Month: November 2022

On a recent hospital visit, I popped into the coffee shop in the foyer to pick up a drink for my wife on my way up to the ward. As I waited to be served, an elderly lady ahead of me in the queue was attempting to pay for a small pack of biscuits with cash, only to be told that they were still only accepting card payments. “But I haven’t got a card,” she objected. “I’m sorry but we haven’t got a till for cash,”came the reply, clearly expecting her to walk away. “But I’ve been here all day visiting my friend; I haven’t even had any breakfast.”

It didn’t appear that any resolution was imminent, so I asked the cashier if the biscuits could be added to my order (this isn’t about me though, there were any number of people behind me in the queue waiting to do the same). At first, I think the lady thought I was trying to take her biscuits from her, not wanting to have to bother picking up my own, but when she realised what was happening, she smiled and said: “Oh, thank you, I’ll have a vanilla latte, that’s terribly kind of you.”

The cashier looked slightly surprised when I nodded in agreement to the extra order, but then the barista who was by this time steaming the milk for my wife’s drink, said just loudly enough to be heard: “Is that a large one…?”

A ripple of smirks made it’s way around the shop, and I must admit my naughty side found it hard not to smile at the time. The lady, who didn’t seem to have heard the remark, waited patiently for her drink, then smiled again and said: “Well that’s your good deed done for the day! Thank you, young man.” (I have to say, I’m not often called young man since passing the age of fifty).

Later that evening, as I reflected on the events of the day, a couple of unexpected thoughts cropped up on the subject of asking for and receiving help.

Firstly, I’m sure I’m not alone in being able to recall situations in the past where I was I in need of help but anything from embarrassment and awkwardness through to sheer stubbornness prevented me from making the request; in fact I’m sorry to admit I can even think of a time where an unsolicited offer of much-needed help disposing of a large piece of furniture at the local dump was politely refused, resulting in a completely unnecessary muscle strain.

In all seriousness though, it’s an important skill not only to be able to identify when you need help with something, but also to go on to actually ask for it, or be able to accept it when offered. The elderly lady in the coffee shop could easily have refused the biscuits, or accepted them but not mentioned a hot drink when clearly she wanted one, but she had the sense to say what she needed; for all I know she might have been facing an exhausting journey home after that long day keeping a sick friend company, but she knew what she needed and wasn’t afraid to ask.

Secondly, if you’re prepared to make an offer of help, you should also be prepared to accept that what is needed may not be what you originally thought it would be, and it’s ok for the person to let you know what they do actually need; even if you can then only help with some part of it, you may have useful insight into how to tackle the rest.

It’s a good idea to keep in mind though, that you never know when you might need that offer of a vanilla latte yourself.

In my first year of undergraduate studies, some years ago now, I had the good fortune to work on a laboratory project with a professor of theoretical physics called Nick Rivier, a modest but brilliant academic with a gift for explaining complex concepts in simple terms.

Over the period of two semesters, my lab partner and I worked under the guidance of Professor Rivier and one of his PhD students, creating models of entities called continuous random networks; largely due to his contagious enthusiasm, we put in substantially more hours of lab work than was expected, working long into the evenings. Eventually our commitment paid off, and we hit upon something that allowed him to put the final piece in place for a significant research project on which he was working.

When we returned from our summer holidays to start the Autumn Semester, we discovered in our pigeonholes copies of the research paper that had been published following on from our laboratory project; Professor Rivier had not only included our names in the list of contributors, but had put them first.

As the lead name on the paper , I received postal requests for information from universities around the world , and my lab partner and I enjoyed a brief period of celebrity on campus. At that time we were part of a pretty select group of undergraduates to have had this happen to them; it was by no means common practice for first year students to be cited as contributors to a published paper, let alone given the lead.

When we asked the Professor why he had done it, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said that he already had numerous papers to his name, and anyway, we deserved it for all the extra work we had put in.

Over thirty years have passed since I have received a request for further information regarding ‘Chirality in Tetravalent Networks’, but Professor Rivier’s amazing generosity of spirit is still not lost on me; indeed it has served as a constant reminder to encourage and reward the efforts of those who might find themselves working under my guidance.

At the risk of sounding trite (we’ve all heard and read it a thousand times), people really do follow examples rather than orders or instructions, and great leaders do inspire, and I hope one day to look back and feel that I have lived up to that exceptional example that I was shown all those years ago.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if…’ was how many of us used to think about home-working; that soon changed to ‘How on earth are we supposed to…’ when the harsh reality of having no choice but to get on with it hit home. The initial novelty of not having to commute was quickly dissolved away by the frustration of trying to conduct business meetings in homes full of distraction; where children who were not able to be in school were trying their best to make sense of a confusing set of circumstances, many without the facilities needed for remote learning even when it would become available. This was NOT how many of us had imagined it would be.

But from the midst of all this chaos, a new stability steadily arose as we learned to cope with the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the situation; technology rapidly caught up with our new requirements, filling piece-by-piece many of the frustrating gaps we hadn’t even imagined existed only months earlier.

Of course, for many it was just not possible to continue working away from the workplace, and the return to former normality could not come quick enough; but for others, a potentially sustainable new future opened up, free from the daily grind of commuting, with all the extra time that delivered to be used how we wished once restrictions were lifted.

Micro-managers who used to think that their staff would not do a scrap of work without someone standing over them, had come to realise that most of the people who were fortunate enough to be able to do their job at home were also sufficiently focused and determined to make it work in order to protect their livelihoods, where many were not so lucky. More affirmative leaders, who had always trusted in the ability of their staff to rise to a challenge, felt comfortably reinforced and reassured in their confidence.

The pandemic, of course posed far more fundamental challenges to our collective sanity, but the issue of how and where to work was a not-insignificant hurdle to overcome, with repercussions that will be felt for generations; but with an open mind and a willingness to embrace change and adapt where required, our resilience in the face of adversity can be astounding. And we must never underestimate the bravery of all the key-workers (my wife amongst them) whose selflessness kept the lights on and kept us safe through the ever-present dangers.

For many, the return to the workplace has restored a much longed-for sense of familiarity and stability, but for others a new paradigm has emerged, enabling a bold new future. I still enjoy my trips to the office when I need to make them, welcoming the opportunity for face-to-face interaction with my colleagues, but I am every bit as productive from my home office on all those other days, and my dogs are thrilled by that!