Check your Sex!

This is all about yesterday.

I have not been feeling all that well over the last few weeks with a stupid little cold that would neither go away, nor develop into a proper cold.  Just that little bit of a scratch in the throat, clear runny nose, and headache that varies in degrees of severity.

Martin has been feeling more or less the same for the past week, maybe a little bit worse.  Irma also woke up with a headache so the three of us decided to have a chill day.  We had a slow start to the morning with me giving them secondhand feedback after I received some professional feedback on some photos we took.  With every photo my head was getting closer to exploding.  Then it was bath, breakfast and booties on, off to “town”.  Martin drives.  There is this big, red “L” on the rear window of the car, which means Martin is allowed to drive.  It is amazing what one “L” can do to your life.  Irma decides it is safer to stay at home with our two vicious dogs and the cat the two dogs are scared of.  Chubb can't beat that.

First we shoot off to the tailor to pick up some stuff that was repaired.  Then to the pharmacy to get some medicines.  Now, I’m very, very much in touch with my feminine side.  When the government assigns your sex to you when you are born, they use the seventh to tenth digits of your ID to decide if you will be male or female.  They check those numbers and if it is below 5000 you become female, and if it is above 5000 you become male.  Mine is 5001 which means I just made it as a male.  I’m still very much in touch with my feminine side.  I’m allowed to bitch.

So we walk into the pharmacy and I’m ready to bitch.  Like a real bitch would bitch.  It is bitching day.  I want to bitch.  A few things contributing to that:  The 5001 (the most valid excuse), the “L”, the memories of previous bad service I received at the same pharmacy, the headache, the queues at the tills.  We find our way to the “self medication” counter at the back.  As we fall into the queue the person at the counter leaves.  Next person.  This dude is obviously far from dead because he says his two sentences to the pharmacist, she walks with him to the shelves behind us, gives him something and he leaves.

“Good morning, sir.  What can I help with?”  I’m still shocked that it went so quick and I struggle to find words.  I haven’t even had time yet to translate “hoofpyn” from Afrikaans to English.  Martin has to help out.  He is the calm and collective one, after all.  “Have you bought here before, sir?  What is your surname?  Is this your telephone number?”  Things can’t go better, all our info on their system and no need to explain anything.  She turns around and gets the medicines, exactly what we wanted.  Now to the tills.  I’m clever.  I give Martin some money and tell him to go buy bread at the shop upstairs.  It will save us some time.  He will find me here when he is done.  The queues are still there but it is moving.  Fast enough for me not to be able to read the covers of the magazines, or to get tempted by the nuts and biltong on display.  I pay. I’m done and out, no need to bitch.

Then I see Martin returning from upstairs without the bread.  He is bitching:  “There is no way I’m standing in those queues”. 

I need to check digits seven to ten on Martin’s ID number…

Greetings,

Besembek

Under Pressure!

Since I did not write yesterday, and I know I promised myself that I will write every day, I find myself under pressure at the moment.

Short story I need to share:  We have this amazing dude working in our building maintenance team.  Vusi.  During our building renovation exercises he is responsible for laying electricity underneath the desks.  The IT dudes then plug and lay electricity cords for computers and monitors prior to the move so that on the day of the move thing just go a little bit quicker.

During our first move Vusi struggled to find the time to lay his cables.  It was getting closer and closer to D-day and we nagged Vusi more and more to get his cables in so we could lay ours.  At one stage, during one of these nagging sessions, Vusi just smiled and said: “Eish, I’m under pressure”.  From then on Vusi was known as Mr Under Pressure.  Does not matter what we have to do, Mr Under Pressure is our man, always smiling, always helping out, always under pressure!

Thank you, Mr Under Pressure!

Enough writing for today, no more being under pressure!

Greetings,

Besembek

Kill the Boardrooms!

They say networking is good for you.  I guess it must be else there would not be a Chamber of Commerce in every town.  That is where a non-profit promotes profit, in a friendly environment.  (That is so funny – sounds like a slogan for a political party!).  I have never been to one of those meetings but it must be heavy stuff because those meetings are attended by editors and journalist of newspapers.  I always thought it was for old people having snacks, drinking wine, and having an excuse not to go home early.  All wrong, I was.  I guess.  Maybe the editors and journalist are also trying to find an excuse not go home early (I think they are part of the conspiracy).

Many years ago, in the chambers and dungeons of Anglo American and De Beers, I found that the most productive meetings I ever attended were not the ones in the board rooms, but the ones where we were chatting away in the kitchen in front of the coffee dispensing units.  Ideas were created, problems solved, and then the solutions were implemented.  All without the need of a boardroom (I have horrific memories of those boardrooms, anyway).  If it was not in the kitchen, it was in someone’s office, after a stroll from the kitchen.

Unfortunately the kitchens where I work now are too small for meetings and too busy with all the coffeeholics frequenting the always occupied space.  Offices are for the privileged few.  Open plan areas are the most counterproductive office system ever if you ask me.  Boardrooms have to be booked.  So, a colleague (from another branch) and I had our very productive “meeting” in the corridor yesterday.  That was the best place we could find for privacy – or at least as much as we needed.  We were frequently interrupted by sarcastic people making comments about how long we’ve been there (I wonder why they were walking up and down the corridor, don’t they have real work to do?), and the plenty ladies we politely opened the close-by door for.  The nice thing is that I learned about some critical IT networking (that stuff that makes your google work) in that time from him, more than I ever learned in any formal meeting.  No need for a boardroom or formal meeting.

I have a funny feeling (I always have funny feelings when I’m right!) that networking via social media may lessen the impact of traditional forms of networking but I doubt it will ever replace face-to-face interacting, or even be as strong as face-to-face interacting.  However, I know of one dude who really uses social media to his benefit.  Sir Richard Branson.  What I find very interesting is how he appears in almost every photo or FB entry.  In almost every FB photo or entry, or reference in an article, will you find him interacting with his staff.  He even writes articles about the staff taking care of his pets at home.  This is business networking and management like I have never seen.  That is his style of management.  On the floor, in the trenches.

Unknowingly, I actually have been practicing that style of management for a while.  About two years ago one of my customers mentioned that I was frequently “wandering about”.  Now I must make it clear that wandering does not take place when there is lots of work to do, but sometimes you will actually see my walking around, chatting to my customers, learn about their problems, and then we try to fix the broken stuff we did not know about before, collecting a magazine here & showing it off there.  OK, I’m only kidding about the latter– that has nothing to do with any management!  I learned that there actually is a name for this style of networking.  It is called Management By Wandering About (MBWA).  You can learn more about MBWA at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_72.htm and http://www.economist.com/node/12075015.

Now, besides the professional networking in the Chamber of Commerce meetings, the formal networking in the boardrooms, the informal networking by wandering about and the meetings in corridors, the IT networking used to make your google appear different every day, there also is another very important type of networking.

It is called the non-existent network.  You end up with this type of networking when you do not plug your network cable into your laptop and then scramble down to the IT office in a panic, and very cross, because all you see are red crosses.  Like yesterday.

Oops, just remembered I promised not to tell.  Please skip the previous paragraph.

Greetings,

Besembek