This week’s guru.
Just
you, me – and a few hundred others
Socpo’s
Keith Handley came up with an excellent excuse last week for why he couldn’t
spend his wedding anniversary with his wife at a romantic French restaurant. He
was busy being inaugurated as the society’s new president.
But
Guru was impressed with his multi-tasking abilities – his wife and children
also came to the Socpo conference dinner in Brighton.
Guru
must remember that one when it comes to his own anniversary.
"Darling,
let’s go out for a fabulous meal at a top hotel to celebrate – just ignore the
1,000 other people, the fact that I might have to stand up and make a speech
and the possibility that everyone will keep breaking into For He’s a Jolly Good
Fellow.
"It’ll
be marvellous."
In
hindsight, perhaps they overdid it
Guru
fully supports events that encourage mentoring and new skills development, such
as Campaign for Learning’s Learning at Work Day on 17 May. He’ll personally be
putting in a call to Royal Opera House, following his ballet exploits last
week, to see if his talents are needed for a day.
But
Guru is concerned firms like Specsavers might be taking "back to the
shopfloor" days just a little too seriously.
Nine
members of the board squeezed into the Southport branch of Specsavers Opticians
to run it for a day.
While
the official line is that the board members learned loads about the operation
of the business and customers didn’t notice the difference, there are rumours
that customers were quizzed over whether they wanted daily disposal contact
lenses, monthlies, or a five-year business plan.
Cafe‚ offers a little food for
thought
Industrial disputes
have a familiarity the world over. But Guru was impressed by the standard of
cuisine being produced to support sacked Indonesian hotel workers.
On a recent sojourn to
Jakarta, Guru visited the Solidarity Food Stall and tucked into Dim Sum of
Struggle for starters, followed by Stop the Dismissal Fried Rice.
The cafe‚ makes a
daily profit of £60 that is being used to support the struggle of 500
Shangri-La Hotel staff. They want the hotel to take them back after three
months of strike action for better pay.
It definitely beats
the rubbery bacon butties found on UK picket lines.
We
all want to be spoilt at embassy Â
The
glitterati of the training world were in attendance at the HRD Conference at
Olympia last week.
As
Guru chomped his way through a plateful of canapes at a launch do, he got
talking to a diplomat.
Apparently,
the Foreign Office is snowed under with job applications at the moment.
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Research
has revealed that it is the public perception of diplomats sipping cocktails
and nibbling Ferrero Rocher chocolates for a living that is fuelling the
applications.
Guru
laughed at their naivety, until he noticed that the diplomat was wearing a
white dinner suit, had a Scottish accent, and was drinking a vodka martini…
