic friend obviously got the dog put down immediately and the killings stopped. It was about 2 months later when he was checking for whites in the shrew’s wardrobe (he was doing a white’s wash himself, so thought nothing of it) when he discovered a hand tailored shrew-sized jacket and trouser suit rudamentally stitched from collie hairs on a hanger.

Turns out the shrew had spent days picking up the hairs shed from the collie dog, weaved a suit and then went out at night knifing innocent women for a couple of weeks.

No one knows why – but my generic friend blames himself.

Greville.

What animal is good at blogging?

The Health and Safety officer at work has sent a risk assessment questionnaire form to each employee. This is one of the questions:
Do you require as part of your routine job role to move items?
If yes, do you require using unusual strength?

Unusual strength?

How do you reply to that?

Mainly I apply my simple, ordinary, usual strength in my workplace in lifting a stapler, or suchlike – however sometimes instances indeed require of me using my unusual strength. But this does entail me first shouting “STRENGTH OF THE BEAR!” in the office to do so. Very occasionally I require both unusual strength and a strange level of reciprocal motion in a repetitive activity, and for those eventualities I additionally shout "REPETITIVE ACTION OF THE KILLER WHALE KEPT IN CAPTIVITY IN FLORIDA TO A CRUEL DEGREE" across the office floor.

It is health and safety gone mad, I tell you.

Open Letter to the Office Green Champion

Dear Office Green Champion,
The Office’s new intranet site has allowed you to create an eco-group “Friendly Energy” page. Very successful it is too. The page has a handy tip for turning socks into draft excluder “snakes” [take sock/fill it with more socks/staple sock of socks to bottom of door – I imagine are the instructions, not that I have read them]. It also has a monthly question where the answer is always in the currency of heated microwave meals. This month's number of microwave meals one can heat with the power saved from turning off 15 office PC monitors when not in use is truly harrowing.

However, from this informative and passive step you have quickly become militant – a regular Swampy – office bins labeled for various recycling materials only have just been the start. Reducing default font sizes, lecturing about the evils of polystyrene and hemp craft barter days have followed.

Tonight I see your precious Sun is going to be bombarding us with what I am calling “kill rays”.

I bet you are regretting all that recycling to help it now.

Yours,
G. Tombs

If blog has gone down hill lately, break glass to release Lobos

My office has set-up an intranet. Long gone are the days of the old civil service intranet: A blocky 4 colour Windows 3.11 tone affair of ignorable staff organigraph, daily weather report that seemed fixated on temperature rather than if it would be sunny or rainy and 3 items of news (Management pre-approved ones which were not going to rile the blood of staff) scrolling across the bottom of the screen. [Incidentally, I remember the only time a 4th news story was added scrolling, shakily like ticker-tape, during the day was the news that Spike Milligan had died]

Now it is possible to create secure online Working Party and Department Groups, manipulate Shared Documents, host Interdepartmental Virtual Meetings, collectively add into Knowledge Databases, receive Management Notifications, complete interactive forms and disseminate any number of news stories you wish with RSS alerts.

All this efficiency for an open plan office with 8 people in it, who used to do many of those things with the crunching inefficient method of a chat and maybe follow up e-mail, way back in the old times. Of 2005.

[I have had a few of those olden days cryogenically frozen – to be thawed out at the very moment World of Warcraft: Contingency Plan 10am Meeting expansion pack is released]

“If something is written in stone – it will fall out of the data cloud. And perhaps squash a person with an idea.”

It is the end of the office paper document. These days it is all about the ongoing collaboration on lucid virtual documents and the fluid creation of organic policies around a virtual desk whilst using the internet to flight imbedded added value information into notes at a click of a mouse button.

But you know what it all makes me wonder? More so than: Why we have preposterously implemented the equivalent of the infrastructure of the UN to run the equivalent of a small cottage industry in Heathergems when we are pretty archaic in other ways? It makes me wonder what would happen if blog fan boy favorite Lobos the Robot was given the intranet?

Obviously that’s what I was wondering, what on earth else do you think I wonder about?

After all, Lobos would seem to be at an ideal evolutionary stage to use all this technology. Directly after man and office appliance merge like the worst Robocop film ever. Like Robocop 12 or something. The tagline: Half man, Half Cannon IRC 5035i – all Cop(ier) and looks like this:



Ha, ha! Look at it, trying to emote whimsy.

“Hey, I’ve just noticed that there is an Ethernet port at the back of Lobos. We could plug Lobos into the new office intranet!”
“You know, you should have created a working party on the intranet which would have alerted me via RSS feed to your proposal document that I could then add comments to, instead of simply shouting a statement across the room. But since you’ve got my attention, in this shameful lo-tech way, how would that make us more efficient beyond our current cloud online environment?”
“With its rudimentary 1993 vocalization software it would be able to read out vital management edicts out of its speaker!”
“But the intranet is designed in order that we are no longer distracted with verbal sounds.”
“And it’ll sound cool, like Stephen Hawking is talking to us!”
“Excellent. Do it.”
“OK, just putting the cable in the back now… oh… oh dear!”
“What is it?”
“Lobos has accessed our mainframe!”
“Do we even have a mainframe? It’s only 5 computers cobbled together by some grey cabling.”
“Now the printers are offline!”
“Right… best call IT.”
“We can’t, Lobos has cut the Telephone lines!”
“That beige boxed swine… it seems one step ahead of us at every turn. Almost as if it… perceives… our every next move.”
“Lobos has just declared a hostile takeover bid of our main competitor. We appear to have infiltrated the Kremlin, bypassed their firewall and have redirected the entire Russian nuclear armament’s global positioning onto their office building! We are at DEFCON 2!”
/TELL/ LOBOS:/ WHAT/ IS/ ROMANTIC/LOVE?/
“Jesus, it is exactly like Stephen Hawking is in the room.”

Ah Lobos, what will your biting office satire leave in its bloodied wake next?

Why a robust preservation policy might just save your life one day

At work I received one of those local sector community mailing list e-mails. This is what is said:

We have some music manuscripts which we have to pass on to another organisation. They have been in storage in a box in an unheated and possibly damp location for two years. When we opened the box there were tiny white mites moving in the box. These mites have not been identified as a particular species. We do not want to pass on the manuscripts as they are. I have read The Preservation Advisory Centre Guidelines, but they don’t do quick fixes. The Company partner is looking for a quick fix of a spray we can apply.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

This is around all 7 shades of wrong and, so, almost e-mail Genius! The implication that they basically are looking for someone to recommend a “spray” might be the most worrying part. This is the all too real consequence of Cillit Bang adverts.

I had to stop myself from typing immediately back an e-mail response:

You’ll be fine with a normal, everyday flammable lacquer spray from any good stationer. Spray liberally on mites and paper contents. Then burn the box, burn it to hell.

The actual answer is that there is no quick fix. The Preservation Guidelines are quite correct. Matters of paper conservation and pest control take a slow, expert hand combined with a rigorous preservation policy and environmental monitoring system to cure. It seems that this understanding is a little lacking here.

This situation will not turn out well. I am expecting the next communication to be received from the company via a collective e-mail will be from the King of the Mites making his demands and threatening to start “blasting hostages”.

I, of course, could e-respond in an attempt to maintain a dialogue with His Mitejesty, all the while trying to identify what mites we are dealing with: So far we only know they are tiny, white and their society is governed by a monarch as sovereign head of state.

But such negotiations would be tricky:

“Ok, the non-sequential sheets of damp paper are being readied to be deposited in an unmarked bag at the drop zone designated. Perhaps, King Mite, you would release a hostage in good faith?”
“I am King Mite II.”
"What happened to King Mite the 1st?"
“My father is dead. We mites are a fast breeding, short lived race. And I have new demands. My father was a fool.”
“Oh. Ok, what are your demands, King Mite II?”
“I am King Mite III and we want a Chopper on the roof in 20 minutes.”

It's like catching the train that you didn't want to take EEEOOOO!

There are some times when only the day before I would not have believed I would have written a sentence I am about to. And this is one of those times.

I saw the Jesus of coat hangers at lunch time today.

3000 welded coat hangers into the image of Christ and stuck to a ply crucifix. As the wise hair-full crone from the woods, Alanis, once sang probably, “Isn’t it Ironic, don’t you think? When you’ve got 3000 coat hangers and all you need is a nail. EEEOOOO EEEEEEOOO!”

You know what is ironic, Alanis Mmoorriissettee, that your brand of yodelling woman encouraging pop rock directed at girls to take control of their own lives, be empowered and be spunky in relationships was actually the future for a while, I even bought into it, such as it had permeated into our lives and radios. We were all Gilmour Girls together. And now look at it. Now we are here. Teenage girls all just want to be WAGS when they grow up. WAGS or paid with McDonalds Big Macs for services rendered.

Anyway…

I went over, stood next to the artist just after the unveiling and took a couple of pictures on my phone camera of the 9ft tall sculpture and it made me think. It made me think, you know what I want to do as soon as I get back to work? Make pipe cleaner dinosaurs.

That would be ace!

I could have a whole menagerie of pipe cleaner dinosaurs all on my desk by the end of the day.

But would my manager let me spend a mere 4 hours doing that – no she wouldn’t.

And possibly best not to be sat, hands busy manipulating pipe cleaners into dinosaurs under my desk… I can just imagine the discussion I would be having at Human Resources with my line manager soon thereafter: “Honest, I was simply making a pipe cleaner stegosaurus. I was being surreptitious! No, I don’t find stegosauruses particularly sexy. Certainly no more than a diplodocus. Of course I’ve thought about the girl in accounts, what’s that got to do with it?”

Sometimes I get the feeling that my job adversely constricts my artistic endeavours.