Aiming for moderate success

Back at Warwick again - this time it is business modelling and analysis.  My experience of business modellers is that they all have a PhD and think in a way I am not capable of.

So far, course is interesting but still need to do my homework on regression analysis…

Luke many others, I am reading a paper rather than getting stuck into my homework - how I ‘laughed’ at this articlein the FT  It appears that sportiness is more important than academic prowess.  Perhaps Mr Tosh is doing me a favour when football is continually on the tv - helping me to get my college degree in soccer.

Seriously though, it does suggest that emotional intelligence is more important than brain power alone.

Do you think that will act as a good enough excuse not to run my regression testing on manufacturing data??

To buy or not to buy

I am suffering from a personal dilemma.  While doing some research I stumbled across Christopher Flett and his book ‘What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook’

The book description and the profile of the author, (a man who gives 40-60 speeches a year to women on corporate life), makes me think that the book will be a pile of condescending nonsense.  Spending the main chunk of my time in corporate life as opposed to the little time I spend in academia I know how different the cultures are.  I am also put off by professional speech givers unless they are of the after-dinner type.  As a rule they are bores.

If this was book written by Nicola Horlick, I would have already bought it.  However the credentials of a male Canadian professional talker and academic isn’t quite so appealling.

So do I

1. Buy the book and challenge my preconceptions

2. Not buy the book in the belief that life is too short and there are lots of good books that I know I would enjoy

Job envy

Mr Tosh accused me of job envy this morning and I think he may be right…

I have decided that my calling in life should have been one of an architect, specifically working with Sir Norman Foster.  I want to be able to say ”I don’t know how I can go back to designing office blocks for grumpy humans after this,”  after John Jennings has designed a new elephant enclosure which has made a family of elephants happy.  What a great and fulfilling job.  All Mr Tosh and I get to do is to pander to the needs of an already pandered miniature panther

If I can’t have that job, then I will satisfy myself by watching the new series of Top Gear.  Like Joe Moran, Mr Tosh and I really enjoy Top Gear for the quality of journalism as opposed to finding out about horse break power.  After laughing at his piece, I wondered reading the readers comments if they had all lost their sense of humour?

Sad to see GNER go

Leeds is a city I have worked in over a number of years and I was sad to see GNER lose the rail franchise to National Express.  Let me share my experience of National Express tonight:

1. First rush hour train cancelled

2. Second rush hour train delayed by 30 minutes. - Scramble to get on the train when it arrived

3. Veggie sandwhiches not available on train

4.  No water in toilet or in the washhand basin.  How filthy not to be able to wash your hands after using the bathroom

5. Buffet carriage now closed so cannot even buy water to wash hands.

All for £206. 

Telling it how it really is

Mr Tosh and I laughed at the new Fly BMI advert tonight.

Business travel is seen as a desirable aspect of a job until you have to do it.  Working in a corporate environment, you pitch up in the business area of a city, you work long hours so you can get home a day early and then you go home. 

The ad sums up our working away from home.  Sad but true.