Waiting…..

Waiting.

Waiting for my Dad to get home from the pub triumphantly and unsteadily carrying before him his bribe of chocolates and bread-and-cheese.

Waiting for my Mum while she cleaned someone else’s house and I sat in their front room reading, or colouring, or dreaming.

Waiting for the sibling that never arrived.

Waiting for my Dad to get home from work, smelling of tobacco, brickdust, cement, beer.

Waiting for the coach to France to take me to the monastery.

Waiting for the assault to be over.

Waiting for test results.

Waiting for my turn in the bathroom.

Waiting for my soon to be husband to make his mind up.

Waiting for Christmas.

Waiting in the Post Office queue.

Waiting for the sales.

Waiting for the music to start…

…and stop.

Waiting at the vets.

Waiting for the paint to dry.

Waiting for the rejection letter.

Waiting outside the court.

Waiting for the pain to come.

Waiting for the pain to go.

Waiting for my children to be born.

Waiting for my children outside the club/venue/station/school/hall/clinic/university.

Waiting for the phone call.

Waiting for her to speak.

Waiting for him to speak.

Waiting for them to settle down.

Waiting for the kettle to boil.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for the alarm to go off.

Waiting for the letter.

Waiting for my grandchildren to be born.

Waiting to finally grow up.

Waiting for my Dad to die in hospital.

Waiting for my Mum to die in hospital.

Waiting by the graveside.

Waiting for the ferry.

Waiting.

Waiting for the waiting to be over.

 

 

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Recruitment? Don’t make me laugh. Seriously.

I am passionate about recruitment – it is one job we really have to get right, so crucial it squeaks. Without the right people in the right places we might as well fold and go home. And the time and effort we have to put in if we get it too wrong is unbearable. After laughing until I also squeaked about a recent interview experience of my chum  – to be described at various points in this blog but briefly it was a bit 1970s sitcom awful – I drifted off into a daydream about what it is that makes recruitment go well. So here goes.

I have worked with too many organisations who don’t actually know what they want in a candidate, or even in a role, but plough on anyway perhaps thinking they know or perhaps not knowing what knowing and not knowing looks like. Bear with.  Looking in from outside, understanding where the organisation has come from and where it is now (which happens because of conversations that are had….), without the emotional investment in the place that people often develop, I can often see a different picture. Organisation A thinks they want a process driven go-getter with bells and whistles to grow the business – what they really need is a relationship builder who will warm up the group and grow friends for them and grow it that way. What organisation B thinks they need is a chummy friend to get the best out of people – what they actually need is a ballsy battleaxe who will weed out those irksome poorly practicing people and replace them with the right ones so that the good ones are enabled and retained. All without a damp eye but with definite precision and skill. On the inside it can be difficult to see clearly for all the fog of commitment, fear, pressures, emotional baggage, time constraints. From the outside none of those things impact and the clear air allows a forensic view to be taken. So often, before we even get as far as a JD PS and advertisement we are on the wrong tracks.

Tip one: be rigorously clear about what is needed and before you can do that, be rigorously clear about why you are recruiting. What outcome do you actually need rather than what kind of person do you think you want?

So, we have decided what we want. Now we set about finding the who.

My chums sitcom style interview (if only that had been intentional……) was such a hoot he was almost left lost for words. Props: a desk, some chairs, people with double sided A4 pages covered in pre-set questions (probably taken off t’internet) who were congenitally unable to deviate from script. Questions that seemed unrelated to the job itself (asking someone if they can perform a certain task, apart from begging an affirmative – who says they are crap at things during interview?! – relies on that task being relevant to the job ) demonstrate very clearly the interviewers own lack of skill and understanding. It was almost as weird as asking someone interviewing for a job as an HGV driver if they can ski or  bake bread. A bit WTF.

Interviews, which only occur after a bit of screening, should be a conversation, not a set of boxes that get ticked. Those boxes will tick themselves if you talk in the right way. Sitting behind a desk asking a series of usually pretty meaningless questions (“describe your management style” “well pretty shite really, I am a bully and I hate my colleagues”……..) is the death knell for relationship building. We talk endlessly about networking, the how why and wherefore, and in reality interviews are the budding start of a working relationship and an opportunity to connect. Wasted if we just sit there asking if someone knows which piece of legislation goes where, but so so useful if we chat about experience and knowledge and see the person. A personality unfolds in front of us, we share stuff, we connect. Even if that person isn’t the right one for this job that relationship is started, and who knows where you might all end up. There are lots of bits of research, practice guidance, training courses, manuals, that all try to teach people about interviewing and recruitment, but at heart, once you know what you are looking for and  realise you might find it in an unexpected place, having a conversation is the best way to find the right person. The rest follows.

So, Tip two: throw away the bog standard question-and-answer nonsense. Have a nice conversation that everyone can enjoy being sure to incorporate those requirements without making a big fat hairy deal of them. Be interested in the candidate, who is, after all, a person, and one with background, experiences, views, skills and probably a nice sense of humour and some pictures of their kids/grandkids that would be nice to see, possibly some Out There hobbies that would grab you, maybe even a great recipe for soda bread (yes, I blagged a really good soda bread recipe during an interview – it was brilliant).

Finally, if someone has taken the trouble to apply for a job, has had a detailed conversation with a recruiter or similar about it and has been put forward, courtesy kind of tells you that a quick email or phone call with the outcome would be appreciated. It would be good manners. It would be kind. Not, as happened recently, the candidate following up and receiving an email by return that simply said “This position is no longer available”. Nothing else, nada, zip, tumbleweed. In what realm is that ok? Even just in terms of relationship management – presumably that candidate will remember that recruiter in the future, perhaps when recruiting to positions themselves. But really just common courtesy, which after all oils the wheels of relationships.

And I guess that is really where I am heading with this. Our whole journey is about relationships. Trust, courtesy, honesty, purpose. If what we are doing is a barrier to that rather than a bridge we are doing it wrong. If we are doing it wrong, it will not go well for us.

So……have a chat, make some coffee and get out the good biscuits, make sure there are enough cushions and the room is warm without being oppressive. And if you are recruiting to a social care or health care post, make sure the people that will be on the receiving end are at the heart of it – not a boltontokenpopinboxtickingshallow here-we-are-with-some-punters-aren’t-we-inclusive-and-personcentred-and-lovely effort, but a genuine involvement with proper engagement and listening to the people with the lived experience and then using that and showing it working alongside each other.

Are you hearing the passion, that real passion I have for recruiting? Well, if you are recruiting and you don’t feel that passion you might want to get someone else to do it for you………….I mean it kindly. xx

 

 

My Fizzog

I look up into the mirror as I brush my teeth. I see not my Mother as women are expected to see, but my Dad…..

….his jawline, the indentations on his cheeks where he smiles, his neck, the way he holds his head.

Tears, like yawns, are contagious. The tears of the woman in the mirror catch my throat and cause me to sob.

I sob for my selfish self, lonely and fatherless, motherless now too.

I look at my face. It is a different face to the face I had a decade ago.

It is my Dads face, my Mothers face, my face, the face of my childrens mother, the face of my childrens childrens grandmother. Less lovely than when I hated it but easier to love.

The sobbing stops and is at a distance. It belongs to someone else.

Staring at the red rimmed networked green eyes I see only me again. I smile a rumpled smile.

You old fool.

Savage

The words chucked and hurled themselves at her hitting her soft bruised understanding  and taking her breath away. More words followed, slicing into her, stinging, aching, pinning her against the wall sagging and limp.

Yellow ochre and grey swirled down inside her like dirty water down a plughole draining the life from her, leeching into the carpet staining it straining it. She staggered backwards into the next room. Panting and heaving, sick with pain and effort her legs weakened and her knees softened under her. Drifting backwards into a chair she closed her eyes, shut out the sights but the sounds wouldn’t be driven away, the words that plunged into her, twisted around, severed her will to be.

Cold hands touched her face and she realised blankly, bleakly that they were her own crippled hands. With an energy that was already almost entirely depleted and raw she crawled into her cage. The stinging aching pains died as she lay down and drew up her legs. Here was comfort. She dissolved.

Two thirty a.m.

How dank is the darkness at two thirty a.m.,

Suffering little children to enter the nightdream.

Shackled to memory

Pierced by evil

Nailed to eternity

Howling down into the deep

At two thirty a.m.

 

I am worried about you……

I am worried about you. Seriously.

Scene setting: I have matured well, professionally. I do a pretty good job without fanfare and hullabaloo. I am ambitious, always, for the organisation hiring me, but personally, not much. I just want to do a job that is engaging, makes a difference, pays the bills and allows me to do my thing and meet people I like. Mostly that means being quite a bit senior, responsible,  knowledgeable, and I enjoy that. It is where I sit best. Worth hiring, more than competent, happy where I am, unimpressed by job titles, efficient, a bit zippy, a bit quirky, funny when you know me, incredibly (possibly surprisingly…) interested in what makes you tick, passionate about some stuff, and I know what works, really well. Have been there, done that, and understand the value. In short I have been around the block and have knocked it into shape a few times.

And I worry about people. You. People being urged to set goals, reach for the stars, be the best, win win win, go for it, push push push, told they can have it all if they only work harder, strive better, sleep less, plan better, attend the courses, buy the product, network network network.

My best networks are made up of people I just like and respect, I don’t really give a damn if they will “further my career” (whatever that is) or be “of use”. And I don’t usually go without. It works. My best pitch is just to do a great job. That works too. And my most enjoyable, satisfying  work has come from places I am passionate about – not furthering my career  or making my name, but making things better for people who have to use or work inside services and facilities. Not covering up when an organisation screws up, but facing that and making it better, making amends, making stuff happen in the best way it can. Validating and valuing everyone.

It makes me happy to do that.

What I have seen – increasingly – is that those people working in health or social support or allied organisations for their career prospects, to make their name and their fortune, are the ones whose mess I sometimes have to clean up. The ones who cause pain and grief rather than reducing it, who misunderstand what health and social care and support or charitable groups are actually for. Their drive to set career goals, to win, to achieve (for themselves) sets aside all other considerations and removes the ability to view the people they serve as, well, the people they serve. That is not right, attractive or humane. Sometimes, for sure, it is just that they have been promoted beyond their ability and capacity, usually by people with the same outlook. And perhaps malice doesn’t enter into it, just incompetence or avarice, the road to Hell being paved with such. But it is definitely a Thing…….

With all the complex safeguards and governance we now have, one would hope that cruelty, negligence, incompetence, abuse might be eradicated, but far from it. The very complexity of the systems creates a vacuum in which chaos is allowed to thrive and systems are so muddled and misused that people with an agenda and an axe grinding away behind them can use the system expertly and avoid – mostly – consequences.

And there we are: I worry about people being told to strive for “success” with very loose parameters around what that means. Numerous courses, sites, companies, ready to sell people ways to succeed which take little account of genuine personal happiness, desire and responsibility. As an old battleaxe I can see from the top of this hill (and not yet over it by a long way, most certainly……..) how dangerous those things are.

A plea – enjoy what you do. Success is measured in different ways and your way is probably not my way and is almost certainly not the way of the people selling you success plans and schemes. Smell the coffee, taste the cake, see the people, enjoy their company, believe in what you do. Make chums. Make coffee. Eat cake. Did I mention coffee? The most attractive people to work with and for, for me, have been those who genuinely give a damn about their purpose and believe what they do matters, not those who just want to climb. There are many of them about, thank goodness. And here’s the thing: they are often, almost always, the most successful………….

Go, make coffee. Bring me cake. xx

 

 

 

The damn book

One more martini, spoken, not slurred

One last anecdote, edges slightly blurred

Got to go home now, that next drink is deferred

Leave while ahead, now, dignity preferred.

 

Weave up the stairs now, miss the last one

Hit the sack before morning, avoiding the sun

Drink a pint of water, has to be done

What pain we endure just to have fun.

 

Wake with a headache, fumble for pills

Damn birds and their chatter, squawks and shrills

Move slowly, look down, give up, lose the will

Lie back wait for sanity, try to be still

 

Another one this evening, no way not to go

The party is for me and it matters, I know

The books out this week and we have to make a show

It’s what they expect: go, be that braggadocio

 

Just take the damn Milk Thistle.

 

Clopping through the shop

A Brace of Biddies

Wimmin who shop

Cagney and Lacey, Butch and Sundance, Weatherwax and Ogg

Confident Women

Giving no fucks

Loving the shopping, happy to be, zero fucks given

 

 

A life struggled

I resisted birth

Resisted life

Resisted death

And yet, here I am….

…….a shadow sitting in a waiting room without windows. There are obscure voices like the distant ooze of sea on pebbles, the sound of a party to which I am not invited,  where love is visible and vital. If the invitation came I should decline. Parties have colour: I am a shadow dissolving to silver powder settling on the chair, on my memory.

There is a different party over here. An invitation like the crooning and cooing of birds calls me in.  The dust settles, spilling softly here and there over the chair and the floor. Love corrupts and drifts away, slips away, slithers.

I am dust.

 

Go Ahead, Read Some Poetry

I fell over a Walter de la Mare anthology a few days ago in my local library, a newly printed hay-smelling glossy pristine book full of his poetry. As I read I felt and smelled the time I discovered him. A child who spent more time in the library than in bed, I had pulled an old, huge, purple book off a shelf and tumbled into the musty smelling beating heart of beauty that was Walter de la Mares poetry, and which created my own love of poetry, a love that has never left me, let me down, smelled of sweat, ignored me, snatched the covers off me in Winter, trivialised me or in any way disappointed me. I remember my first de la Mare poem better than I remember my first step, first kiss, first boiled egg. My tastes changed over the years until I finally realised that my poetic needs simply morph with where I am and who I am at any given time, it isn’t about taste.

And we have Simon Armitage, Danny Abse, Heaney, Haddon, Ginsberg, Corso, Cassady, Whitman, Angelou, Neruda……so many and so much beauty, challenge, wonder. Please, read some poetry, wander into it and out the other side a better person. Or at least a person who has had some fun.

 

Here is some Neruda. You are welcome.

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine