21 Observations

I thought it was about time to write down some observations I'd made over the past week.


1) Granted there are a lot of busses in London, there are a lot of less than ethical people too. But it is quite surprising how often a person refuses to pay to get on a bus here. For any of you who have not had the fortune to experience this phenomenon, the bus driver turns off the engine and announces that he's not going anywhere until the person is off the bus. In my case, last Sunday, I arrived in the middle of one of these "The bus ain't moving till your fat @$$ is off the bus" episodes at Euston Station. A man had gotten on, showed his ticket unclearly and walked straight on by the busdriver who asked the man to come back...the bus had been there for around 15 minutes as the man refused to get off the bus. The Police were called and ultimately the guy got off the bus. But this is not the first and only case of this happening. Incredible when you think about it. It must work sometimes otherwise the guy wouldn't fathom doing it again?

2) The police that came to that very same event drove like maniacs to the scene. I wonder if there are different speeds for different occurences. Surely "man that hasn't paid his fare for the bus" or "we've got a 392 at Euston"... can't be the most urgent and dangerous situation of the lot. The police jumped off as if they were going to face 10 hoodlems throwing stones... it was midday... quite entertaining.

3) Everytime I'm out, I meet more unemployed young enthusiastic hungry and driven individuals. This town is full of them. I've heard that a lot of people have left london and re-patriated (gone back to their home countries) whereas I am doing the complete opposite. Everyone of us seems to want to work... are willing to do quite a lot to get the work, but the opportunities aren't available.

4) I wonder how much people who have never been unemployed, who aren't feeling this frustration really understand of the situation. I've met people who have been working and months later have been made unemployed and said "I didn't know it was this crazy. I thought I had enough experience not to fall into this situation but I just can't get anywhere". "It's taking a lot longer than I thought"... "unemployment only hits unskilled and lazy people"...

5) Which leads me to the fact that I feel unemployment still has a very negative stigma attached to it. You are seen as lazy, unintelligent, unambitious and downright strange.

6) In a posh store called Liberty off of Regents street I saw articles of clothing and bags that were more expensive than my car in Sweden. And I mean double or even triple the price of my car for a piece of clothe that would hardly cover my left kneecap... I was seconds away from going up to the shop-floor assistant and asking... "Hi Could I ask you a question about this bag over here... what does it do?..... (pause...) what do you mean it carries things..nothing else?...Does it carry things that are 10 tons and make it feel like its 10 grams?. No??? So you're telling me it won't make me fly? It's not some kind of a device that will telepathically enable me to communicate with individuals around the world and possibly even those in the International Space Station... so I'm paying £3000 pounds for something that will carry my tooth picks... I will have to have a minute to think about it"... minutes later out on regents street I saw two girls walking down the street with the exact same bag... their sunglasses 10 times the size of their eyes... at least the glasses make it near impossible to develop any kind of eye disease because the eyes are well covered for the 3 days of Sun england gets every year...

7) Condoleeza Rice was speaking to an elite group of NFL owners and coaches in the US this past week. She said something which I think sticks true in a lot of different areas.

"history has a long arc, you have to take a long view of things. If you're always chasing the day's headlines, you'll eventually become so reactionary you'll ignore long-term good for short-term satisfaction, and you'll fail."

Condoleezza Rice

8) I read a very interesting article on the Death of Cold Calling as a means to increase sales. As I wrote my dissertation on the Balance of power in negotiations I felt this was extremely interesting and its sooo true when it comes to cold calling. The article said:

Many negotiating experts agree; perception is everything. Even if you have power, if you’re perceived as being 'needy’, you have no power and all negotiations will be carried out on that basis

Ultimately what I'm doing when I'm looking for a job is a form of COLD CALLING. Currently the power is in other peoples hands. Unfortunately the article leaves the reader without any concrete alternatives. In my search I am trying to build the relationships needed that somewhat alleviate the perception that I'm needy but rather that I'm curious and could help.

9) For those of you who haven't heard, the G20 Summit (aka circus) is coming to London town this weekend and

"Staff in the City are being advised to dress down and postpone non-essential meetings amid fears that they will be forced to run the gauntlet of protesters."

Dress down... I so have to go down to the CITY next week and see if people are walking around in holiday clothing... hawaii shirts, flipflops... will be crazy to see... then again... knowing the horrendous actions of the anarchistic protestors they won't care who they hit, throw stones at, insult, they're just in it for the fight... let's hope its a peaceful week...

10) Think back to what you were doing ten years ago... Scary thought huh...Think where you thought u'd be... scary thought... now think what you're going to do in 10 years time... :-)

11) Bikers seem to think they rule London only because they are taking the environmental option. They scream lude and rude things when they bike by if you just happen to walk in their way... obviously they are as unprotected as you get in traffic... and they are probably super nervous everytime they are out on the road but why take it out on the poor pedestrians who are even more vulnerable... I envisage the day I see pedestrians walking around London with helmets on...

12) I saw a bunch of kids playing footie in the park with a coach the other day. The pure emotions that were spilling over on the pitch are exactly why I think Sport is one of the most truley incredible phenomenon made by man. Physical activity, comraderie, nerves, passion... The pursuit of constantly improving!!! It can also bring out the worst in people. It can also clearly divide people of different abilities and leave some feeling terrible. It can be used to get out aggression in the wrong way but when done right its similar to music and art in the way it evokes the emotions. Especially among young people.

13) I found the Google Calender application just this week. What a fantastic application: I know they have it on Microsoft Outlook but this is just the application I need to be able to keep up to date with what Anne's doing and know when we are both free etc. Only negative is that Google now knows my every step...

14) People are a lot friendlier when the sun is out... a lot friendlier. Now I'm not talking about people on the tube or in shops, I'm talking about recruiters and companies. I know rays of sunshine produce enzymes or something but its incredible what a difference it makes. Especially in a country like England where Sunshine is rare... You kinda understand why warm sunny places are generally more careless and carefree...

15) One word that I hear a lot from recruiters and employers is "you're too junior for this role"... ie. you don't have enough experience for this role... but I like the fact that they call it junior. There's a paradox here... there's an incredible fear of turning 30 amongst fellow people born in the 80's... only a few years left...oooo ahhh... everytime somebody has a birthday its ... oh i'm so old... but when you think about it... we're still considered Junior for a lot of things unless we've done the same thing since graduating. If we want to try something new... "junior"... My genuine curiousity and unwillingness of acting and employing a perception of being someone I'm not gives me the tag "junior".

16) Talking about JUNIOR...Look at the following three pictures of kindergarten classes... one from the 50/60's, one from the 80's and one from the 21st century.



It's quite funny to compare ... the haircuts, the clothes and the teachers all change slightly...but kids will be kids...

Inspiration for this observation received from my friend who posted the picture on FB from her kindergarten years...

17) Coats, Jackets, boots, jeans fly off faster than you can say "8 degrees" here in London. As soon as there is a slight appearance of sun, you see people walking around in T-shirts, shorts, flip flops etc... but no sun lotion... :-D I can tell you that many that wear shorts in this weather end up with colds cause its not warm enough yet...

18) Those people that stand on the street and try to sell you stuff, try to get you to join in different groups... they must have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Together with telemarketers. It's very rare I'd like to stop and chat to them. You kinda feel as guilty at not stopping as you do at not giving a tip sometimes.. its that awkward... I REALLY Don't want to stop/pay... but is it the right thing to do?... They employ loads of different tactics but none of them really work... imagine this though.. imagine instead of young nobody's (sorry but thats what they are.. strangers to u and me)... you saw Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Lance Armstrong, Madonna etc standing and trying to sell you these things... trying to convince you to join green peace... you know what.. i think you'd stop... but of course their time is far too valuable for these kind of things... but perhaps if you could get look-a-likes... to do it..:-P people would be more inclined to stop... eh eh.. see where I'm gettin at :-D

19) I was made fun of for ordering a Lemon and Ginger tea last week... "That's a very manly drink" the waitress said sarcastically... hey!!! I happened to like the flavour of lemon and ginger... never heard that it is a womanly drink? It's not like I'm going to order a glass of whiskey for breakfast on a Sunday morning...

20) Do you think the Queen ever goes to a window of Buckingham Palace and peaks out at the masses of tourists standing outside looking at the building? I know if I were her (if that makes any sense at all) and there were loads of people always standing outside my window I'd probably invest in a telescope and when I got bored look at the different people around and realise how many different people there are out there. Maybe even buy one for my partner or for a random other person so that we could have something to talk about. People watching is absolutely fascinating. While sightseeing with John B last weekend we sat at Westminister and Buckingham Palace for a number of hours and just watched people... we saw a whole group consisting of at least 8 kids and 8 adults run across a busy road far away from any pedestrian crossing area.. there was this little girl who was holding her mothers hand as they started to walk and then a few cars came speedin in the groups direction, the girl let go of her mothers hand and ran as if her life depended on it... getting almost 5 meters ahead of her mother in a short space of distance, her facial expression as she ran was one of utter fear... but she was in her "survival instinct mode" and as she realised that she had made it across safely onto the sidewalk, her face suddenly swung around as if to think "Oh my god, where's mom, is she alright" and an almost as worried look came across her face. Interesting... It's also interesting how people find one another, we saw our fair share of couples... and I must admit, without being particularly rude or intending to poke fun at anyone, the world of Love is very strange (and as such wonderful)... we saw people who by society's standards might not be considered "overly blessed by god with eternal grace and beauty" who had found partners who might not have been "overly blessed by god with eternal grace and beauty". Nothing wrong with that as beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and is not based solely upon appearance...We saw 2 meter tall men with 1.4 meter tall women and all the difficulties they bring, we saw a family of obese people who clearly share a love for eating or coincidently both have a low metabolisms... we saw kids holding hands with their parents and others where parents were scolding and screaming and on the verge of hitting their kids, we wished that we could get 1 pence for every photograph taken of big ben, we saw suits and ties and we saw khaki's and loafers... its incredible what you see when people decide to go out and show themselves... and somewhere someone saw me and John and had their own perceptions... If I were the Queen, i'd definitely spend 5 minutes everyday looking at the people who congregate outside wondering what goes on inside...

21) My last observation will be a question. Feel free to answer it in the comments if you want or just think about it... How often do you get a chance to stop, look at the world, think about things you've read, seen or heard and comment on it...? In my case, not very often!!! Whats one thing you've observed in the world around you today? I'd be really interested to hear...