Communication

As I'm writing this, my cat is busily communicating with me in the only way she can. She wants her brekky. The first part of the exercise is to stare balefully at me, then comes the begging "you are the master" bit when she rolls onto her back looking cute...I reach to pat her, she leaps up and moves towards the food bowl. When that fails,as it always does, she then starts to speak to me..subtlety to begin with but gradually more insistently until finally I give in. Its a ritual.

We all have our methods of persuasion...and during the period that I've been in the manager role at work I've had a chance to sit back and hear the different ways my colleagues approach the task of persuading the occasional reluctant patient to comply with the task of rehabilitation. Methods range, just like my cat's, from the subtle to the direct. Everyone has their favoured more natural method, but if it doesn't work you have to try another...maybe the humourous approach,the maternal,the logical etc etc...until finally something clicks. Rehab Physios...not only therapists but also persuaders, actors, chameleons.

The worst part of the past 4 months has been having to sit through rather too many meetings where people seem to have to say everything at least twice and maybe a third time..just to make sure you really got the message.. In order to stay sane I put to use the skill I developed in my youth while sitting through many, many sermons..that of listening to the words rather than the message. In my youth it was through the game "Sermon Alphabet"..you had to find a word beginning with each letter of the alphabet in sequence...easy enough for some letters..downright impossible for others. Now it was to listen to quirky phrases and to gather examples of manager-speak. Unfortunately, just like dreams they wafted out of my brain as quickly as I heard them, but some have stayed:

"You will be given the opportunity to" you WILL do as we direct
"You certainly can have a SAY in the decision" but we wont take any notice of it.
"We need to grow our business" ?enlarge, improve..but I'm assuming not sprinkle on the ground and water.
"This has chronicity" ?
"This has walkability" ?

And finally nothing to do with work and stolen from rmurphy writing on the wattage forum in answer to the question "What is the current thinking about cadence"

......thinking about cadence just slows you down. It diverts some of
that all-important blood flow to the brain which is, as we all know,
nothing more than a parasite when it comes to training and racing
hard ;-)

Now THAT I like

End of piece...the cat has now become strident and is, worryingly, sharpening her claws on the carpet.........!