Walking down the high street, while doing my lunch time shopping, I realized something. Standing in a queue at a store I looked at the person working there and in a way admired them.

The thought that every single day I come to work, I would have exactly the same routine ahead of me. Same mundane tasks repeated over and over again. Maybe you do get a bit of variation, but a day of cleaning, followed by a day of shelf stacking, followed by a day of cashier work, and then back to cleaning, still doesn’t sound too appealing, if it even works this way.

Admittedly the closest I have ever came to such work was helping at my parents music store when I was a kid. I honestly disliked those days - dusting shelves and stacking cds and casettes. Mostly cleaning this and cleaning that, and you didn’t even get to play your music as due to my taste it might scare away the customers (and admittedly it probably would have).

Later on in life during a Christmas visit to England, just before I moved permanently, I have worked at some kind of post sorting, magazine packing warehouse. In many ways it was a sad experience, not because of the manual labour, but more due to the painful lack of efficiency and organisation. I guess I am the kind of person who cannot look at an obviously inefficient process and not even try to better it.

The packaging process involved the following steps: preparing the envelope, putting the magazine inside, inserting some other papers, lacking the envelope, and finally placing the address sticker. I was in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and the company was massively behind, which was how me and my sister got the job along side quite a few other temps. Even with all the extra hands they still had over 12 hour shifts, and gave extra hours to any temp that would take it.

Already during the first half a day me and my sister have quickly realized that considering we were grouped into 5 people tables, we could process the magazines a lot quicker if one person did only one action rather than try to do all the steps from start to finish. A the end of the day our table processed a lot more and a lot quicker than some of he other ones.

What surprised us though, was that instead of this being noticed we were not asked to come back after the third day. What it came down to was that the supervisors had people sign their name when they took batches of address stickers. Considering neither me nor my sister did the stickers at our table, not for most of the day at least, we were not considered efficient enough!

I could understand the motivation for everyone doing every step - it probably would ease the monotony of the work. When you’re just sliding magazines into the envelopes it does verge on a state of hypnotic automation. However we were not full time employees, we were temps to supposedly clear out the backlog of deliveries as quickly as possible.

That was just one example of their disorganisation, just to mention one more, one of the days we spent over four hours doing nothing - just sitting at empty tables, because they were waiting for the address stickers to arrive. Not that we might have been doing everything up to the point of stickers - racks of envelopes and magazines were sitting there and just waiting.

When I was a kid I used to enjoy winter quite a lot. I remember snow sometimes started to fall even as early as late November. We used to go to school, have snowball fights in the school’s courtyard during breaks and go sledging or creating snowmen in the afternoons. Depending on the temperature we sometimes were even able to use the lake as a free skating rink (whether we had skates or not…).

You might be starting to get the picture.

The only time in primary school we got a day off in the winter was because only 3 or 5 (can’t remember exactly) kids showed up, with the rest being absent due to some flu outbreak.

Imagine then my bewilderment when during my first winter in England we had a whole day of snow, which resulted in a almost national day off for school kids. Quite strange if you ask me. Although considering snow is such a rare occurrence, especially in the south, well maybe the kids do deserve a couple of hours extra to enjoy real winter weather.

However it is not the schools or kids that are the big shock.

Maybe the snowfall at the beginning of the week was the worst in the last 18 years, however I can quite well recall two years ago the country had a small panic attack as well. It seems like Britain is living in some sort of denial.

The winters are mild and winter tires seem to be a novel concept to English people. Yet, just because there is no snow, it does not mean you can be excused for not being prepared for bad weather.

We had snow on Monday, nice big flakes nearly all day. Admittedly it did pile up a little bit. However it looked nowhere near the disaster it turned into… From my perspective it was just a bit of snow, not much more than we would see in my home country on a very generic snowy winter day.

Not in Britain though… The buses stopped, trains ceased to function, London underground was paralysed. The brave crusaders on the motorway ended up in numerous collisions, or if they were lucky enough snailed their way to work. The panic, the disorganisation, people frantically callying their workplaces. This in turn meant that around ninish in the morining mobile networks got slightly overloaded, and train websites like nationalrail.co.uk just died due to the ‘unforseen’ spike in traffic.

My own workplace ended up in slight chaos. Most people worked from home. The few that came were confronted with the lack of keys, as it just so happened that all keyholders got delayed or stranded by the weather. Just as I was going to leave for work I got a call telling me about the key situation which was the only reason I ended up working from home.

It is so shocking to see a country that sets an example on how to deal with really big catastrophes like the London bombings, fall apart due to a little bit of snow. When those happened a lot of people in countries like mine were shocked, positively mind you, at how quickly and swiftly the order was restored, the situation dealt with and life was back to normal.

It isn’t a fair comparison but it does remind me of an elephant scared of a mouse when it comes to the winter issue. The weather is changing, even if we are not getting daily snow, frost does seem to come and go. The arguments seem to be that the measures needed for situations like this are not worth the cost when it happens every 18 years. But there s fault in such thinking, as firstly you cannot forsee if the next event like this will happen the following year or in the next decade. Secondly maybe it doesn’t get as extreme as this, but this things do seem to be happening even if it is with less severity.

Recently I have been utterly shocked by how some business communication is done in Britain.

When starting a company, you obviously need to setup a bank account at some point. And of course you want to make an informed decision at which bank you are going to open it, etc.

Considering I have my personal account at Barclays, I have decided to check them out first. Typically the website information leaves plenty of questions to be asked, so I arranged an appointment. So far so good you might think… However by this point only I had to deal with several phone calls during work hours, telling me on some occasions that I cannot request to be contacted after 5, or on other occasions, that they will try to arrange that.

Confusing? I would say yes. Not everyone who intends to start a business has whole days to spare and chit chat with sales people on the phone. Especially when it is just a simple enquiry, and the website claims that lines are open to 6pm. Some people actually work at work, you know…

In the end I got someone to call at a later hour and after a brief discussion we arranged a meeting, which we initially agreed to split into two consecutive days, as my lunchtime would not allow for one and a half hour brake. I was asked to pass my details via text message at the end of the conversation. And so i did. And imagine might slight surprise when I got back the reply:

“Thanku john local business managr”

I’ve changed the guys name, but kept original spelling, including lowercase on his own name. OK, admittedly he had an Indian accent, I though, sounded reasonably young, and obviously it was after his work hours so maybe he was in a hurry. I decided not to jump to conclusions too fast and give the guy a chance.

The meeting was quite some time away, as it was the time of the Christmas break, so I was bound to get a reminder after getting back from my holidays in Poland. And so I did:

“Hi dnt 4get our business appt @ 127 HIgh st slough @ barclays @ 12.30pm ne problems call me john”

Again all original spelling, I double checked that I haven’t made any typos… By now you have probably realised I’m not a big fan of text speak. I do tolerate it if it comes from a friend or colleague, especially if they are still under twenty. However as a potential client I find things like the above appalling.

You do not have to resort to text speak in order to be understandable. It’s not like it’s either legal talk or text speak. I think there is plenty of good English in between those two.

Secondly I am here to do business, not to find friends. It is nice to see such institutions like banks using text messages to communicate with people, but language standards have been created for a reason. Yes, if you are wondering, I am equally petty about Polish, as I am about English. Finally it is one things to make mistakes, and another to butcher the language on purpose…

How a Business Manager Becomes a Sales Person

The day of the meeting came and I finally met my soon-to-be business manager in person. Surprisingly he wasn’t as young as I expected, considering all the texts (yes, there were more than the two above).

As my business is going to be an online venture, concentrated rather on micro-payments rather and alternative income sources, rather than direct interaction with clients, I do not need most of the typical business tools for “normal” startups. And I made sure I outlined that just at the start of our conversation. No employees, and no income for a certain period of time.

Everything seemd to go fine, I got answers to most of my questions, however I had to constantly repeat myself. I won’t need this, no, I won’t need that. I don’t want a program to store my clients details, as I won’t be having clients per se. At some point the discussion turned into him constantly trying to push their “free” software and me repeatedly saying I don’t need 90% of it’s features, and the stuff I need I can either do on paper, or find a free solution.

I’m saying “free” software, because although it did not cost you as such, there was a monthly fee for the account that came with it. Half way through the conversation it looked more like a hard sell, than an advice session. It made me wonder what kind of commission they get for pushing the software on unaware beginning business owners.

Another thing I noticed, was that he was taking an awful lot of formal details about me and my business, and weaving forms after forms to fill. Before I go any further let me just say I made it perfectly clear, I am looking to evaluate the banks offer and get my questions answered. I never mentioned opening the account right then and there. And in fact I was never openly asked whether I wanted to do so.

Near the end of the meeting I asked if he realizes I am not opening an account today. The guy looked at me a bit surprised and started saying, that I should have said so earlier, as we wouldn’t have filled all these forms etc.

Well I’ll say one thing: what a load of rubbish (not to use a harsher expression). It seems to be an annoying trend among sales people, to start signing you up, while they discuss the product or service. I guess a lot of people will feel pressured into joining, even though they were only checking out their options.

I’m still checking out mine, and Barclays right now is pretty low on the list of my bank choices.

Christmas cards, Birthday cards, Easter cards, etc. With Christmas coming there are tons of cards available in all sizes, colours and shapes. England seems to be a card crazy country. And if you have not been born in this card-land it might seem a little bit insane to you.

In Poland, where I come from, we also have cards for various occasions. Admittedly probably not whole shops devoted to them, but nevertheless there is a choice. The major difference however is that of to whom and when cards are presented.

The popularity contest

It seems like holiday cards are a way of showing off - look, I have so many friends, people who care, etc. The more the better. To the point, that the whole experience of choosing a card and sending it to a person, has been reduced to a chore that you are forced to obliged.

Well, that is if you send the card at all. Personally I was used to viewing holiday cards more as postcards, and a means to say to people I care about, but will not be seeing over a particular holiday or occasion, that I remember them and hope there will have a lovely time even despite the fact we cannot meet.

And in that sense it was very strange at first to buy cards for not only someone you WILL be seeing during Christmas, but who you actually live under the same roof with! For people both close to you and almost strangers.

Alternatively you could say in Poland cards are “little presents” given to people you might not have a close enough relationship to warrant gifts (or where gifts would even be inappropriate). This way you can still show you remembered about that person, and that they are more than a stranger.

Who gets the card?

Every year nearly all families in England (and probably in places like the US, that inherited some of the British traditions) go out and mass shop for Christmas cards. Numbers running above a hundred or two, would not be terribly uncommon. UK citizens frantically tick of their lists starting from close relations, through third cousins, to end up on neighbours, co-workers, local postman and the corner shop staff…

This approach to Christmas cards leads to their depreciation. If you are going to buy 150 cards, you are not going to pick each and every one of them by hand. You will probably grab a ready pack, which also has the advantage of a reasonable (cheap?) price.

Even if you start out with the earnest intentions of writing a witty personalized message for most of these cards, quite possible after going through half of them you’ll just run out of ideas… Not to mention all that writing.

At the office last year we have only put our signatures on the mass of corporate Christmas cards. And that was enough to make your wrist hurt.

What about the environment?

With such huge amounts of paper circulated around it does beg the question, why not cut down on cards? If you really want to send Christmas cards to a huge number of relatives, neighbours and friends, why not use email? Leave paper for closer relatives, and hand-pick those special cards.

This way you will not only help save probably quite a substantial number of trees, but also help your pocket. And money savings definitely cannot be overlooked in the current economic situation, no matter how small they might seem.