What are we seriously like when a printed receipt from a disgruntled customer makes the news in our national newspapers?!!
The outraged Ciara who was charged €45 and 10% gratuity for her and her two guests for their tea/coffee and scones, politely shared her receipt online and boom, outrage and national news.
Let’s pull back from this outrage for half a second and calm our “outrage” jets.
The Cashel Palace Hotel is a brand new five star hotel that has just opened after huge investment, the amount of money that most of us can only dream about. The owners had a vision and brought this fantastic property to life in the best possible way and part of this is delivering five star service to guests which does not come cheap.
This special property has most people talking in a very positive, admiring way and have no doubt it will bring business to the area, the type of clientele from Ireland and overseas who want special experiences.
If we want to sit and relax in a brand new five star property and enjoy five star linen service with the best of coffee and tea, fresh home made scones with jam, butter and cream, then this will come with a price that must cover all of that and yes, make a profit for the business!!
While €45 plus 10% gratuity (I do hate that automatic add on) is a lot of money but it is probably necessary to cover someone occupying a much in demand table for as much time as they choose.
Ciara won’t be back anytime soon but many will.
The Cashel Palace Hotel isn’t where any of us will go everyday for our scone and coffee and a chat but on that special occasion we will dress up, make it a very special occasion and enjoy the food and surroundings and pay that premium price, because sometimes you do get what you pay for.
While Starbucks will charge you the bones of €8 for the same, you know and I know that it isn’t the same because it’s not just about the scone!
So, maybe instead of outrage, let’s congratulate Adriaan Bartels, his team and the vision of the owners for being brave and creating such a special place for all of us to enjoy on those very special occasions.
My first reaction when I read the headline was have they totally and utterly lost their marbles?
“Employers to have at least 13 grounds to refuse remote working requests”
Before I say any more can I state clearly that I am all for home working and have every intention of continuing to do this for both myself and the fantastic team that we have at Fuzion Communications……BUT it is very early days and way way way too early to start introducing anything as we are all still reeling from 22 months of uncertainty and confusion.
The government should not be weighing in on this conversation now, creating rules and guidelines at this very unusual time where everything is still in a flux and at a time when many businesses could be thinking about restoring some long overdue social contact, reigniting comradery and cohesion without battling with an extra psychological obstacle caused by this intervention.
Yes we have all had to work from home in anything from our comfortable homes with oodles of space and spare rooms we were never using to our bedsits where our bedrooms and kitchens are now offices, and we have got used to it and of course it is very convenient (for some) as well as being time and cost effective.
However, we still don’t know the long term affect of this on us both personally (we are social creatures) and professionally as it is way too early in this change experiment. Covid has done huge incremental damage to everyone and we need to start healing and being human again and professionally meeting each other is a necessary part of that.
Am we missing a simple point – If I offer you a job to do work in this proper place of work because that is how I want this work to be conducted (for whatever reason) and you accept then these not the conditions of employment?
If the “working from the office” scenario no longer suits the employee in this fluid marketplace where there is huge demand for talent then they will move on and take a role where an employer is happy with that flexibility. If an employer loses great talent and cannot attract new talent then they are the big loser and the open market will quickly correct itself with those offering the appropriate flexibility winning out.
We don’t need government intervention on this – do we?
Imposing a new rule book about entitlement to home working (what they are constructing is exactly this cloaked in other language) on employers will be hugely problematic and is a very unfair imposition and this will only lead to unnecessary stresses and tensions in workplaces throughout the country as we all grappling with these conversations already.
Team spirit, a learning environment, collaborating with colleagues, personal development, positive atmosphere, having fun, confidentiality and even in some cases pure supervision are just some reasons why an employer might want to insist on office working, but then again maybe we don’t need to give one and shouldn’t have to?
This is the job, this is where the work is to be done, would you like to accept it? Isn’t that how it works and isn’t that the contract we both signed up to?
If that doesn’t suit, employees will vote with their feet and find a different employer.
In a good positive working environment there will be flexibility about this and other issues – this makes total sense BUT we are still figuring out and as I said already, trying to land on guidelines and rules now when we are still in flux is premature at best.
In a hybrid culture you will 100% lose out as an employer with this approach but surely you are entitled to determine the conditions of work without having to worry about workplace circumstances that are totally out of your control?
The idea that you may have to appear in the labour court to justify to a judge why you are insisting that a certain employee works from the office is just crazy and 1,000 steps too far.
Government ….home working is great and will sort itself out all in good time.
This weekend we read the headlines in the newspapers after the speech on Friday night by An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin more or less declaring that “the Covid pandemic is over” and that pretty much all restrictions will be lifted except for the mask wearing indoors and on public transport.
Even though case numbers are still high in the country the ultra conservative and very cautious NPHET (that caution probably saved many lives) have recommended this course of action so they must believe that the current version of what is infecting people is relatively harmless and we are all quite protected against it through either the vaccination programme or actually contracting the virus – we have herd immunity!
While this is a huge relief you would wonder how easy will it be for society to walk back all of our learned cautious behaviour from nearly two years of strangeness and how much of what life was like before will return?
I had a pint in a local as I waited for my takeaway last night (didn’t home eating escalate to enormous proportions in the last two years?) and it was interesting watching the different people and the behaviours – the general atmosphere was upbeat but there was definitely a divide between the cautious and the not so cautious. One of the bar staff was wearing no mask and another was wearing one and the same applied to customers as they came into the pub.
I asked the barman what the new rules were about mask wearing and he was quite sure that this was up to each individual to decide – that’s not my understanding of what I heard but there you go! This decompressing and roll back time will cause it’s own confusion and stress.
How will we respond to these changed circumstances?
Where will all the mask/anti mask and the vax/anti vax anger move to?
Will a cohort of society continue to wear masks even when this is done?
Will we forever stand back from those we meet with caution or will we go back to shaking hands and dare I say it…. can we hug again?!!
What happens when I’m asked to come back to working from the office because I have no intention of commuting two hours a day ever again!
How much damage has all of the “un”socialising and home working really done to us as individuals and to our collective psyche?
It will be stressful, there will be unforeseen and unexpected problems and at times it will feel upsetting as we do now have to unlearn and return to being normal people again making our way in the world.
To make the most of this very positive time we do need is to appreciate that this is another change and with change comes stress and as much as we can, let’s be tolerant of each other as we all have different lived experiences and changes will be processed at different speeds.
While I write this I am thinking back to the regrettable shouting match that I had with a woman on a bus at the beginning of the pandemic who was insulted that my friends were uncomfortable when she sat right behind them and then accused me of not wearing my mask properly!
I have no idea who she was but we both let ourselves down badly and yes it was really upsetting.
Let’s be tolerant and empathetic as this is a good time for all of and let’s work hard to make sure it is great.
I was listening to a fascinating conversation on a podcast with the founder of Toms Shoes, Blake Mycoskie who was sharing his career story including the incredible story of where the idea of Toms Shoes came from, the powerful notion of giving away a free pair of shoes to those who badly needed shoes for every pair they sold and how this idea caught on and quickly led to a legendary success.
At the close of the chat he was asked to give some advice to the listener and he shared a phrase that he lives by “Carpe Diem”, or seize the day.
His basic philosophy is that life is precious, we have no idea how long it will last so make the most of each and every day.
A little habit he uses to remind people of this advice is to sign off all of his emails with the phrase “Carpe Diem” instead of other meaningless salutations such as yours sincerely, kind regards or even my more casual one “cheers” – I do hate formality!
The cynic might think what is that fella all about but this is really clever as it is using a frequent method of everyday communication to replace something meaningless with something meaningful and possibly trigger a positive thought or emotion for the reader.
I was chatting with the fantastic Paul Born of the Tamarack Institute in Canada on my Win Happy podcast and he does something similar but uses equally powerful words “Much joy” – why not spread joy and remind people of joy each and every single day?
Taking all of this onboard I’ve started to sign off all of my emails with the words “Win Happy” which is my core philosophy – I want people to succeed, whatever success looks like for them but to go about this in a way that makes them and those round them happy. If we all lived by that approach I think life would be better and more positive, in particular our working lives.
And taking this one step further maybe even (when appropriate of course) sign off your social media posts with a hashtag with your “words” – if that’s what you believe let people know.
My challenge for you is to think about replacing your meaningless closing salutation and replacing it with something meaningful.
It might get a few strange reactions to begin with but at least it will give people something to remember you by, something to think about and maybe, just maybe, create a shift in their day.
We are reading about the need for taking more care, not going back to the workplace, socialising less and the need for possible regular antigen tests to keep us safe. Fancy a stick up your nose three times a week?
We are reading about Covid sweeping through our schools with students and teachers alike falling with the disease.
We are reading about how the hospitals are under severe pressure with over half of the serious Covid cases being unvaccinated people who have fallen seriously ill and the other half being vaccinated people with underlying conditions. (92% of the adult population are vaccinated – the numbers are clear).
We know 100% that the hospitals are rammed with Covid patients and as a result normal procedures are being postponed and god love anyone who goes there with an emergency case.
We are also reading that the unvaccinated are a big part of the problem, allowing the disease to spread more and possibly mutate.
A restaurant or venue owner is obliged to ask customers for their Vaccine passport and proof of ID but they are not permitted to ask their own team members if they are vaccinated ..”invasion of privacy“.
Do we not have a duty of care towards our employees?
We are reading about huge protests in Rotterdam and Vienna as people are freaking out about the necessary restrictions that have been introduced – angry with the wrong people?
If more severe restrictions are introduced here, no doubt people and businesses will be freaking out and all of this will be aimed at NPHET and the government, who will only be doing this to keep people safe and our hospitals functioning.
Maybe it is time to stop pussyfooting around, enough of the “PC” stuff and if we want to get out of this Covid mess and keep our loved ones safe and our businesses open it is time to focus our messaging on those who have so far been unwilling to vaccinate.
Maybe not quite “boot in” but it is time to apply some real peer pressure because it is needed.
Instead of the various lobby groups pressurising the government, maybe it is time to start focusing on those members of the general public who are not playing ball and putting everyone at risk and our lives on hold and livelihoods at risk.
Instead of being angry at the government, maybe it is time for us to start talking to family, friends and colleagues and encourage them to keep us safe. (instead we are all dancing around them gently- it’s their right)
If the unvaccinated are the biggest part of the problem, let’s tackle this head on and stop trying to solve it by tinkering with other measures that won’t deliver a solution.
We’ve all seen the advert about wearing a seatbelt..
Don’t you just love those emails you get from organisations who you have never heard of who come promising you overnight success if you just buy into their “magic system” .
They seem to think that they have cracked some secret code to automating your success in some way.
Here is today’s example..
Do you want to learn how you can grow your business, keep your sales team motivated and back up your intuition with real data insights, hitting your revenue goals each and every quarter?
(Oh wow, I’m excited, I’d love to do all that !!)
Then join us at XXXXXXXX (with some respect to them I removed this – they are trying) on Tour! We will bring you the cutting edge in intelligent revenue management from experts in the field, so you can gain that key advantage to ensure your business reaches far beyond its revenue goals.
You will discover how:
To hit your number quarter after quarter
You can leave the frustration that comes with disconnected data in 2021
To accelerate your pipeline
The biggest gap in revenue operations is affecting your business processes
Oh dear … irrelevant and pointless humbo jumbo, humbo jumbo, humbo jumbo and if you fall for it then good luck to you.
The gas thing, and adding some insult to injury is that in this GDPR world of ours, the local chambers that we are members of in fear of the GDPR police can’t give me the contact details for members (isn’t that why we join??) where we might actually do some mutual business and we still get these unsolicited BS communications from places we have no connection with…
There is no silver bullet, no magic wand to success other than hard work and doing the right things.
That’s my second “rant” blog post in a row, I better break out of this sequence quick !
I just received a significant piece of correspondence from the bank I have been with for 40 years.
It was important, great, huge even, but it captures in a nutshell how far we have come from the bank where you knew your manager and there was a genuine relationship, to the one that exists today, which is nothing but a connection to an entity that just processes transactions.
My significant letter starts with..
“Dear Customer(s)..
Even though it was written to me this generic piece of auto generated crap didn’t use my name and tried to cover itself with an “s” in plural just in case the generic BS correspondence was intended for more than one person.
As well as the humbo jumbo in the middle section which did include a “thank you for your business” message there was some technical stuff with no effort at providing an actual relevant contact person if I had a query about any of it.
And then it signed off .., with a
“Your sincerely“
that’s another joke, this was auto generated.
and then the “person” who sent it.
“The Manager“ , no name, and no actual signature (does this possibly make this correspondence invalid?).
The only contact details on the letter was a phone number in Dublin – I can imagine how far I would get if I called the number and asked to speak to the person who sent me the letter.
I’m fairly sure I would get a “your call is being recorded“.
Oh, I forgot to mention what was included in the humbo jumbo, a pure classic..
“Should you require any further details or other AIB products please do not hesitate to contact your Relationship Manager at your local branch”
Hey AIB and everyone on this automation, bot, AI, less people drive, let’s stop pretending… this is not a relationship and no advertising campaign can rescue this empty BS.
Getting simple things like important correspondence right, even in an automated world might just make a difference.
We had engaged with this particular service provider before, but the time wasn’t quite right then for us to get value for the service provided so we didn’t engage.
However, they recently reached out and this time the time was right, it was actually spot on and we were ready to do business, so I accepted the offer of a Zoom call to discuss.
On the Zoom call they presented their service and explained how it had developed since before, and I carefully explained why we were ready to engage with them and I further explained precisely how their service could assist us.
The meeting went great, they seemed to understand what we needed and they said they would get back to me with a proposal that would outline precisely how they could assist us and with costings.
It was the hot lead ready to be brought through the door, so very nearly there.
We received a generic proposal, similar to what they had presented on the Zoom call and with quite confusing modular pricing and no reference to the actual solution that we needed and what we had discussed.
This was followed up with a generic follow up message from sort of an automated CRM system, that made no reference to our meeting or the follow up proposal.
I responded to their proposal asking for some clarification and quite honestly I am none the wiser as it gave me a bunch of modules and options that were difficult to navigate with no attempt to create the bespoke package of services that I know will meet my needs.
A simple “further to our meeting and based on your requirements you outlined, what would work best for you is a combination of module 1 and module 3 and some extra consultancy hours and this will cost €xxxx“
Unfortunately, they want me to try to figure out the part that I need them to figure out!
I’m not sure if they know it, but we were nearly over the line.
I was ready to buy, but I’m not sure if they are ready to sell.
Music has played a special role in my life, ever since a Spanish student that was staying with us one summer in 1977 and he had brought his tape recorder and a selection of his favourite albums.
I spent weeks, night after night listening to bands like ELO, Supertramp and the wonderful Lou Reed and I was hooked.
The first proper album I bought for myself was The Boomtown Rats debut album, while I was staying with my aunt and uncle for a few days in Dungarvan when I was 13.
My first concert was Thin Lizzy at the City Hall in Cork when I was just 14, quickly followed by Eric Clapton and then Rory Gallagher.
As well as being an avid collector I ended up doing some work with local bands for a short while and even though I never managed to fulfil my dream of working in a record company, I did mange to fulfil another one, which was owning my own record stores in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin. They were called BlackTrack.
I still buy music the whole time, but I do think you can miss a trick and never listen to some gems, so at the beginning of this lockdown 2021, I decided to brighten my year and expand my collection by asking the wonderful, Declan Murphy, songwriter and guitarist with one of my favourite bands, THE 4 OF US to pick out his favourite 12 albums, one for each month of the year.
He shared his list with me on the Win Happy podcast as well as having a big chat about his love of music, the joy of collecting music, the band and his fascinating story.
The conversation ended up being a huge one that stretched over three parts and he totally cheated by managing to squeeze in 16 classic albums. Even though I have a big collection, I was surprised that I just had two of his 16 – in the meantime I’ve managed to get hold of the other 14 and am loving each and every single one of them.
He was very gracious and didn’t include any of the THE 4 OF US albums, he could have as they are all brilliant.
So, the ISAG (Independent Scientific Advocacy Group) last December were advocating for an approach (mostly known as Zero Covid), that they said would have us out of lockdown and enjoying some return to freedom on St. Patrick’s Day.
They were talking about a similar approach to how New Zealand had dealt with Covid, whereby we could potentially be enjoying a mask free life in our country, meeting friends, eating in restaurants, drinking in pubs, celebrating our special national day and most importantly getting “Back to Normal”.
I myself was a big advocate for the approach they were taking, as I believed it made total sense and was the only way for us to get out of our grave situation with minimum loss of life, health, jobs, damage to the economy and mental health.
I went as far as blogging about it, tweeting about it and even giving their team some pro-bono strategic guidance about their communications – we even did some design work to help simplify their messaging. I am not involved now, but I do support what they are doing.
Note: I was quiet surprised at the abuse I took in some quarters for supporting that approach and was even targeted by the “brilliant” Gript crew (…very strange). The “we are all in this together” horse bolted in April 2020 and still hasn’t come back!
On one hand we can now throw our eyes up to heaven and say the ISAG crew were talking rubbish and isn’t where we are right now proof that they were totally wrong
OR ..we can now look back and say they were spot on all along, and if only we had done what they said then, we would be in a pub with a creamy pint of Murphy’s toasting our national day and the end to the hardship we have all endured at varying levels.
So…were they right or were they wrong?
Let’s take a look..
What they were advocating for was:
An aggressive suppression of the virus by going into a sharp, decisive lockdown
Quarantining all visitors to the country for two weeks to ensure those entering were not introducing even more Covid and possible new variants
Some cooperation with Northern Ireland (who were in a worse mess at the time) about people moving between jurisdictions
An effective contact tracing regime to focus in on any cases that happen
A sensible opening up of the country on a county by county basis
While all of this initial effort seemed very extreme, a sacrifice by the population for two months or so could have us in a much better, enjoyable place for 2021 while we all waited for vaccines.
Initially many of the usual suspects argued that this “Zero Covid” crew were a bit nuts and what was being suggested just wasn’t possible here – as I said I took a small amount of that abuse for my small part in advocating for the approach.
When we look at what has happened since then until this St. Patrick’s Day (our supposed “freedom” day):
We came out of the October/November lockdown when there were still too many cases in the community (we stupidly allowed schools to stay open despite outbreaks)
We never controlled international travel or the border with the North
Christmas shopping and entertaining kicked in
The UK variant came to Ireland with all of the thousands of people returning home for Christmas and….
BOOM !!!
We had an explosion of Covid with an incredible amount of cases and the inevitable deaths that followed.
Suddenly that aggressive and inevitable lockdown was needed and there was no issue with the general public, we knew it was necessary and with that more and more people were seeing the sense that the ISAG crew were advocating for, except instead of a “hill” of Covid cases in the community that we needed to suppress it was suddenly a colossal “mountain”.
OK, we could still do what the ISAG were suggesting, but the scale of the problem meant the St. Patrick’s Day target was now unrealistic, but instead a few weeks later if we did the right thing.
What did we actually do?
We took the tough lockdown on the chin, including home schooling (sensible and necessary) – the only exception is that the lockdown period needed to be longer (how long will it be?)
And…a token effort to restrict “unnecessary” travel (as we know there are still thousands travelling each week unnecessarily)
And….despite the talk about hotel quarantining we still haven’t managed to put an arrangement in place
And….schools will return and the community spread will kick off again
And….we are stumbling through a vaccination programme (my 85 year old mum will receive her 2nd vaccination next Saturday , my 47 year old brother in New Jersey received his two weeks ago!)
The most significant problem since December is that the flights kept coming with all sorts of visitors from everywhere including new Covid variants from Brazil and other places.
A simple question may be asked: how bloody stupid are we in this country?
Basically, we can’t go beyond 5kms in Ireland, but you can go to Lanzarote!
As far back as last summer Ireland has been “so good” at putting restrictions on it’s citizens, but for some stupid reasons that I will never fathom we have to leave the back door open, which leaves us on this St. Patrick’s Day, not free but looking into a fog of uncertainty with no plan, a shambles of a vaccination rollout and staring down the barrel of a 2021 and even more hardship and economic devastation.
As well as the high number of deaths and sickness since December, the other very serious problem now is that people have lost patience and lost faith and compounded by extremely poor communications a very depressed country is ready to explode.
So, a big salute to the dedicated ISAG crew who persisted with their very simple, spot on approach that could have had us raising our glasses together in our favourite watering holes.
You were right, all along and for whatever political reasons those in power did not do the “5%” that would have us out of this mess.
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 