How do I work? (Do I work?!)

Homage

Combining truth and untruth is a carefully honed skill most often demonstrated in the construction of the TV news. What I have attempted here (in the preceding post) is a none too skillful attempt to combine several banal features — my standing on a rooftop, unusual weather six months ago and meteor sightings from a variety of places round the world — into a single narrative. If anything, I hope to demonstrate the ease with which an allegedly coherent narrative or story can be put together from disparate elements.

I deliberately avoided aping the “constant present” tense of broadcast journalism, despite the nature of my sources, since (a) it tires me and (b) I love H G Wells’ (who is paraphrased in some ways throughout the piece). In particular, I wanted to have a go at the Wellsian retrospective commentator which he employs to great effect in War of the Worlds, the Time Machine and Island of Dr Moreau among others.

The second, and perhaps more interesting aim of the piece was to demonstrate the power of a narrative (even a contrived and fictive one such as this). Of course, using the “constant present” and all the other acoutrement of modern journalism imbibes a much greater truth-value to a given piece. However, I hope that in this limited article I have shown the significant role of narrative in hinting at a particular causal explanation for given phenomenon. 

As a wise man once said, the right words, in the right order at the right moment in the right broadcast can collapse the economy, overthrow the government…

Moments

What do you call fiction and fact combined? Faction? Fict? Fation? Perhaps the precise term varies dependent on the particular amount of fact or fiction included. It could go like this…

 

It was the Austen footage from that warm Sunday in February that confirmed it. Even though the signs had been there for quite some time…

Something was happening — up there, in the skies above us. Some power or force was making itself known. Of course, we know now that the warning signs had been there for months. But tucked away in the back pages of BBC News Online, that fateful February, nobody knew. The Swedish footage had been dramatic, but that had barely made a ripple on the international press. Who could’ve linked the approach of the fireball with the unseasonable weather preceding it? Who could’ve known that the disrupted summer of 2008 was the work of far more than mere global warming?

That, on the cusp of the 21st century, some great power beyond the detection of human science was making itself known to us is beyond question. Yet as I stood on the roof in the balmy calm of that February evening, I was utterly oblivious to these portents or the brave new world they heralded…

Valentines

Two posts in one day? I’m practically on fire… no wait, I am actually burning up.

So its the annual capitalist smooch fest which from a cynical point of view is probably only designed to boost the revenue of Clintons’ Cards in the February lull between Christmas and Easter. This point was brought home to me by the rather excellent News Quiz on Radio 4 (yes, I”m that middle class) where it was observed that one bastion of the card industry is now retailing Christmas cards not just to your husband, boyfriend, wife and girlfriend but also for your cat.

I was dubious about the point of this endeavour until, some time later, I walked past an entirely fictional local restaurant and saw a man and a cat staring lovingly at each other over a single candle.

You can’t make it up can you… Or perhaps you can?

Customer Service?

If anyone has either met me in the last twenty four hours, read my facebook status or (God forbid) undergone the serial joy that is retail customer service training, they can pretty much skip this entire blog and wait for the next entry.

I thought I’d get the successful things out the way first. Some of the basic stuff on disabled customers was useful. The motivating stuff almost worked. Obviously finding out about the area helped for anyone who was from outside the area. And obviously I understand that it is necessary for all employers to provide basic levels of training to all their employees.

Except, no, hold on a minute. For the fourth time, I have completed the same training programme at a venue(run by the same company) located exactly 20.8 miles from my workplace. Even in Cornwall this means that the local doctors, post office and Tourist Information office is different (I asked this time if we could answer the questions for my own workplace, but that wasn’t allowed apparently).

Going on to stage two of this rant, the training for helping customers with disabilities was exceptionally patronising. Did anyone else know that just pointing – or giving visual directions, like, for example, “when you see the big tree, turn left”, are also inappropriate for visually impaired customers? Or, alternatively, when talking to someone with a hearing impairment, it is vital not to cover your mouth? No shit Sherlock.

I thought so. I suppose the small advantage is that the revamped training booklet didn’t list the following alongside the “Customers with Special Needs” section: hearing impairment, sight impairment, mobility impairment, mental impairment, foreigners. Yes you did read the last one right!

Of course, these training things are beset by jargon. The following exchange gives a brief flavour of how contemporary management philosophy seeks to alienate the employee at every turn. 

Q: ‘Who is most important to the Guest’s on-park experience?’
    I replied ‘the staff’ (I thought, not unreasonably) However, this was inaccurate…
A: ‘We don’t have staff or employees here. We have team. We are all a team…’ 

The final – and to my mind – most serious problem with all customer service training is that it presumes several things. First of all, that Bourne employees natural – i.e. untrained, uninitiated – state is one of absolute apathy toward customers/guests.

An Update: 11/07/08

I am not normally one to edit or alter my posts – this blog is intended to allow the free expression of views and invite any reader to make reply to anything I post (see the post on Atheism and Richard Dawkins for the one successful occasion).

Furthermore, this blog clearly represents my personal views and should not be taken as an accurate, objective or empirical reflection of anything beyond my idyosincratic opinion on a variety of matters.

Cosmopolitanism

Being cosmopolitan is generally held as a good thing. Its up there with wealth, happiness and birdsong in the things which our society values more than anything else. Or so I thought. Certainly, ‘cosmopolitan’ is held in higher general regard than ’small-mindedness’, ‘xenophobia’ or ‘racism’. Yet I have a feeling it has remained in possession of a somewhat vague value status, in the same way of terms like ‘multi-cultural’ which positively embody diversity yet equally possess that dangerous Other embodied in any encounter between disparate cultures (or enculturation, for all you anthropology fans out there).

To describe an area as ‘cosmopolitan’ can thus be seen to have no fixed meaning (here we go, Foucault again!). This is contextual, and to explain the power-knowledge nexus here would be tiresomely dull and irrelevant, so we’ll stick with the common-sense interaction between context and meaning.

In those glossy tourist guides and University Welcome leaflets, ‘cosmopolitan’ has positive connotations of a place being open, accepting and diverse. It suggests synonyms such as chiche, fashionable, exciting. Yet – and here we demonstrate Foucault’s good point about context and the power-knowledge nexus – a description of “certain districts” of a nearby city by a friend as “so cosmopolitan… I could scarcely believe I was still in England… it was like Bangladesh” implies a whole other series of knowledge/power relations.

In this sense, ‘cosmopolitan’ is merely ironically positve. It has alien – and thus negative – characteristics, it is the Other, the Foreign and (implicitly) the Enemy which is howling at the doors of the proverbial stout yeomanry of Britain. It is not symptomatic of a subjectivity which views diversity as healthy, wealthy or vibrant (in any economic, social or cultural sense), it rather implies the opposite. A threatened culture, a marauding globalised cosmopolitanism eating up at our good British values of intolerance and homogeneity.

Beyond proving a small example of Foucaultian philosophy, all that’s left is to say that if cosmopolitanism is interpreted as diverse, challenging, variegated, culturally rich and innovative. Sign me up!

You Lucky People

As the observant (and few who actually care) among you may have noticed, the blog has been paused since I finished my exams, ooh, a whole three days ago. Just in case anyone is suffering from a chronic bloggy goodness deficiency, this post may be a mere intermission in a persisting radio silence, so get your fix while you can! The reason for the pause is that Cornwall does not have complicated enough internets to allow me to post a blog.

The main issue that has been exercising my braincells – apart from drinking and train travel – is why certain people are allowed on the roads. To be more specific:

1. People who vary their speed on open road at 5 in the morning between 35 and 60 for no apparent reason.
2. Lorries who decide that the slow lane on the M5 just isn’t good enough for them, I mean, the lorry in front is going at 60 mph and they have a top speed of 61 mph so they just have to overtake.
3. Anyone who drives a “smart” car.
4. Especially the “smart” car that passed me somewhere near Bodmin with go-faster stripes, a chavved up exhaust and those weird blue lights down the side.
5. Cars joining a practically stationary motorway and move into the outside lane just to get to the (clogged) junction that little bit ahead of you.
6. The sheer number of different sliproads to other parts of Cardiff, and the lack of distinction between them (I almost ended up in Brigend which doesn’t bear thinking about.

Rant ends.

Byee!

O O T D

OOTD. No, not a misspelling of those squid-faced aliens (great description, should use it more often, and not just about the Ood) from Doctor Who. O O T D stands for One Of Those Days, and I know some people might be picky and say that the second O should not be capitalised, as in Ministry of Defence (MoD), but all I have to say to them is OOTD for now, because it is OOTD and, really them pointing out the capitalisation issue is pretty much a perfect demonstration of what OOTD should be like.

OOTD are interesting in some ways. Some people say OOTD; for example, I’m sure after a hard day’s mountain rescuing or fire-fighting, many people go home and – when asked ‘how was your day mountain fighting or fire rescuing?’ they reply simply with ‘OOTD’. But since my life is exceptionally duller than that, OOTD loses a certain, shall we say, excitement or interest whatsoever.

Getting up late doesn’t help. Not having much of a plan and a lot of things to do is an absolute killer. Skipping food yesterday probably didn’t help. Lazing around watching DVDs is a good indicator of OOTD as well. So is looking deliberately for distractions of any sort.

OOTD thus manifests itself in a feeling of absence, vagueness and general lack of motivation. Sometimes the OOTD trigger can be quite simple – for a start, I’m sure my iPod’s random shuffle this morning didn’t help (Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, followed by Carry Me (Levellers), That Which I Have Lost (George Harrison) and It Hurts (Angels + Airwaves). After that playlist, I decided to put on loud cheery songs and jump around for a bit.

Some people would probably observe that as a symptom as well. The weather doesn’t help either. OOTDs can be easily dealt with in the sun, or the rain is an equally good (Plathesque) cleanser. But for now, I’m sort of stuck with analysing my wearisome nature on this blog. Hohum. Perhaps a jog or the gym might be a good cure. Except I’m broke, so it’s going to be a jog. Or maybe chocolate (see earlier post, in particular on the health benefits).

Or I should just do a To Do list and get on with it. I guess its ironic (and appropriate) that doing the TD fixes the OOTD.

xHx

Gay-tastic

The association between fashion and homosexuality is quite fascinating. I presume it originates in the various conflations of the term ‘gay’ over the last hundred or so years, stretching from ‘happy and jolly’, via a brief period as a synonym for ‘poofter’ to the currently modish slang term for ‘a bit shit’.

The clothing aspect is of great interest though. As someone who tends to view clothes more in terms of a nuclear explosion rather than a recipe (now check that out for a shit analogy), it sometimes intrigues me how fashion and style acts as a sort of implicit uniform for the wearer and observer. Hence, long black hair, baggy trousers and a hoodie with blood, guts and zombies tends to suggest a goth or metalhead. Similarly, ridiculously tight jeans, a baggy oversize, overpatterned hoodie and a militantly dyed fringe implies some association with emocore music. I could continue listing such similarities, not all musical – umbro, nike and the chav, or the power suit and the cocktail bar, for instance.

In all of these, the uber-fashionable, uber-gay style where literally every hair is in place seems odd. All the others imply a certain choice, or a personal validation of life experience. The businesswoman proudly having broken through the glass ceiling, yet maintaining her femininity for instance. Likewise, the perverse emo approach of dressing so different from the mainstream with all their eyeliner and fringe that they end up looking the same. Perhaps I’m in a minority, but validating something as essential as the mere fact of gender through fashion strikes me as somewhat odd.

Perhaps it emerges as a reaction to homophobia, or equally, gay pride and AIDs in the 1980s. Perhaps its as entirely normal as the chav, the powersuit or the emo’s eyeliner. Perhaps my finding it weird is just a reaction against some buried uber-gay aspect of myself (I get camper when I’m drunk, apparently). All these options sound valid – from the massive, social and cultural to the minutely idiosyncratic.

Yet I feel there may be some other explanation. And one which settles down neatly nearer the idiosyncratic end of the scale.

When getting dressed yesterday I had an existential crisis as to which pair of shoes went better with my outfit.

Oh dear.

xHx