Writing for life

Published in the Evening Echo, 14/05/2008

A non-too-bright thrush has chosen to build this year’s nest in the bush outside our kitchen window. What’s wrong with that, you might ask… well, there’s nothing wrong with the bush per se, it’s just where it’s situated.

The bush is pretty big bush, with lush, dense foliage that offers plenty of cover and shelter. It’s also high enough to mean the nest is pretty safe from ground-dwelling predators. All in all it’s a pretty good nesting site – apart from the fact that it’s just outside the back door, which puts it on the children’s flight-path as they head from the house, to garden and back again. With the weather improving, they’re doing a lot of coming and going… and peace and quiet around that particular bush is going to be in short supply.

I spotted the nest a few weeks ago. Standing at the kitchen sink one morning I noticed the parents flying to and fro. A quick look when they were out of sight revealed the nest wedged firmly between the boughs of the bush at about my shoulder height. Chancing a quick peek inside I counted three perfectly formed, beautifully speckled eggs nestled in the moss-lined cup. Having confirmed the nest was in use I beat a hasty retreat to allow mum to return to tend her clutch.

Ever since I was a little boy I’ve felt a rush of excitement at finding a birds nest in spring. There’s something wonderful about being so close to the genesis of new life that’s both fascinating and inspirational. Seeing the parents come and go, hearing the chicks clamouring for food, and witnessing their incredible journey as they grow and eventually fledge.

I guess when you think about it it’s like the whole parenting palaver distilled into a few short months: finding a partner, setting up home and bringing youngsters into the world, followed by a frantic and exhausting struggle to provide for them until the day they finally fly the nest. In one way I guess the birds have it sussed… they have the whole process done and dusted in short order, and then take the rest of the year off. We, on the other hand, sentence ourselves to the best part of twenty years of hard labour.

The girls were thrilled when they arrived home from school and I showed them my discovery. I lifted them up and showed them the nest very briefly, explaining that we had to be careful not to disturb the mother to make sure she didn’t abandon the nest. They were so excited… and that filled me with a deep sense of satisfaction.

There are those who would argue that letting the children see the nest is wrong – that nature should be left well alone. In the interests of environmental conservation, they argue, we should shield nature from people, isolate it, protect it. I couldn’t disagree more.

By letting children experience and understand nature first hand, you’re doing far more good than harm. You see, when you shield nature from children, you’re also shielding children from nature, and that’s a mistake.

Books and classrooms are all very well, but the relationship between children and nature needs to be hands on: kids need to experience nature first hand to foster and encourage their inherent fascination with the natural world. Fail to do that, and they disengage; disengaged children grow to become disengaged adults… and we’re all painfully aware of the environmental damage they can cause.

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Published in the Evening Echo on 12/05/2007

We’ve all made mistakes in interviews. We’re only human after all, and no matter how careful or diligently we prepare, a stray question slipped in here or there can throw us.

We know all about researching our prospective employers; we know about preparing for key questions ahead of time; we know about projecting a cool, calm, professional exterior, regardless of the turmoil we feel inside; we know about having clever questions prepared in advance. We know all of these things, and yet occasionally we stumble. No matter, we pick ourselves up, metaphorically dust ourselves down, and we carry on. Nine times out of ten we get away with it.

But not always. Sometimes gaffes are so dramatic that they defy any attempt at recovery.

Surveys are ten a penny in the careers and recruitment world. Dig a little and you’ll unearth umpteen surveys a week, revealing this or that nugget of largely pointless insight into the latest trends in this or that industry. Many are worthless, a few are valuable, and then there are the ones that warrant a look for their pure entertainment value.

Careers website Careers.com released one earlier this year. They surveyed more than 3,000 HR professionals across the US, and compiled a list of the ten most outrageous job interview blunders; if you want to sabotage your chances of landing a job, why not try one of these?

• The candidate answered their mobile during the interview and asked the interviewer to leave her own office because the call was a “private”.

• The candidate told the interviewer that, if offered the job, he may not be in a position to stay for very long, because he was expecting an inheritance when his uncle died – and his uncle wasn’t “looking too good”.

• The candidate asked the interviewer for a lift home after the interview.

• The candidate sniffed his armpits on the way into the interview room.

• The candidate refused to provide a sample of her writing because all of her writing had been for the CIA, and was therefore “classified”.

• The candidate told the interviewer he was fired from his last job for beating up the boss.

• When offered food before his interview, the candidate declined, stating that he “didn’t want to line his stomach with grease before going out drinking”.

• A candidate for an accounting position said she was a “people person” not a “numbers person”.

• One candidate flushed the toilet in the middle of a telephone interview.

• The Candidate took out a hair brush and started to brush her hair mid-interview.

Of course, these are extremes… most interview mistakes aren’t nearly as bad. The most common ones cited in this survey were dressing inappropriately (51%), badmouthing a former employer (49%), appearing disinterested (48%), arrogance (44%), insufficient answers (30% percent) and not asking good questions (29%).

So, if you have an interview lined up, and feel compelled to attend, but have already decided that really don’t want the job, you know what to do. Simply take a leaf out of your American colleagues’ book. Study the list above for a inspiration, apply a little imagination of your own, and you should be able to come up with some spectacular ways to fail at interview. Good… or should I say bad luck!

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Glengarriff Lodge,

Glengarriff,

West Cork,

Ireland

A few weeks ago we spent a wonderful weekend at what has to be one of the most enchanting houses in the whole of West Cork, perhaps the entire country. Nestled on its own little island between a fork in the Glengarriff River, this thatched former hunting lodge of the Earl of Bantry is like something straight out of a childhood fantasy.

Set in three acres of beautifully tended gardens, surrounded by mature trees that blend seamlessly with nearby native woodland, the fairytale house sits gently in this idyllic rural landscape. As we drove over the little wooden bridge onto the island I had to pinch myself to make sure what I was seeing was real. This was Glengarriff Lodge… and it was absolutely breathtaking.

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Rated 5/5 on May 8 2008

Vote on Calvin’s reviews at LouderVoice

LouderVoice review tags: Accommodation, West Cork, Glengarriff Lodge, Self Catering, House

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Who do you really work for?

It’s not a trick question, it’s not that I suspect you’re involved in some sort of shady commercial espionage. It’s a simple, straightforward query:

• Do you work for your supervisor?

• Do you work for your line manager?

• Do you work for your HR Department?

• Do you work for your CEO?

The answer, of course, is none of the above. When you break it down we go to work for ourselves. Whether we’re self employed, working on the shop floor, of a high-flying executive with a swanky corner office… we work to support ourselves, our families and the lifestyle we’ve chosen to live. Work is a means to an end, and while you might enjoy, or even love what you’re doing, ultimately it’s just a vehicle for your financial security, personal achievement and development, fulfilment and, ultimately, happiness.

Unfortunately we tend to forget all of that. We get caught up in the frantic hustle and bustle of working life. Long hours, stress, unrealistic expectations, unmanageable workloads and tortuous commutes conspire to erode the very things we’re working to secure.

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Published in the Evening Echo, 30/04/2008

When we first saw him standing in the boot of the VW Golf he was so tiny, helpless and utterly gorgeous that we fell in love with him instantly. You couldn’t help but want to take him home and mind him. So we did.

But wait… you need a bit of background. We’d arranged to meet friends in Kenmare. On the trip over the Cork Kerry mountains they came across a forlorn, abandoned little creature, bleating desperately on the windswept roadside. They looked for the newborn lamb’s mother, but she was nowhere to be seen, there was no farm in the immediate vicinity, and no way of identifying who owned him. Lost and abandoned he would surely die… they could either leave him to the crows and other scavengers, or step in and rescue him.

Perhaps the right choice would have been to leave him to his fate… but how many of us, faced with such a dilemma, could leave a helpless baby to die? I suspect not many. And so they brought him into Kenmare to meet us.

Now, this must be a fairly regular springtime occurrence in Kenmare… because they went into the local pharmacy (not the co-op or farm-supply shop… a regular pharmacy), and lo and behold, they stocked rubber lamb-teats and ewes milk replacement formula.

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Published in the Evening Echo 28/04/2008

Do you ever feel that there aren’t enough hours in the day? Well, you’d be right. Researchers in the US recently discovered that typical middle-class city dwellers are cramming 31 hours worth of ‘life’ into each 24 hour period thanks to multi-tasking and an array of time saving gizmos.

Hands up who’s checked their e-mail on their laptop or blackberry while making their morning coffee? Or used a bluetooth headset to join a conference call on the commute to work, while listening to the traffic report on the radio and checking out alternative routes on the sat-nav?

We’re multi-tasking like crazy to try and squeeze more into our busy lives. Apparently the technology of today has allowed us, for better or for worse, to shoe-horn an additional seven hours worth of tasks into the average day compared to only a decade ago (primitive old 1998 – back when nobody had ever heard of Google).

After a flurry of activity in the morning we arrive at work – which is often a blur of e-mails, calls and meeting combines with switching between multiple tasks to meet unrealistic deadlines. But, according to the study, conducted by global consumer research firm OTX, all of the multitasking we do during our working day pales in comparison to the frantic task juggling that happens once we get home in the evenings.

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Ah America — leaders of the free world — a model for other governments to emulate… or perhaps not.

Pretty unreal stuff — and the scary thing is, most of it’s utterly believable.

Kind of makes you wonder about the much touted public/private partnerships the Irish government’s so fond of, and just how much priorities get skewed when you outsource public services to commercial entities out to make a fast buck.

Outsourcing the Government on Yahoo! Video

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Published in the Evening Echo on 23/04/2008

A couple of weeks ago some friends invited us all to their son’s fifth birthday party. Rather than go through the rigmarole of putting on a party at home, with all the preparation, organisation and clean-up work that entails, they decided instead to do something away from the house. They opted for Monkey Maze in Glanmire.

Monkey Maze is one of those giant indoor multi-level play areas (WARNING! If you choose to click on the preceding link, be ready for some really irritating jungle sounds) with ball pits, slides and all sorts of soft, squidgy playthings where children can run amok without coming to much harm. This is a good thing, and in theory means that parents can relax and let the nippers get on with it. Sounds like the ideal party venue.

The “fun” began in the car. I wanted to listen to the news… but as far as the kids are concerned the radio is for one thing, and one thing only: music! They pleaded, whined and generally made such a fuss that I couldn’t hear the news anyway. I tuned-in to the first music station I could find, but they weren’t listening… they were far too busy chattering incessantly about what they were going to do when they got to the play area.

We arrived at Monkey Maze. It was absolute bedlam.

As soon as I stepped through the door the noise hit me. Screaming, laughing, crying, wailing, whining, chuckling, singing, chanting, screeching… it was a wall of sound that spanned the gamut of the childhood vocal repertoire. It wasn’t pleasant. Paired with the garish primary colours of the décor it left me ruing that one last pint in the pub the night before. We live and learn… or not, as the case may be.

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Published in the Evening Echo 21/04/2008

Telecommuting, remote working, working from home… call it what you will, the whole concept of working out of the office is an alluring one. The technology that enables remote working – a decent internet connection, mobile computing and mobile digital communications devices – is starting to become practically ubiquitous in our lives, bringing the prospect of remote working out of the realm of fantasy, and making it a very real possibility for many.

If you work on a computer, then you can do pretty much everything you normally do at work sitting at your desk at home (or even in your local coffee shop, if you prefer). Liberating yourself from the shackles that bind you to the office desk isn’t complicated or costly any more – but does demand very careful consideration. Ditching the daily commute, traffic jams and office politics may appear idyllic, but it’s not always the panacea it promises to be. Remote working comes with its own set of problems, in their own way every bit as challenging as those you’ll find in an office environment.

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Published in the Evening Echo on Wednesday 16/04/2008

“I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way,” says the first line of the song “The Greatest Love of All”. Originally recorded by George Benson in 1977 for the Mohammed Ali film “The Greatest”, the track became a hit almost ten years later for Whitney Houston.

The reason I mention it is that perhaps someone could add it to Education Minister Mary Hanafin’s iPod playlist… as a gentle reminder. Last week the minister continued to defend the Government’s funding for education, despite growing evidence that primary schools across the nation are facing huge shortfalls.

This is making the news again… but of course if you’re a parent with primary school children it’s hardly news. Practically every primary school in the country is going cap-in-hand to parents for voluntary contributions to bolster the inadequate government funding, and asking them to help out with ever more wacky fund raising events in the desperate scramble for cash. Where is all this extra money going? Is it being spent on fancy learning aids to enhance our children’s education? No, it’s being used to pay for basic essentials like heating, electricity, insurance and cleaning – all things which should be covered by the state.

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