Success is...

Strategy is useful, creativity good,

Ideas are needed, customer’s wants understood,

Empathy helps, good employees required,

Keeping the good ones, poor performers are fired,

But don’t kid yourself that you're an indispensable tool,

The company’s success being based upon your rule,

Or your Business School thinking with theories that are newest

Success is based on companies whose cock-ups are fewest.

Conference file

 To the tune of 'Summer holidays' by Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

We’re all going on some lovely jolly days,

Pretend to be working for a day or two,

All expenses paid on our lovely jolly days,

It’s a shame you can’t come too,

I don’t mean that, it’s not true.

We’re going where the sun shines brightly

For a seminar or two,

It gets us around the tax rules,

They’re boring but it’s what we have to do.

We can’t wait for our lovely jolly days

We’re hardly sober night and day

Eating, entertainment, never working on our jolly days.

Barely sober and we don’t pay,

The company lets us all play.

We’re going where the sun shines brightly

We missed the seminars, it’s true,

We still get around the tax rules,

What would you expect us to do?

We pretend it’s hard work on our lovely jolly days

Working hard, no time at all to relax,

We’re fooling no one lying here in the sun,

We come back with sunburn on our backs,

Of the conference our memories are lax,

We can’t remember any facts.

We went where the sun shone brightly

We can’t wait for the next one to be arranged,

We’ll still pretend it’s hard work,

But we won’t be fooling anyone, nothing’s changed.

We’re all going on some lovely jolly days,

Pretend to be working for a day or two,

All expenses paid on our lovely jolly days,

It’s a shame you can’t come too,

I don’t mean that, it’s not true.

Exactly right

Your background sounds so wonderful, you’re perfect for the role,

The other candidates should surrender now it’s a shame they’ve not been told,

You’ve been through all the interviews, every question you have aced,

You’ve ticked the boxes of HR’s brief and that’s competency based.

We’ve seen your CV, you’re brilliant, we couldn’t ask for more,

But we can’t give you this job unless you’ve done the exact same one before.

You see we need to make sure the successful candidate is absolutely right,

It’s not enough to pass all our tests and be so insanely bright,

We need to know the new employee is a completely safe pair of hands

You have to be able to do the job immediately, we’re sure you understand,

You’re by far the tops, so highly qualified, we couldn’t ask for more,

But we can’t give you this job unless you’ve done the exact same one before.

Neil Armstrong, Margaret Thatcher, President Kennedy, Winston Churchill, so many from the past

Were deemed acceptable candidates, their reputation lasts,

No previous exact experience didn’t cause them to fail to make the grade,

The world remembers them for achievements and the differences they made.

Your logic is completely faultless, the other candidates you far outscore,

But we can’t give you this job unless you’ve done the exact same one before.

In the day

The weekend started Friday lunch times, the company always paid,

The team would meet for steaks and beer

Expense accounts were for spending, no savings to be made

Lunch times during the week were also part of work

The best restaurants, fine wines on expense accounts,

How fitting for us young Turks.

Then off at nights to entertain our clients, more dining, foreign trips,

The times were good, the money flowed

Fun, expenses paid, no thought of hardship.

Prizes, performance vouchers, a regular change of cars

The list was almost seemingly endless

We were shooting for the stars.

So what happened to the spending, to those very hazy days?

What happened to my expense account,

The bonuses, the performance pay?

Lunch became a sandwich eaten whilst staring at my screen

Fine wine became machine made coffee

That’s never seen a coffee bean.

So when did the suits decide to take away all our fun?

Set agendas, targets and performance goals,

Make work a place where you have to get things done?

When spending limits are carefully set and finance rule the day,

Where all you get is a lot of silly rules

And then just your monthly take home pay?

I wish I'd had a Wendy

I learned the truth at seventeen

That the future is not certain, decisions not clean.

At seventeen I really could have done with Wendy.

I learned a truth that even passing exams with ease,

Would mean ‘Not going to Oxbridge? Next please.’

I wish I’d had a Wendy.

I learned the truth at nineteen

That the wrong university course might have been foreseen.

At nineteen I really needed a Wendy.

I found myself, uncomprehending, alone, likely to fail

A lecturer understood, arranged a transfer, I could safely bail.

I should have had a Wendy.

Wendy is the guide we all should have when still at the choosing stage

An oracle, a guru, a pointer to a choice

A real school career councillor who gives us options, a balance, a gauge

An independent voice.

Not head teachers obsessed about results and the number of A star passes

But oddly don’t mention all those who struggled daily in their classes.

Or parents who seek bragging rights about offers to a Redbrick college

That this may not be right for their child, they may never acknowledge

They all should all listen to Wendy.

I learned the truth late at fifty six

That dreams and aspirations can still be realistic.

At seventeen you need a Wendy.

Your future might be moulded around something you really want to be

With information, guidance, facts and a chance to foresee,

You should wish you had a Wendy.

Work for free

To the tune of the regimental song 'The British Grenadier'

Some work with full time professionals,

And some with part time roles,

There’s on call duty doctors,

Retained fire fighters slide down poles.

But of all the country’s workers

There’s none that can compare

With a no, no, no, no really no,

To the British volunteer.

The clue is in the name,

It really does appear,

That the problem with this type of staff

Is will they actually appear?

The Government thinks staff for free

Is something we should cheer,

With a no, no, no, no really no,

To the British volunteer.

If I’m in an aircraft flying,

On under a surgeon’s gaze,

Or taking a solicitor's instruction

Being guided through a legal maze.

I really want someone good,

Who has trained for years and years,

With a no, no, no, no really no,

To the British volunteer.

I really do admire

Volunteer’s enthusiasm time and panache.

I’d rather try herding kittens

Volunteers can make such a hash.

If the Government thinks the role is needed

Using unpaid staff is just a veneer,

With a no, no, no, no really no,

To the British volunteer.

So come and join me worrying

When help we seek to find

I want someone who is time served

Dealing with big problems of mine

I don’t want to seem disparaging

But actual qualifications I do revere

With a no, no, no, no really no,

To the British volunteer.

I so admire St John’s Ambulance

Special Constables, School Governors and the Lions

So many people contribute unflinchingly

To help other people’s lives

But we shouldn’t reduce professionalism

Let the Government know we are clear

They can’t expect everything for free

From the British volunteer.

Two sides

Sales targets, deadlines, Blackberry, decisions, meetings

Phones, emails, faxes, invoices, client greetings

The pressure can be intense.

MD’s edicts, debtors, credits, iPhone, upstarts

Presentations, unions, customers, performance charts

The pressure can be immense.

Miles commuting, politics, holidays, sales disappointment

Tiredness, illness, weary, doctor's appointment

Stress can be thankless.

Uninvolved, invisible, undemanding, mundane, bored

Paperwork, filing, photocopying, completely ignored

Role underload is relentless.