Who’d have thought it? Not only is it Monday, but we’re almost half way through 2014 already! Only 6 months from now and we’ll all be celebrating the new year. Hope you’ve all started saving for Christmas…
Anyway, this is meant to be Happy Monday, not Happy hunt-Liz-down-and-beat-her-for-mentioning-Christmas-in-June day.
This week, for your delectation, I have a link to a list of laughterific Family Fortune answers. Not just any Family Fortune answers though:
There’s that old saying about being able to choose your friends but not your family. That’s all well and good, but do you know what else you can’t choose? Your colleagues.
Mostly that’s not a problem. But sometimes… well, sometimes you’re left with the colleague from hell… which is far, far worse. Not only do you get to spend your working days with them, but the blow isn’t softened by the compensatory benefits which come with having relatives from hell. There’s no begrudging-yet-dutiful invitation to their wedding with the free bar, and there’s no outside chance that they’ll end up leaving you that lovely vase (kept in the family for years for sentimental reasons, but you actually suspect could be a Ming) in their Will when they die because your grandfather once bailed out their father’s business in the 70’s.
I’m probably going to get us all into trouble by showing you this. But I can’t help it; it’s just too awesome to keep to myself.
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to… *trumpets*… the Stationery Crossbow! Fashioned out of pencils, elastic bands, a Bic biro, some sellotape and a bulldog clip, you too can be the envy of your workplace this week.
Stalk your prey from behind the office Ficus, reinvigorate boring meetings and keep your colleagues on their toes. The options are as endless as they are exciting!
I once read a story about how circuses train elephants. As you’d expect, it begins when the elephants are very small. A metal cuff, connected to a chain, is placed around their ankle and shackles them to a pole in the ground.
Naturally, the little elephant tries to wander off. But the chain dictates his boundary. He spends days, weeks and months trying to venture elsewhere; but each time, the chain prevents him from doing so.
Eventually, the little elephant stops trying.
I’m not lazy, but I am a great believer in taking the most effective route from A to B. That’s why I love the Pareto Principle… otherwise known as the Principle of the Least Effort.
The principle is named after an Italian Economist (unsurprisingly called Pareto), who recognised an observable trend: 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population. He also observed that this extended outside of economics; for example, 20% of the pea pods in his garden provided 80% of the peas.