Ho! Ho! Ho!

Just in case you have been off on a mission to Mars or in a coma for the last couple of months, you can't help but notice that we are now firmly in advent.  Christmas is just around the corner, turkeys and other tasty animals are being fattened ready for the oven.  Let's get one thing straight before we start; I love Christmas.  It doesn't make me grumpy and I don't go all Ebeneezer Scrooge.  It might be because of the kids and all the excitement that goes with them, it might be the gifts or it might just be the food and drink.  We have put the decorations up and Victoria has turned our hall and stairs into Santa's grotto, and before you ask, yes the big fella is real, of that there can be no doubt.  It is fair to say, there is a certain amount of competition in our house as to who is the biggest kid - me or the kids; I think I generally win.  This year we also have the added bonus that we aren't cooking Christmas dinner (although Tina might feel at a bit of a loose end), we have generously been invited to my brother and sister in law's to celebrate with them, kids and all.  Look up "gluttons for punishment" in the dictionary and it will likely read "Darrel and Sharon, Christmas 2009".  Or rather it will when I write the dictionary for all those words I use that other people accuse me of having made up.


So what is my quandary?  It's an odd thing really.  Despite my absolute passion for Christmas, come Boxing day, or thereabouts, I'm itching to get all the decorations put away.  It's a strange thing.  The tree looks pretty, all the decorations are jolly and festive and I will drag the Christmas celebrations out as long as possible - even enjoying Christmas specials reruns on the BBC.  I enjoy putting the decorations up but a couple or three weeks later I've had enough of them.

So here's to Christmas, however you celebrate.  Whether you see it as the Christian(ish) festival or if you're stuck firmly in Briton's druid past and prefer Yule or if you have no religion nor belief, just have a couple of days off, after all, who really needs a reason or excuse to celebrate?

I know that people who know me may well be a little surprised by this blog post, you expect a full on grumpy Christmas, or maybe you suspect I have employed a ghost writer but no, I promise you, this is all me.

Vive La Différence

In true celebratory style, it is my month-iversary at my new (part time) job which I took on after being made redundant and, as I'm sure you are aware, leaves me time to train as a driving instructor.  To celebrate this milestone, I decided it is time for a little reflection.  I am now working for a small company rather than a messy sprawling company with fingers in several international pies so naturally comparing the two seems a good way to reflect.  Please don't consider this to be any form of career advice, if you are young, naive and looking for a job, you will find no guidance here as to the type of company you should consider.  These are simply the views of a jaded and cynical grumpy.  So lets consider a few things:


1.  Bullshit.  Right, we need some blue sky thinking here.  Let's put some ideas in the mental microwave and wait for it to ping.  Run the flag up the flagpole, see who shoots it.  I'm actually quite good at bullshit.  It's just a kind of corporate or technical waffle.  Ten years in the civil service gives you a good grounding.  In fact, in many respects, I quite like bullshit you can use it to your advantage in all sorts of situations.  What I don't like though is that poor cover up type bullshit that managers use to cover up their inadequacies.  The amount of bullshit produced is, no doubt, absolutely proportional to the size of the organisation.  After all, they do say shit floats upwards.


2.  Sycophancy.  We're at the opposite end of the scale now.  I would never do well in a large organisation because I must have been off school they day they taught sucking up.  Big company, in my experience, watch your step so you don't trip over people bowing down to management.  Smaller companies tend to work much more on an everyone getting on together kind of a way.  There's little point getting your nose brown because there isn't the structure to worm promotion in to.


3.  Camaraderie.  I've struggled over this one because the differences aren't quite so obvious.  There is the same camaraderie, in my experience, in any size company; after all we're all working towards the same common goal aren't we? (sorry slipped into bullshit then).  The only difference is in a big company there are more people to relate with and, just by simple laws of chance, there is a higher chance that there will be someone who gets so far up your nose they're wandering around in your brain.  In a big company though, you can often hide from them.  Woe betide some irritating oik in a small company - there is no escape.  Then again, perhaps my ambition could be to be that oik.


4.  Hiding.  Big company, several people doing the same thing, oodles of opportunity to use lines such as "It was him", "He told me to", "Well, I may have done, but you'll never guess what SHE did", "Maybe but at least I didn't....", "Not my responsibility".  You get the picture.  Not that I would ever slope shoulders and pass the buck of course not.  Well, maybe a little, but at least I didn't do what he did.


5.  Technology.  Sorry, I've slipped into my old life now.  Big company, usually big budget for technology.  Small company, bring your own string and baked bean can.  However, there are common issues here as well.  I remember in the eighties talk about the paperless office.  Computers and technology generate paperwork, they don't save it.  And that's true in a one man company or multinational.


6.  Money.  Again, common ground, both large and small companies will probably pay you.   However, don't expect big bucks in a small company.  Come to that, there didn't seem to be big bucks in the big companies either.


7.  Offshoring.  There are two issues here.  Firstly, small company most unlikely to transfer huge chunks of its operation to foreign parts thereby making you redundant.  And anyway, offshore for UK is only onshoring somewhere else?  Second issue, offshoring isn't a real word.  Nor is onshoring come to that (I may have just made it up, if so baggsy the copyright).  Even my spell checker underlines it with a wiggly red line.  And this is the tip of the iceberg.  Don't have a word for it?  make one up or use another word that doesn't really work.  Networking, benchmarking and, my all time anti-favourite - solutioning.


Anyhow, nothing to do with small vs big companies, but in case it has escaped your attention, we have slipped into advent.  Little over three weeks to go till the big fella slips down your chimney.  In an unnatural and unlikely state of organisation we are prepared for Christmas in the Kirby household.  That's it bragging over.  I am, however, desperately excited about Christmas this year.  Any day now it will be time to start winding the kids into a frenzy of excitement.  Then regret it several minutes later.


Finally, a cause célèbre.  I have discovered that I can create sort of sub blogs.  This means I can retire the redundancy blog just as soon as I have a title.  I'm so excited you wouldn't believe it.  I have created another blog-ette.  You may recall that I have got the bike out of the shed and started riding it.  I have created a blog that will, eventually I'm sure, waffle on about my rides and include some pictures of buildings, views and old stuff that will interest me and no-one else.  If you're masochistic enough to take a shufty, you can find it by clicking here.

That's it for today, thanks for your time, I hope this was an enhancing experience for all.  We must touch base sometime and check the methodology to circumvent the pinch points that might just disintermediate the client base and ensure we are in the right ball park.  Remember this blog is available 24/7 24/365.

Is there anything more pointless than a rhetorical question?

Or is this a rhetorical question?  Go on think about it?  Who answered no?  Wrong.  Today I shall be considering the pointless, naturally one's definition of pointless will vary on a number of factors; age, interests and general grumpiness to name a few.  So shall we begin?

1. Facebook.  Oooh controversial this one as I'm sure many readers (assuming there are many) will have come across this blog via Facebook.  Now, please don't get me wrong, Facebook isn't all pointless.  It isn't a bad way of keeping in touch and finding people you haven't seen for ages.  Now add on all those statuses (stati?) that say stuff like "didn't want to write anything", "good morning" and other meaningless, pointless stuff.  Even worse are the damned games, that isn't social networking, that's a games site, pointless on Facebook.  Although I'm quite chuffed with myself, I've managed to work out how to turn off the news feed entries that say somebody has done something pointless in another pointless game.
Finally, for Facebook anyway, is the whole I'm a fan of thing.  I understand being a fan of a sportsman, real cause, music/musician/band, celebrity and similar, in fact I have subscribed to a couple of these.  What I don't understand, and these are genuine, are the likes of '63 Notifications Later and I regret Liking Your Status', 'Laughing When You Shouldn't', 'What Goes Around Comes Around', 'I Hate Getting Texts That Only Say "k'.  Unless someone can correct me, they are completely pointless.

2. Reality Television.  Maybe not pointless if you are a Z list celebrity desperate for publicity.  However the pointless point I wish to make is that it is far from reality.  Whose rather warped idea of reality is it to be locked away in a large house with a dozen hand picked irritants or to be apparently stranded in the Australian jungle or whisked away to a relatively genuine celebrity's house to sing until the general public get pi**ed off with you?  Has anyone seen the Trueman show?  One of the worst (and most pointless) ever pieces of cinematography ever but, if I understand the plot correctly, the main character spends a chunk of his life unknowingly being filmed.  Do it for real to real people and that's reality TV.  No, I don't mean CCTV which, isn't like Orwell's Big Brother, anyone who uses the line has, quite obviously never read the book.

3. The Gym.  It is completely pointless.  It is a well known proven (although possibly completely made up) fact that 99.9% of gym memberships are used no more than about 10% of their true value.  Save your gym membership for about 3 hours and buy a bike, go ride it.  Jog, Swim, do press ups, join a sports club, don't put yourself through the pain and cost.  Do you think I got my svelte racing snake figure by slogging my guts out on a treadmill or weight machine?  I really don't see the point of static bikes or treadmills where you put in all that effort and go nowhere.  That being said, I do rather like the Concept II rowers.

4. Blogs and blogging.  Quite frankly, blogging is akin to masturbation.  Pleasure largely only for the person doing the blogging.  Who really wants to read the irrelevant, pointless ramblings of a middle aged man?  After all, if that's your particular bag then you would be reading my brother's blog.  Mine is, of course, completely not pointless.  Very pointy in fact.

So to a completely non pointless event.  It is very exciting, we saw Father Christmas turn the lights on in Gloucester last night.  Yes, he is real.  He must be, he had real reindeer and everything (sorry, don't know who the kid is).  So it is officially nearly Christmas and I am, rarely, getting excited.  God help you all.

I Can't Sing

I'd like to start this blog by making a couple of things clear.

1. I can't sing.

2. I have no musical ability, even less than my brother who could at least play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the guitar.

3. I have no qualification to judge another's musical ability.

4. I think X-factor is abhorrent.

5. I rather enjoy an eclectic mix of music.

All that being said, I can't fail to avoid the current furore over the twins on X-factor. So much so that I have watched (and therefore listened t0 and suffered) this weeks instalments of the X Factor. Agreed, the twins don't appear to have the same level of musical talent that many big names have, think U2, Frank Sinatra, BB King etc. and we have a different league. On the flip side of the coin, there was a pre pubescent kid doing back flips to Fly Me to the Moon. You can't tell me that's right either.

Methinks that we need to lighten up a little here, whilst we can decry the hype surrounding X-Factor and the fact that the once coveted Christmas number one is now a one horse race and not a Christmas single (novelty or otherwise think Slade), lets not forget the talent shows from times past. Good things came from New Faces (Marti Caine, Showaddywaddy) and Opportunity Knocks (Lena Zavaroni, Bonnie Langford). Have I convinced you yet? Think back to X factors over the last couple of years. Apart from the die-hard fans, who could name all the winners or, more pertinently, name more than one single from the winner. Now think back to Christmas 2000 - who can tell me the Christmas number one? No cheating, no looking it up.

It was Bob the Builder. A novelty if ever one was yet a huge selling song keeping Westlife off the number one spot (hurrah) when the 24th December charts were announced. And we all remember Bob The Builder. My point being that a bit of light hearted-ness is no bad thing. I would personally rather watch the twins having a bit of a laugh and putting on a stage show than many of the karaoke singers that appear on the show. Which of course brings up a whole different issue. When I were a lad, there were bands in the charts that could even play instruments. I don't see any of the contestants with a guitar, drums or even a synthesiser on stage.

So in summary, a straight contest, Bob the Builder, Slade, Mud or Boney M vs. This year's X-Factor winner, voted for by a gaggle of pre teen girls. I know which I would prefer.