Meetings, Bloody Meetings!

Who remembers that training video that was put out by John Cleese Training?  It was very funny at the time and I recall that no matter how many times we were shown when working at IBM and in the years following with other employers, the number and duration of meetings NEVER went down!   I have sat in meetings wondering  why I was there, wondering what the meeting was about, sleeping at one time and even chairing a meeting I wasn’t able to stop!

When I retired I swore that I would avoid meetings and largely I have.  Except for the odd regimental association committee meeting that no one wanted to be at so progressed with great speed towards the nearest bar.

Now, it seems I have found my self involuntarily attending someone else's meetings and I am not even at work or in a workplace.  No, I am sitting or trying to find a seat in Costa’s Coffee where I live.  Most of the time finding a couple of free seats where we can enjoy our daily “Flat White” (with THREE shots of espresso) and doing the crossword is easy.  But often we have to both prevent queue jumpers dashing from the back of the queue by carefully interfering with their progress and snatching the seats away from them just in time.

The bad news is that once we have secured our seats we find ourselves next to a group (well at least two people and sometimes more) in the midst of a business meeting.  Laptop open, notes spread all over the table, intense and sincere looks on their eager faces and talking the talk.  Oh yes, invariably resplendent in a business suit, corporate ID slung around their necks, Cross pens glinting in the sunlight, if they are near the window, buzz words bursting from their lips like spittle!

I have had enough of the parade of Local Authority, Local Government, Local School Governors,  Salespeople, Arts and the theatre “luvvies” and heavens knows who else taking over the only place where you can get a decent drink of coffee!

I went as far as writing to both the Chief Executives of the County Council and the District Council about the matter and am sorry to report that only ONE had the good manners to reply in a prompt, constructive and conciliatory manner.  The one from the District Council simply ignored me.

I was thinking of asking Costa’s to make their Coffee shops “business meeting free areas” but I can’t see that they want to see a decline in their revenue based on the rants of me and I can’t say I blame them.  I even considered leaving small, neat and conveniently placed post it notes begging that those tempted to hold a “business meeting” in Costa’s, think twice and leave the business at work!

So the next time, any of you who may be reading this please, remember that the bloke looking over your shoulder or peeking at your minutes or jabbing a finger your at your laptop and demanding “scroll down scroll down”  will be me and you better have an status update by 09:00 the next morning!

Please please please, no more meetings in PUBLIC places! Costa’s is for COFFEE not for MEETINGS!

PS:  I did once and only once hold a meeting Costa’s coffee but I was very quiet and very discrete and took no notes!

Robots

I heard an interesting piece on the BBC News this week about the introduction of robots in a Scottish hospital.  The report started out by explaining that “A new hospital being built at Larbert in Stirlingshire will be the first in the UK to use a fleet of robots to transport goods and equipment.  Well my this took me roaring back to when I was working at IBM.  During the mid 1980’s as I recall it was decided to introduce a range of industrial robots perform a range of manufacturing tasks and even a fully automated warehouse.   But by far the most useless of all this robots was the one that looked exactly like the one featured in this BBC report on the robots that are going to do almost everything except operate on the people who one day will be admitted there.

However, what I recall most about our robot at IBM was that whenever I came across it there seemed to be some problem with the thing.  I would turn a corner and find it lurking and stationary in the middle of the gangway on which was the yellow “track” that the glorified train was supposed to follow.  Usually a hapless storeman or “Line Analyst” as some stockmen were called was dispatched to “re-boot” the thing, that is to say press a large red button on it and hope that it detected its track on the ground again and set off to where ever it was going to shudder to a stop and be unloaded by the “Line Analyst” who was supposed to be waiting for the parts to restock the manufacturing line. 

I suspect that it was not the cleaners who had damaged the guidance track when polishing the floors, although it may have been a contribution, but more likely the “Line Analyst” who could have grabbed his trolley, gone to the stores and restocked in half the time!

This is what I thought these robots would look like

But this is what they actually look like!

Err, the one on the right it the robot!

I feel relieved that it’s unlikely that I will be admitted to this new Scottish hospital so do not have to worry if my medication arrives “untouched by human hand”, or my meal or even a robotic nurse.  I didn’t trust the things back then in the dark days of the Mid 80’s when clearly IBM was way ahead of the robotics games.

So just where did David Stark, a director of the architectural company Keppie Design really  get the idea?  I bet he was an young industrial engineer at IBM Havant back in the 80’s or if not, he knew someone that was!!

PS: Remember this!

Three Laws of Robotics

 

 

A Blast From the Past.

Whilst I was basking in the pale glory of having had a massive 3 readers of my Ebook (An Uneventful Soldier) I was wondering if I should have spent some real money on trying to publish the book in soft back and tried to sell some on line or on Ebay. Perhaps given my low readership that was not really a starter but then my E Mail squawked "there is mail for you", this of course delivered in the voice of the HAL9000 computer from the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey", there was a mail from an old friend and workmate from Scotland!! He casually announced that he had discovered my Book and my Blog! Was this reader 1 or reader 3? In any event this email evoked all sorts of memories from my days at IBM and travel to Greenock when "this friend" of mine one day suggested I may like to accompany him on a night out to his local haunt "The Dugout" in Greenock. How could I refuse when he then told me we had to buy tickets for a show that was on there featuring the USA Calendar Girls. These girls were all famous name lookalikes - the only one I can remember was a Cher lookalike! Well what a night it turned out to be, the club full to bursting with me no doubt the only Englishman there, plus Big Ian, my friend Rab and I am not sure who else now but the beer flowed and the atmosphere more tense as the girls failed to appear on time. By the time they did arrive the packed throng had become a baying gang demanding more and more of the hapless lookalikes who invited various members of the audience to come on stage to be photographed with them for a fiver a time. This proved to be a spectacular disaster for the organisers of the event when the only disabled member of the audience was picked up in his wheelchair and passed up onto the stage for his photograph. He was photographed and charged his fiver and given his polaroid snap and then, still in his wheelchair, passed back into the baying throng but something went wrong. I am not sure what happened at this stage other than for some unaccountable reason the lad in the wheelchair was ejected from the club by the bouncers!!! He was simply picked up in his chair and lifted above the heads of the mob and bounced! Needless to say, we sympathised (not!!!) I am sorry to say that we laughed until we cried. The end of the evening was a bit of an anti climax and it was not until I got back home to England that a friend of mine passed me a copy of the "Daily Star" reporting the "riot at the Dugout" .... fame!

I have to thank Rab K for reminding me about the "riot" - I wonder who started it?