Tag: Business

7 Reasons The Samoans Really Haven’t Thought This Through

If you read the Weird & Wonderful section of the BBC website you may well have seen that Samoa is to set to jump forward by one day. You may also know this if you are Samoan. And live in Samoa. If you don’t, you need to read this next bit very carefully. At midnight on 28th December 2011 – Samoan time – it won’t be 28th December 2011. It will actually be midnight on 29th December 2011. The Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, says the twenty-four hour leap to the west side of the international data line will be good for the economy. It will enable them to do more business with Australia and New Zealand. But have they really thought it through? Our investigations show they may want to rethink.

Samoa Wants To Move To The Left Of The Dotted Line

1. 28th December 2011. That’s a Wednesday! Wednesday is a business day. Surely logic would have said jump forward in time at a weekend. Lose a Saturday or a Sunday. Not a Wednesday!

2. Tourism. Unsurprisingly, what with it being a small island with beautiful beaches, Samoa is a popular holiday destination for people like to lie around doing nothing while getting sunburnt. As a result the tourist industry is a major part of the Samoan economy. The problem is that went people book a ten day holiday they expect ten days. They don’t expect nine days. But that’s exactly what would happen if you go to Samoa for Christmas and New Year. Which is why you won’t. No one will. At the end of this year Samoa will be completely free of tourists. The Samoan economy will shudder to a worrying halt.

3. Natives. What happens if they have a birthday on 28th December? They are either going to stay in Samoa and not have a birthday which means no money being spent on presents, cake, balloons and Pin The Tail On The Donkey kits. Or they are going to go away to celebrate which means money will be spent on presents, cake, balloons, and Pin The Tail On The Donkey kits in Sydney. Either way, Samoa’s economy loses.

4. Productivity. So, without a 28th December, Samoa will be faced with a four day week. Only they won’t because the 26th and 27th are public holidays. So they’ll have a two day week. Thanks to the foresight of Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Samoans are going to have to cram five days work into just two. It’s not going to happen. I guarantee you now that the entire Somoan workforce will be on strike on the 29th and 30th December. So basically, from 23rd December until 3rd January, nothing is going to happen in Samoa. Hardly the sort of attitude that is going to inspire New Zealand and Australia based companies to work with them is it?

5. Pressure. At the moment Samoa is the last place to see daylight. The pressure is off them really. Everyone else has done that day and are now either chilling, sleeping or preparing for a the next day. Samoans can pretty much do what they want safe in the knowledge that no one is watching. Come 2012 though, they are going to be leading the world into every new day. They have the responsibility to get us off to a good start. If they have a bad one, so do the rest of us. That is a lot of pressure and a lot of change. Really, they should have had a trial period first. Perhaps moving Samoa to just West of Ireland. This way they’d have experienced some pressure, but not potentially economy damaging pressure.

6. The Americas. Samoa’s argument is that the majority of their business ties are with Australia and New Zealand and so by advancing by a day they get to work with them for five days instead of just three*. That’s putting an awful lot of eggs in just two baskets. There are thirty-five ~~countries~~ baskets in The Americas. Some baskets, like the basket of the USA, are so big that they contain sub-baskets. There’s a basket for New York. A basket for Chicago. A basket for Los Angeles. In other words, there is opportunity. If a Samoan finds a basket is full, well he can move on to another. This time-travelling is not only going to reduce the size of these America based baskets, but some will disappear all together.** Lots of Samoans will be looking to transfer their eggs to the baskets of New Zealand and Australia. And while these baskets are going to be slightly bigger, there are going to be a whole lot more eggs in them. And when you have too many eggs in a basket that leads to cracking. And, eventually, egg white saturation.

7. Warranties. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, I purchased a freeview box in Apia on 29th December 2010. The warranty runs out on 28th December 2011. What happens if it breaks down on 28th December? A date that doesn’t exist. I foresee a lot of correspondence going back and forth. That’s a whole lot of stamps. And a whole lot of expense. It alarms me that Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has made the decision without even contemplating such eventualities. And let me assure you, by hook or by crook I will get my hands on a Samoan freeview box and I will be following this up. All for the love of reasoning.

*At present, when it’s Monday in New Zealand and Australia, it’s Sunday in Samoa. And when it’s Friday in Samoa, it’s Saturday in New Zealand and Australia.

**When it’s Monday in Samoa it will be Sunday in The Americas and when it’s Friday in the Americas it will be Saturday in Samoa.

May 10, 2011
7 Reasons My Italian Self-Teaching May Get Me Into Trouble

Hello. I’m on a plane. At least I am if you are reading this at 9am on Monday morning. If you are reading it at 9pm on Monday evening then I bloody well hope I’m not on a plane and if you are reading it in June 2014, well, I couldn’t really care less. I’m assuming, as I write, that it is 9am on Monday morning and I am currently on a plane that is destined for Italy. Yes, I’m going on holiday. I thought you’d be pleased. Over the last week, I have done a little language based learning. And, in what is quite a coincidence, I have been learning Italian. Unfortunately, I am not the best when it comes to languages. Partly because I always sound a bit Indian when speaking with another tongue and partly because I just can’t be bothered with it. Which, I admit, is an abysmal attitude to have, but I will gladly take any applause you are prepared to give me for honesty. As a result of these two factors, the Italians might be in for something of a shock. Here’s why:

1. Accents. My Italian accent isn’t very good. Unless you like Italian accents that sound Indian. I imagine the Italians don’t.

2. What A Mistaka To Maka. I can’t help it. Without a teacher I revert to learning my Italian from Allo! Allo! clips on YouTube. I keep adding the letter ‘a’ onto anything I say. Oh, and I’m speaking English.

3. Roma! Lazio! The only words I can pronounce with any confidence are the names of football clubs or, indeed, names of footballers. I may get away with randomly shouting ‘Cannavaro!’ and ‘Del Piero!’ but I imagine I would not with ‘Totti!’. And, talking about football, Italy are playing Serbia tomorrow night. Along with many people in the 1990s, I watched Football Italia on Channel 4. And, along with many people, I always assumed the phrase uttered at the end of the opening credits – ‘Golaccio!’ – meant…

4. ‘Goal Lazio!!’. That’s what it sounded like after all. You can see it here if you need reminding/have no idea what I’m going on about. Now ‘Golaccio’ may seem like a sensible thing to say if Lazio’s Sergio Floccari finds the back of the net for his national side. But it wouldn’t be. For the simple reason that the word is actually ‘Golazo’. And it’s Spanish. And despite finding this out, I know it’s not going to make any bloody difference. I am still going to shout ‘Golazo!’ if Italy score. Or Spain. Or Serbia. Or England. Because that’s me. And no one would have me any other way.

5. French. The only language I have ever learnt – apart from English and Latin obviously – is French. And, despite years of trying to forget such nonsense, I still seem to remember a fair bit of it. And the reason I know this is because unwelcome words keeps slipping into my otherwise expertly recited Italian phrases, ‘Buon giorno. Parla inglese, s’il vous plaît?’. If someone started asking me a question in English and then slipped in something about frogs-legs, I’d be furious. I would expect the Italians to be similar.

6. Hands. Whether it’s a myth or not, Italian’s are famous for their hand gestures. So I’ve been practising mine too. So far, I have the ‘bang on desk’, the ‘I’ve got the whole world in my hands’ and the ‘bunny shadow’ gestures in my repetoire. And they make very little sense with my Italian/French/Indian speil.

7. Pizza. I spent much of my time in the week before Rome, practising the pronunciation of pizza names using a Pizza Express menu. As a result I am unlikely to be able to eat anything other than pizza for the whole week. While this is not a problem in itself, the fact that I can only pronounce Margherita with any confidence, could be.

October 11, 2010
7 Reasons That Shaking Hands Is Weird

Shaking hands is a well established custom. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a bit strange though. Here are seven reasons why.

1. Movement. We all know that the handshake developed as a way of demonstrating that the participants were unarmed (that’s the hand part). But what’s with the shake? Why do we move our hands up and down? Why don’t we move our hands from side to side or in a circular motion? Why don’t we jump up and down or stand on one leg? Why not dance the Hokey-Cokey or play the pat-a-cake pat-a-cake game – or am I thinking about Freemasons? Anyway, the up-and-down thing is odd.

2. Spouse. I once congratulated my wife for something or other (forgetting what for is probably the reason I’ve never been nominated for Husband of the Year) by very formally, and firmly, shaking her hand and saying, “Well done, Darling” in a plummy accent. Though funny, it was quite a strange experience. We’d been together for ten years by then and had never shaken hands before. She spontaneously erupted into giggles several times during the remainder of the day. She still thinks it’s one of the funniest things ever. If you want a weird experience, give your partner a firm handshake.

3. Women. Shaking hands with a woman is strange. Kissing a woman is not strange. That’s why I’m a kisser, not a shaker. Men – during their boyhood – are trained to shake hands: Women – during their boyhood – are not trained to shake hands and, consequently, they don’t do it well. I don’t know what women are being trained to do while they’re not being taught to shake hands. Possibly they’re being taught to smell nice.

4. Hygiene. I’m sure we’ve all heard various statistics about the amount of urine found in bar snacks. The urine gets there via contact with hands. Unwashed hands. The same hands that people want you to shake. Shaking hands is an exchange of urine then. Lovely. (There are actually very good reasons not to wash your hands in the men’s toilets at bars – mostly to do with having to touch the taps and the hand dryer. Here’s the rationale: If I thought my hands were dirty, what’s the last part of my body that I would touch with them? That’s right. And I’m not so inept that I ever piss on my own hands, so they don’t need washing afterwards. And I now realise that I’ve become distracted from writing about handshakes and am writing about my penis, which is not really how Jon or I envisaged 7 Reasons going: It’s more how I imagined psychotherapy going. So, anyway, back to handshaking…)

5. (…or not) Penises. While it’s on my mind: Men spend a lot of time touching their penises. Also, men shake hands a lot. So, when men shake hands, they’re touching penises by proxy. This is bad. Heterosexual men do not want to do this. In fact, direct penis-to-penis contact between two heterosexual men is the worst thing that can happen in the world: worse than anything that can happen in the Large Hadron Collider; worse than being eaten by a horse; worse even, than a day-trip to Whitstable. The proxy-penis-contact that comes about by the shaking of hands isn’t as bad as direct contact, but it’s definitely not a good thing. I may never shake another hand again after that thought.

6. Left-handed-handshakes. The Italian word for left is sinistra, it’s where we get the word sinister from. Obviously, in these enlightened times, we know that there’s nothing inherently evil about being left-handed. Handshaking with your left hand is a thoroughly bad thing though. The correct response to anyone who offers you their left hand is to take a step backwards, stare at their hand and think “git”.

7. Dogs. One of the first things most dog-owners train their dog to do is proffer its paw for a “hand” shake. Why? Why is this pointless exercise given priority over training them to use the toilet, teaching them not to chase cyclists or getting them not to stick their many-toothed-snouts into the crotches of terrified house-guests? Who the hell wants to shake hands with a dog?

April 28, 2010
7 Reasons That Golf Is The Wrong Sport For Businessmen

Businessmen play a lot of golf, and business golf is a accepted part of business culture – there are even books about it. Here are 7 reasons that golf is the wrong sport for businessmen.

1. Location. Business takes place in the city – an urban environment – but golf takes place in the suburbs or in rural environs. Therefore, golf is in the wrong place. As a businessman, this means you have to travel to the golf course. What you need is a sport that you can play in cities, thus saving travel-time and expense. Snooker or pool would be ideal. After all, things always go better with a drink and you’ll have a big table that you can put your paperwork on.

2. Stuff. Golf requires an astonishing amount of equipment. There’s all manner of paraphernalia to lug around – so much of it, in fact, that you need to carry an enormous golf-bag, or hire a man to carry it for you. Some people even use electric buggies (a whole special car to convey golf equipment!). This is clearly ridiculous. Carrying your golf equipment around is incompatible with being businesslike. What you need is sports equipment that fits into a briefcase. A Frisbee is perfect.

3. Assessment If you compete against potential business partners over a few holes of golf, what are you really learning about them? That they don’t like to get their pink trousers muddy? That they can chat about very little while waiting to tee off? A more challenging sport will teach you far more about them. Rugby union, for example. You’ll learn far more about your potential business partner’s drive, desire, sense of ethics and commitment when he’s growling, biting your ear and trying to remove your testicles with his hand or when he’s spear-tackling your head of marketing. Rugby union is a team game. There’s no “I” in rugby union. Well, there is, but someone will poke it out sooner or later.

4. Clothes. Golf requires you to physically exert yourself. Golf also requires a different set of clothes than business. This means that you have to shower and change once your round of golf has finished. This is inefficient use of time. This is time you could spend working and earning money. Unless, that is, you earn your money in the men’s changing rooms, in which case…er…er…do carry on.

5. Women. You don’t see women heading out to the golf course to “network” or play “business golf”; they usually prefer to conduct their business at their business premises, and it’s quite hard to fault that sort of logic. If you’re playing business golf, you’re doing business very inefficiently – as you’re only meeting men. You need to be in an environment that’s agreeable to both sexes. I don’t know what that place is, but there must be at least one, even if it is always at the wrong temperature.

6. Length. Golf takes too long. It takes you out of the office for hours. If you must use the company’s time to participate in sport, you could find one that takes less time. 100 metre sprinting is a quick sport. Here’s how to combine it successfully with business: Walk to a point that’s 100 metres away from your desk, then run back to your desk as fast as you can; because that’s where you should be – at your desk – getting work done.

7. Displacement. Is your work really so dull and frustrating that you need to go to a field and repeatedly smack a ball with a stick? Aren’t you just avoiding work when you’re playing golf? If you didn’t hang around on the golf course “working”, then your actual working day would be so much shorter and you could spend your free time doing what you really want to do. Spending more time with your family or…er…playing golf.

March 31, 2010
7 Reasons To Use A Phone Box

1. You’re A Superhero. This only applies to people called Clark, Peter or Jonathan, but even so. It is fully acceptable to pull red pants over your blue lycra body suit in a phone box, providing you have one of these names and are in some way associated with a newspaper. You could be a journalist, a photographer or pick up a copy of the Evening Standard on the way home each day.

2. You Need Shelter. Rain. Snow. Hail. Nuclear Bomb. Get in a phone box and wait until it has passed. If you are in flip-flops make sure you watch out for the syringes.

3. You’re Foreign. If there is one thing you need to do as a visitor to Great Britain it is to have your photo taken next to or in one of our red phone boxes. I am not sure why you have a such a fascination with them, they pretty much do the same job as a grey phone box, but I am not going to stand in your way. Most of the people in this country have moved onto mobile phones these days so it is nice to see someone using them.

4. You Need To Promote Your Business. Phone boxes are perfect if you want to stick up a flyer or business card. The main advantage of using a phone box is that it’s free, the disadvantage is that you will have a lot of competition. The best way of standing out from the crowd is to reduce your ridiculously high hourly rates.

5. You Don’t Own A Mobile. This may sound obvious, but I have lost count of the number of times someone has walked up to me and said, “Sorry mate, I have forgotten my phone. Can I borrow yours for a minute?” Don’t ask me for my phone. The chances are you are going to run off with it. Go and try and steal a phone box instead. And make sure you bend your knees. They are bloody heavy.

6. You Are Embarrassed To Make That Call At Home. I speak from personal experience here. When I was younger I used to ask girls out with frightening regularity. Not because I was very, very horny, but because the vast majority rejected me so I just had to move on to the next one. The idea of asking a girl out in earshot of my parents terrified me though, so I used to walk down to the local phone box with 10p in my hand (yes, it was that long ago) and then spend twenty minutes building up the courage to call my latest crush. Two minutes later I walked home poorer and heartbroken.

7. You Need To Get Your Hat Back. It’s such a bore when you are walking along the road and suddenly someone flies by, grabs your hat and chucks it atop the nearest phone box. Five minutes later the Police have pulled up and are asking you to get down from its roof. This also applies to bus stops.

January 14, 2010