One of the more durable, corporate bingo-lingo phrases, one that's muscled its way into wider usage is the exasperated cry: “It's not rocket science”, or as my wife has it: “It's not rocket salad”.  As we know, it means that our problems shouldn't be hard to understand or solve, compared to something properly difficult like launching a rocket.

I was reading a book about the space race the other day and there was an interview with a rocket scientist. And he said when he tells people what he does for a living, they assume he must be some kind of superbrain. But he says rocket science pretty much follows Newton's third law of motion about every action having an equal and opposite reaction. The engineering involved just isn't very complicated.  Or as he put it. “The thing is, rocket science isn't rocket science.”     

Sir Ian McGeechan, four times Head Coach of rugby union Lions Tours, is a pretty inspirational speaker. Look him up on youtube and watch his speech as he sends the Lions out to “go for the jugular of the Springboks”, or the one where he bursts into tears afterwards. Stirring stuff. Bizarrely, in between such derring-do Ian was the HR director of an insurance company. I only know this because a friend was once a graduate trainee in his department.

Apparently, the HR team used to have a Monday morning “huddle”, and she said she'd burst out of the meeting like an adrenaline junkie, chewing the furniture, scrumming down against the coffee machine. The week was hers, its jugular already between her teeth. She bestrode the corporate world like a colossus. It was only about an hour later that she'd realise she was just vetting application forms again all week.       

I loved this story in today's paper.




Apparently, an IT worker in the US secretly out-sourced his own job. He, (Bob), effectively sub-contracted his work to someone in China. He paid them less than one-fifth of his own six figure salary, and spent his own day surfing the web.




Bob no longer works for the company. Which seems like their loss, because “quarter after quarter his performance review noted him as the best developer in the building.”

A company I once worked for decided it would be nice to treat the staff to free drinks from the coffee machine for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. Outside of 10:30 to 11:30 and 2:30 to 3:30 a finest cup of ditch-water and milk powder (or extra white premium arabica as the machine had it) cost 20p.


It's hard to describe how important it became to some people to get their free drinks, even if they didn't want them. It was a small victory over the drudgery of their working lives. It felt like stealing stationery. Or it just saved 20p.


And it affected all levels. I was in a meeting once, when we watched as the Chief Executive opened his door, ran to the coffee machine, pressed the button and when nothing happened, looked at his watch, slammed his hand against the machine, said “damn it” and stormed back into his office.