BLOG 227: As time goes by

"Time - it roams wild like a lion till you tame it, only then can you own it like a pussy cat" 

My Dad 

Lets get something straight. I may be a historians daughter, I may know an awful lot about the past... but I am all for the progression of time. I hate nostalgia. Such sentimental crap absolutely always is never a reflection of what really happened in the past, and is absolutely always a reflection of the wistfulness of the purveyor.  

Time marches forward as does the direction of our feet, and whilst I firmly believe that being unaware of the past dooms one to repeat it. Time must progress, and progress is a forward motion. 

It is true that if you don't move with time you will become irrelevant One should make as much effort as possible to be aware of the time slot you are actually in and act accordingly. One should as much as possible be aware of the times ahead and prepare for them unless one desires to repeat the past. (Prepare = evolve and survive... anything else = dinosaur fate) 

                                                                                                   

However, time is something - rather like the domestic cat - that one owns in name only.  Just like a domestic cat doles out enough love to sustain a regular supply of food, time will dole out enough benefit for your ministrations to sustain you continually being attentive to it. We as people spend a great deal of time thinking about, talking about, planning and trying to maximise time but at the end of the day... it marches forward anyway. 

That said it amuses me greatly how people regularly and totally misunderstand time.  

One of the things that tickles me most is how people can invest time in trying to get positive outcomes from me when the route chosen is obviously the destined to total and utter apocalyptic failure. Why bother?...what a total waste of their time! I find it hilarious how puffy and outraged they become about how much time they have invested in these ventures. I always want to take them back in time to the moment when they conceived their plans and yell "SEE... NO ONE BUT YOU PUT YOU FORWARD FOR THIS TEXT BOOK FOOLS ERRAND". However, another thing about time is that traveling backways is certainly NEVER a real option.

The place where we waste the most time is in the way we treat each other. We hurl hours of our lives trying to make people feel a certain way so that they do a certain thing.... then end up frustrated, angry and suffering from a huge time deficit because that person "took your efforts the wrong way". (see how even in defeat you blame the other person for YOUR shortcomings). It may just be that you spent more  time trying to get them to do what you want rather than understanding what they are al1 about.
                                                                                                                                 

I could witter on about this ... but as is the JaxWorld tradition, I will cut to the chase by sharing with you my top five mismanagements of time where I am concerned. (I encourage you to jot down yours and make yours public too). Lets see if we can claw back some hours and spend them doing stuff we like instead!

So here goes: 

in at NO 5: "But Jax you simply MUST come, the whole team are going" 

Wanna waste hours of your time, piss me off and make me feel I do not have a valued voice? Keep on and on  and on at me to attend a work related social event. Any time I am with people I work with, it’s like I am AT at work. Like family members work colleagues are not chosen by me and forced togetherness or camaraderie just doesn’t form bonds. So is it desperately so hard to understand that I just don't really want to socialise outside of the paid for situation with 'everybody' if I have the choice.  

Besides on a work related social, whatever happens there simply doesn’t stay there; it comes back to work. And when I socialise... it's to relax, not to give ammo to people who like me about as much as I adore them!   

and at No 4: "Jax dinner is gonna be delayed" 

Wanna cause a small riot in your living room. Invite me to a dinner party and start cooking it when all the guests are assembled. BBQ's are a noble exception to this rule, you kind of know that watching your meal cook is part of the entertainment. However, being invited for dinner at 6 and then hold me hostage in your house with nothing more substantial than a bowl of monkey nuts while you fanny about in the kitchen till ten, all the name of 'fresh food' is just crap.Prepare earlier or ring for a take out - just feed me! 

Besides a dinner party is a party where DINNER is the key attraction. Having a dinner party with a ridiculously late meal is like going to the airport and boarding a ridiculously delayed flight - it throws every sequential arrangement out and leaves this guest with a particularly bad taste in her mouth.  

Rising through to No 3: "Here Jax listen to this" 

Wanna get me to like your fave new track? Then do not pull a wax sodden plug from your ear and ask me to listen to a tune on your personal music player. The joy of commuting in the technological age means that we no longer have to stare at the rolling suburbs giving way to the towers of the oligarchs. We can choose our own entertainments. You are listening to music and that is great and I am reading my Kindle which is a jolly good choice too. I will not roar at you, tell you my book is great and make you read a random chapter - so WHY do I have to listen to your music the moment you stumble across a great track? I'm not gonna do it so why waste your time. If you wanna share your music with me download it and send it to me to listen to when I want to. 

And while we are on the subject... . I love Public Enemy as much as anyone, but if your headphones can't handle 'Harder than you Think' on volume ten, turn your racket down a notch. We're on a train not at a rave. 

and at No. 2: "Jax, gimmee 5 minutes in the shower" 

What is it with men and showers? They go in claiming it'll take them just five minutes to wash the pits and freshen the crown jewels... but if you ever want to see time wasting away...wait till your average brit male  comes out again!!! HOW long does it take to wash a male body??? Sort it out fellas... time is your friend only if you manage it, get them pits and junk wet, soaped, rinsed … then GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM!!!! 

I don't get why it takes 5 times longer than is said to get them clean... I mean isn't the whole point of a shower that it is quicker than bath? A typical bath uses around 80 litres of water and a 5minute shower 30ltrs - but your typical Brit male uses 138ltrs just to emerge 23 minutes after going in slightly more fragrant but noticably sporting sopping wet (but unshampooed hair). This explains why  as soon as  I  hear "Give me 5 minutes for a quick shower"… I give them 5 minutes then I make other arrangements. 

Hard to shift at No1: "I just called to say I love you" 

Wanna listen to the dialing tone? Ring me at a stupid hour to tell me something that could have waited till I was more receptive -ie at an hour that is acceptable. Acceptable hours used to be something well known to everyone. You absolutely never telephoned a private address before 10am or after 9pm. It used to be a given that telephone calls outside these hours would disturb the household and therefore should be left for emergencies ONLY. 

I appreciate that since the advent of  the personal telephone there are seldom households to disturb as you are after only the owner of the mobile/cellular phone. However, 04.13 is not a hour when anyone is likely to have ME receptive to your ministrations no matter how powerful your drive to just hear my voice may be! 

Like I said at the start of this blog, Time must progress, and progress is a forward motion and I know we all  spend a great deal of time thinking about, talking about, planning and trying to maximise our time. One of the key ways to maximise your time is not to have a cookie-cutter fix all treatment for the people you know. Get to know the people around you, find out what truly presses their buttons and treat them accordingly. The amount of time you will save from not having to deal with the carnage that follows from rubbing people up the wrong way will truly make you a lion tamer when it comes to the ownership of time.

For those lucky readers who are a part of my life... scroll back re-read my top 5... yeah.... just think about what you can do with all those reclaimed carnage hours!

Salvador Dali clock shopping anybody?

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BLOG 226: Lurve Actually

"Meeting is by chance, Friendship is by choice, but not even gravity can explain falling in love" Albert Einstien

Most people can recall every time they have had the L word trotted out to them. Usually we never think of the WHY behind the usage of that word. Well not until the relationship that spawned the release of the word is over. Thinking about it, the retience to ask why  is probably just as well - cause it does seem jolly impolite to say "excuse me WHY did you say that exactly?". Kind of kills the mood. Pity, cause it would be good to know exactly what it is that tips someone over from Like to Love. And I use the reference to tipping knowingly as they don't call the transition of emotional connection falling for nothing! When we use the term "fall" we mean to imply that the process is in some way uncontrollable, risky, and inevitable .
 

We think it to be part of a global human condition, but it's not really. It's a western concept really. Even though love is a human condition regardless of our geography -the concept of moving from a feeling of neutrality towards a person to one of love, in the way we in the west do … well that is peculiar to us. Probably because of the random ways couples come together in western society, those who have this condition are almost certainly in a state of vulnerability. Add to this that falling in love is caused or is at least contributed to by proximity, similarity and reciprocity - the three factors that release the highest amount of endorphins in us when we were children. No wonder there is almost a childlike blissed out state in which those in the early stages of being in love. Which is why grilling someone about why it is they have "fallen" for you is a guaranteed path to someone throwing their toys out the pram!
 

Thus today, it was jolly nice to hear how the most recent person to trot out the L word to me had managed to get himself into this condition. It was hardly inevitable - we hardly know each other. Certainly proximity didn't come to play as we live in different countries. Similarity had nowt to do with it either (being that he works maintaining ships and maritime equipment whereas I put words on screens). And as for reciprocity - I'm a little hard to read (to put it mildly).
 

I decided to risk killing 'the mood'… because Jax being Jax, I had already manage to break practically every other rule in the 'How to Perform in the Early Stages of a Relationship' book. But there it was... that big fat four letter word and whilst I'm happy departing from the rule book...lets face facts he was trotting out the L word FAR too early for anyone's thinking. So I had to ask... what was it that made him decide not only to pursue this particular target (Cause lord knows there are much simpler paths to take).. and what the hell convinced him that it's "Time".

 

Well the answer (even though I'd run the scientific formula through my head and calculated that what ever he said it wouldn't be exactly what I'd expected to hear) was still totally unexpected.

 

"A distinct lack of anything that has ever passed before"

 

And you know what... I'll buy that.

 

 

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BLOG 225: Something Heavy

" Sally; the fact that you're not answering [the phone] leads me to believe you're either (a) not at home, (b) home but don't want to talk to me, or (c) home, desperately want to talk to me, but trapped under something heavy. If it's either (a) or (c), please call me back. "    

Answer Machine message left by Harry (Billy Crystal) in the movie  From When Harry Met Sally (1989)  

Okay - I am one of the originators of the term "Yellow Dumping".    I had discussed the fact that a date once e-mailed me to tell me he could not see a future in 'us', which frankly I found hilarious... unfortunately when word of this got to a friend, then another friend...it ended up being broadcast on London's top radio show and became a little notorious for a while. The man involved felt rather embarrassed (but took it well...after all notoriety is a fame of sorts), and the story became part of one of my most successful blogs [see blog 22: June 2009] which has been picked up by various publications all over the English speaking world. So I have a little warm spot for Yellow Dumping, as ultimately it has done me much more good than harm. 

However, I often get asked (as one of the originators of the term) for my  stance on electronic communication  when it comes to saying that end of the road has been reached - be in about future plans or relationships or indeed just general courtesy. Today again is one of those days, as I have to cobble together a piece for an Aussie publication about the subject. In Australia sometimes the distances are huge and to expedite changes of plans swiftly they do seem to have a penchant for texting over any other form of communication as it appears a text gets through regardless. Whilst this makes some logical sense...it does leave the door rather open for Yellow Dumping. You do have to wonder why it is a text can get through but a follow up telephone conversation cannot. (It's not called yellow for nothing!... I smell cowardice in the air folks!). No apologies for that comment folks, I think it's pretty rude in almost all circumstances to just leave it with a text.  I text a LOT and have come to use it as my main mode of communication. Yet saying that I can't think of one time where it wouldn't be more appropriate to just call the person to cancel...it takes less time to just call.  

So anyway, here I am sitting here thinking SURELY, there must be a social etiquette for electronic communications, SURELY people must know when it is appropriate to use text and when it ruddy well is not? Well... apparently, there is not one.  People just do what ever they feel will expedite the issue quickly so they can tick the box. There is little thought to how the recipient feels - it's all about what works for the sender. Now... that just seems plain wrong to me.  

For the record, in JaxWorld, it is perfectly fine to decline or cancel plans by text ONLY if the  plans were proposed over text messaging.  

That way, the standard for the arrangements have already been set with the text, making it perfectly fine for you to say you can't make it by means of the same format.  If you use text under any other circumstances...BE WARNED.... texting is the ultimate cop out and people can see right through it.  It's the best way to TOTALLY piss someone off! In other words... step away from the text screen for 2 seconds and THINK.  

Think... do I really need an angry friend right now?  In JaxWorld, if the arrangements were NOT originally made by text and you HAVE to cancel -you should call rather than text. Sure, they're as likely to see a text as they are your call or hear your voicemail, but reaching out with a human voice  is a more caring way to cancel than some words on a small screen.    

But when you are writing articles, you do have to check that you are not a lone voice in the wilderness. (No matter HOW right you feel you are - and I feel in am). So, off I went to check with my peeps if they share my point of view. Best laid plans of mice and men? ** sigh***. … oh judge for yourself:  

Matthew:  

"In my Dad's day yeah you had to call to cancel anything. He said that once he called a friend to cancel an arrangement and  found that he had not only to explain why he was cancelling, but then had to listen to her for nearly any hour trying to make him go to the thing anyway!! HUGE... WASTE... OF... TIME!  - he couldn't go and that was that...but he had to listen to an hour of her trying to 'find a way this could still work' before he was allowed to get on with his life!. Thing is these days  WHO has the time to hear long winded rebuttals from paranoid people that believe they've been rejected. So rather than deal with all that crap we use the technology we have to hand. I always just send a short text to which there are no rebuttals. Quick. Simple. And best of all DRAMA FREE."  

Amanda:  

  "I work in a no phones zone so can't be seen on a personal call.. so if I have to cancel plans while I am at work... I act like I'm bending down doing something but I'll text a message as fast as I can.. so the person gets a message that the arrangements are off as quickly as possible.. at least they have some kind of contact...I suppose it should be followed up with a call, but why labour the point - you've let them know you ain't going and it's not like you're a no show... now THAT would be rude."    

Alex:  

"Texting to cancel instead of calling is one of the consequences of our technological society. I think that texting is now considered an accepted form of communication. It is not my personal favourite way of communicating -  it is definitely less personal and informal than a phone call or a face to face meeting, but, at least it means people are  letting each other  know  what is occurring"  

Charlotte:  

" Anyone who uses this type of communication past something simple like I am running five minutes late - is rude. If a someone can't be bothered to call to cancel they are not worth your time or further invites  - Simples!"  

So... oh dear... not as cut and dried as I had hoped. Standard rules of writing mean that you have to have 3 external sources in agreement to have a mandate.  I thought by picking 2 females and 2 males of my acquaintance (all of whom are well balanced and well mannered)  that  at least 75% would come down resolutely on the side of PICK UP THE PHONE. But … it seems technology has muddied the waters a little...I have no more of a mandate than when I started. 

You know what though? Bollix to the rules!!!  I haven't moved an inch on my stand point. It seems that we have lowered our standards from a polite withdrawal to an oh well better than not letting you know at all.  

I think it is time to take a stand for good old fashioned MANNERS: 

 JAX 

*If someone has been kind enough to invite you somewhere.  

*If you have been committed enough to accept.  

*You SHOULD be polite enough to let them know you are cancelling by the most personal method available.  

*If you have to cancel... DO IT IN PERSON or at least PICK UP THE PHONE...  so what if you have to listen to the rebuttals or wrath of the other person  - you are dumping them... the least you can do is have the balls to take the consequences!  

Ha! That felt gooooooooooooood! 

On this blog at least, I am free to voice my own (clearly unsubstantiated) opinion.  I may not have a mandate but this is how I feel. YES....This is the 21st century, of course we should use text messaging to let people know changes as soon as possible, but we SHOULD follow it up with personal contact. It's the least the other person deserves.  

Cancelled plans requires the organiser to make alternate arrangements... the LEAST you can do is PERSONALLY apologise for the inconvenience you have caused them. Hiding behind an electronic device  is exactly that - hiding. And hiding is YELLOW. Oh YES it is!!! This is the 21st century...face facts...there are FEW circumstances that  prohibit the use of a telephone forever.  As soon as it is decently possible- make a telephone call to that person!  

Unless of course you are trapped under something heavy ...  

Now THAT is an excuse no one can argue with!

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