Going Slowly Mad

Happy Old Man

I am now the ripe old age of 27. Gosh, you don't look a day over 26, I hear you say. Well.....I am getting old. I'm not old yet, but I definitely feel like I'm getting there. I didn't feel old until my last birthday, at which point almost everyone I know decided to tell me that I'm getting old. I'm still in my twenties, the late one's perhaps, but my twenties none the less, and I shall hold on to that for my own sanity. It isn't the number that makes me feel old, or indeed my so-called friends tell me that I am, but it some of the things I have started doing, or not not doing.

Once upon a time, I could remember conversations verbatim and recall them at any time. I only ever had to hear something once and I knew it. Those days are gone. An example of the change is a call I took the other day. The person on the phone (I have forgotten their name) asked to speak to one of my colleagues, so I took her name. Literally 5 seconds later, when I told my colleague there was a call for her and she asked who it was, for the life of me, I couldn't remember their name, or indeed where they were calling from. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time. Fairly sure my colleagues think I'm an idiot at times. I'm not sure that they're wrong.

Derren Brown: A Trick of the Mind

I am a massive fan of Derren Brown, and have read his books. In one of his books there were memory techniques spoken about. I used these techniques for my degree and was the only reason I passed (too many drunken nights, I'm sure you can imagine). I actually got quite good at using them at one stage. I could remember lists of any length, in any order and repeat them back weeks later. As time has passed, I have lost this skill. Unfortunately, I have become so old and lazy, I now can't be bothered to put in the practice to get good at it again.

This new air of laziness extends to most other parts of my life now. I am kept reasonably busy with the different things that I do, and when I joined these activities I was happy to be busy, but now, I almost resent being away and not being able to relax in front of the TV. I can now think of nothing better than vegetating in front of the TV, pizza on my lap and a beer or coffee by my side. Any deviation from this annoys me.

What really concerns me though is that I feel old already and I'm not married, don't have a mortgage or kids!! The future looks bleak. The future looks like..........

Man with zimmer frame

Risk Assessments, What are they good for........

Well I guess the title of this post summarises my opinion of risk assessments, so this should be a short post.

I just cannot work out what the point of them is. When you are writing a risk assessment, you obviously go over the risks you can think there would possibly be and then write down how you are planning to reduce or avoid the risks. The problem with accidents is that they are rarely predictable. If you are aware of a danger, you obviously automatically try to avoid it. And if there is a danger you are unaware of, and so are not working to avoid it, you are not aware of it to put in your risk assessment.

For example, lets say you are writing a risk assessment for boiling water. Obvious issues here, there is shockingly hot water that could scald you at any moment and a potentially a hot cooker you could burn yourself on. What is the point of writing a risk assessment for this. Is there any use in writing, "Try to avoid contact between the boiling water and your skin as this can cause irritation". And where is the line, is requiring everyone that boils water to undergo Water Thermal Manipulation Training too much? And then finally, how on earth does a risk assessment stop someone being stupid and knocking the boiling pot all over themselves. Though at least if someone does, you are secure in the knowledge that you wrote it down and so it's OK.

Perhaps I am totally missing the point here, and if I am, I am sure people will be very quick to tell me.

Sick of Being Nice

OK, I know that title sounds like I believe I am the nicest person ever, what a big head I truly am. But that is not what I mean. I don't think that I am particularly nice in comparison to a lot of people. What I do hate though is when you have to nice even though something crappy is going on. I have a few examples of this.

When you are a restaurant and the server comes to take your plates, or in fact nowadays at an earlier stage, when the head server fellow comes round and asks if everything is OK, you have be nice and say everything is lovely. Especially if it isn't. Heaven forbid we offend the cocky git by expressing our true impressions of the meal. Apparently saying, "Aye, it's grand" isn't enough, when that is as positive a description as I can muster at the time. In fact, as people seem happy enough to tell me, that makes me a bastard.

In the work place, this required niceness goes in to over drive. I get that everyone has to get on at work, and every so often there will be stuff that happens that you don't like that you have to grin and bare, but apparently that rule doesn't apply to everyone. I'm sure you have all been in meetings (bloody meetings!!) where one person spends ages banging on about something, generally nothing to do with the aim of the meeting and often getting quite obnoxious about it. It takes all my power not to say anything at the time to shut him/her down, but afterwards when I speak to colleagues about how ridiculous he was, they just say, "Aww, that's just Kevin."  Well, Fuck Kevin. No one lets me away with being an eejit and explains it away by it just, "Being Dave." In fact, normally I would get dragged across the coals and given warning left right and centre, and yes, I would have to be nice about it and thank them for bringing it to my attention. Bet Kevin doesn't! (Please note, Kevin isn't a real person, I made him up. His real name was Eddie. Not it wasn't. Maybe it was. But it wasn't).

I also hate phone calls of bad news where you have to be nice. For example, that call to tell you you haven't been given the job you applied for, or that place on the sports team, or failed an exam, etc. In direct opposition what you wish you could say, you say the likes of, "Oh OK, well thank you anyway."  Inside you may wish to tell them where to go for over looking the greatness that is you. I know the reason most people are nice in these cases is so they don't cut off any opportunities in the future. Sound argument, though if I were making that call and the person at the other end said, "Oh fuck sake, I really wanted that. Jesus!!" At least then you know the person cared. Far better than the apathetic response that people normally give. Well, except Kevin of course.

As soon as I win the lottery (bound to happen, though may happen sooner if I start playing the lottery), I am going to go an a campaign of honesty. If service is shit, and someone asks how it is, I shall say it was shit. If the service is appalling in a shop, not only will I put my items down and not shop there again, I shall speak to the manager about how poor Stacy's service was. In fact, stuff it, I'm a millionaire, I shall buy the shop and my first action as owner would be to sack Stacy in no uncertain terms. And I'd do it free in the knowledge that I won't need a job from anyone again, unless I squander all my money away firing people. You have all been warned!

Apathy

I hate apathy. But what's the point in moaning, eh? (Get it?)

I am going to avoid the obvious point that if we were all apathetic, nothing would ever get done.

Apathy simply drives me mad. I don't expect people to feel passionately about everything. In fact I don't expect people to care about much, but those people that don't care about anything make me want to snap their dispassionate necks. Phrase's like, "I don't care about it because there is nothing I can do about it", are perhaps the most frustrating. Just because it is something that is beyond your control doesn't mean that is something you shouldn't care about. This is generally the type of mentality that surrounds voting. Wouldn't it be great if you were allowed to punch someone square on the nose if they said they didn't vote because one vote doesn't make a difference? It almost winds me up as much when people say they don't vote because they don't like any of the parties. I don't think anyone particularly thinks any party sums up every opinion and hope that they have, but that isn't the point.

I don't wish to go on and on about this as I think the idea is simple enough, but I would like to share another side of apathy that drives me up the wall. Actually, I'm not sure if it is apathy or stupidity, I shall leave it to you decide for yourself, but when you ask someone for their opinion about something and they reply, "Oh, I've never thought about it." That's fine and, in fairness, I didn't ask if you had. Now, I have given you a topic, I would like you to give an opinion about, think about it now and form one. If it is something you know nothing about, admit it and either I can inform you, or we can go find more information.  Not giving an opinion because you can't be bothered thinking isn't a good enough reason.

Maybe I have got this all wrong, maybe apathy is the way forward and we should all just sit in our dilapidated homes, in our grimy sofas watching broken TV's, drooling. 

Actually that just looks like a good night in! 

Tipping

Just to make my position clear, I hate tipping. The whole idea of it is a little vulgar to me. When someone is nice to me, I like to think it is because they either enjoy their job or they think that I'm a lovely fellow. It is horrible then to realise that after you meal, the person serving you has only been nice in an attempt to make you tip more. That is, if they are nice at all. If you think about it, tipping is quite patronising. It is much the same as tapping the person on the top of their head or pinching their cheeks saying, "You've done very well, you lifted those plates and delivered them all the way over to my table without dropping them or anything!" That is their job. It is what they are paid to do.

The argument that they aren't paid a lot and so the tips are to make their wages up doesn't wash with me either. The restaurant should just pay them more. If needs be, increase the prices on the menu. People shouldn't need to be bribed to be good at serving people, if they are poor at the job, they should be fired. This might leave a lot of grumpy and sullen people unemployed, but I am OK with that. Maybe they could get a job as a bus driver, my understanding is that those qualities are a prerequisite for the job. (Don't get me wrong, a few nice people slip through the net).

One thing a lot of people say when I chat to them about this sort of thing is that they don't like as they don't get tipped for their work. I'm not a massive fan of this as an argument. There a lot of perks that people get in their work that others don't. This might sound like I am contradicting myself, but I'm not. I might not like the perks other people get, but that is just jealousy, but tipping directly affects me as the onus is very much on me to give people money that I don't feel they don't necessarily deserve.

What I hate most about tipping though is the judgemental side of things. When I ever go for a meal with people and we are sorting out the bill, people always say about adding extra money for the tip. The problem with this is that if I question it, I appear as the tight bastard, where in fact I am just questioning if the service was so exceptional as to deserve any kind of monetary bonus. Surely, if we have to tip, it should only be when service has been exceptional, above the norm, not, as it is now, done no matter what. In America, servers have apparently been known to chase customers down the road demanding a tip.

I'm not sure I have any great point to make here so I shall summarise it like this: I hate tipping. Almost as much as I hate begging. 

Electric Cars

I was recently walking down the road and an electric car passed me. If you live in London, this might not be unusual for you, but where I live, it is quite the rarity. The reason I knew it was an electric was that as it drove towards me from behind, I heard a car but it sounded unusual. "Congratulations" I'm sure you are sarcastically saying, "You heard a car", but I thought it interesting because the problem as far as I was aware, with electric cars, is that no one can hear them coming and so they knock people over left right and centre, Grand Theft Auto stylee. This got me thinking.


The main sound I hear from cars is the tyre noise. I very rarely hear the engine of a car. Particularly in towns where the cars are just pottering about. Surely this would also be the case for electric cars. As far as I am aware, we haven't got the Back to the Future stage of hovering cars where there is no tyre or engine noise.

Also, I heard the electric motors whirling away. I think, if anything, the electric motors are louder than combustion engines, unless the car is racing somewhere.

So here is my point, and it is two fold. Firstly, I hate the idea that electric cars are going to get artificial noises played while they are travelling. Just imagine it. The engine equivalent of the Nokia ringtone going off every time a car passes you. Actually, if cars came pre-loading the the sounds from the Jetson's car, I maybe wouldn't mind it so much. The second fold of my point is that I love the idea of electric cars and I fear that any excuse, particularly made up rubbish about them being dangerous because they don't make enough noise, will delay or stop their introduction.

At this point I'm sure you are getting the wrong impression about me so I wish to set it straight. I don't care about global warming. I don't care how much cars may or may not be contributing to it. I don't believe cars are the source of all evil. In fact, as someone that isn't allowed to use one due to my eye sight, I can see (pardon the pun) that they are a great form of transport and the freedom they give people would be liberating, but I digress. What I love about the idea of electric cars is the lack of car fumes around me. I don't know how many times I walk around and the stink of car fumes becomes obnoxious. This is particularly acute in cities like London and Manchester. The fresher air would be a breath of fresh air! I doubt there will be many that would argue with me on this one. I have spoken to very few people that have come back from a holiday in the country saying, "It's lovely to get home. Fill your lungs with that smoggy air".

One of the main communities I have heard making noises about the 'silent' electric cars is the blind community. For a long time I agreed with their reasoning. It makes sense that silent cars would be more dangerous crossing the road but having come across a number of electrics cars, there has not been one have I not heard. No cars have snuck up on me without me hearing them. I have always heard them before I have seen them, and in fact their unusual motor sound, while they remain rare, makes them more noticeable if anything.

I conclude that as a community, blind and partially sighted people have to pick their battles. If complaints are made about subjects that the average man on the street thinks isn't accurate, when complaints are made about real issues, no one will listen. Reminds me of a story I heard once about a young Shepard and a pesky wolf.