Learning about guilt

Have you ever noticed how, whenever you're going through something, everyone always knows exactly what you should be doing and how you should be feeling?

New mothers with tiny infants are told exactly how they should be handling the business of being a Mom and how they should feel about all the things their new babies do. Newly bereaved people are told exactly how they should be responding and are given only X amount of time before the good graces of friends start to wear out because they really should be over it by now.

And my situation is, of course, no different. Everyone knows exactly how I should be feeling. And it seems the one thing I should not be feeling is guilt. "You've done nothing wrong!" they assure me. And they're right... in a way. But that changes nothing.

I guess I've known on some subconscious level that there are different kinds of guilt, but right now, I'm neck deep in it, and am intimately acquainted with it.

As a practising Christian, I subscribe to the notion of sin, repentance and redemption. I do. And when I sin, I experience guilt. So I seek forgiveness. And - I believe - I get it.

But that doesn't have bearing here. Because, of course, not all failings are sinful. And, if I were the only one to be impacted by the failure of my business, I could handle that.

But I'm not.

Yes, my business is a limited liability company, and so my personal assets are not forfeit to the collapse of the business. But, the collapse of the business has meant a loss of income. And my failure to find an alternative source of income does place our personal assets at risk.

And this is where the guilt comes in.

You see, my husband works extraordinarily hard. He always has. It's the nature of the man. He currently commutes two hours each way, every day. Scooter, train, tube, train, walk. He would prefer not to, and when he started at the company, the plan was to move his role to a town 20 minutes' drive from our home. But the recession put paid to that idea. So he continues to commute, two years later.

He hasn't failed at anything. He continues to work to the same standard. He continues to earn the same salary. But he still stands to lose his personal assets (including, under extreme circumstances, his home).

Now you can paint that any colour you want, but I did that, and I have to live with it. He is not angry with me. Good grief, what kind of man would he be if he did? He fully supports me in every way.

I have been harangued fore and aft for feeling guilty over this. I have been told I shouldn't because it doesn't make sense on a logical level. I have even been told that my guilt is unChristian and sinful, because it is tantamount to saying that I don't accept God's forgiveness. I simply cannot get people to understand that I don't believe I need to be forgiven.

I tried to explain it to one person like this:
You are told that you have to hold out two 5kg weights at arm's length and at shoulder height. The moment you let them drop, someone large and powerful is going to slap your husband (wife, son, daughter) humiliatingly in the face and kick him in the stomach. So you hold those weights. You hold them beyond endurance. But eventually, you simply cannot. You are not capable. You reach the end of your ability, and you are forced to let them drop. Your husband is duly slapped and kicked.

Now tell me you don't feel guilty.

You didn't sin. But you did fail. The task was beyond your capability, you were not able to perform it, and he paid the price.

Okay, it's a simplistic analogy, but please tell me you get my drift. Sometimes you fail without sinning/wrongdoing. But you still fail. And you still feel guilty when your failure hurts the ones you love.

Surely this is perfectly reasonable?

On a side note, permit me to brag. My husband had a long talk with our younger son (the older one is out of the country on a gap year) about the possible implications of our situation. He asked him what worried him most. Did my 17 year old talk about the loss of the nice big house? Did he express concern that his driving lessons could be forfeit? Did he worry about not being able to afford the lifestyle he currently enjoys? No. He said he was worried about the impact on my well-being. He was concerned that I would feel like a failure and that my confidence would take a knock.

In the midst of everything falling down around my ears, that strikes me as a success story, wouldn't you say? We must have done something right. I am so proud of his lack of selfishness that I could just burst.

On money-related irony

Just lately, I have been thinking about some of the ironies inherent in our financial systems.

When we lived in South Africa, bank charges were very high. You paid a cash-handling fee when you deposited large sums of cash. You paid an admin fee every time the bank processed a cheque of yours... or one from someone else that was made out to you. You paid for a new cheque book when the old one was empty. Basically, you paid for everything. Walk into the bank and breathe, and they charged you for the air. This is something that people in the UK simply can't relate to. Here, many bank transactions are still free. But we'll come to that in a minute. Back to South Africa for a moment (sorry, are you getting whiplash?).

If you agreed never to drop below a certain balance, your banking became free. And the balance was not just a few Rands, either. So, basically, if you were flush enough not to need every last cent you had, you could have all your bank services free of charge. If, however, you were balancing on a knife edge, and needed every cent you earned, you had to pay to access this money. And it's no small matter, either - total bank charges could be among your larger expenses.

It gets worse. Let me relate an anecdote that I witnessed on more than one occasion. Person X, let's call him Thando Sijawe, came into the bank to draw some money. He couldn't use the hole-in-the-wall, because, like many South Africans, he was illiterate. He explained to the cashier that he wanted R10, and she wrote out the withdrawal slip for him, which he then endorsed with his thumbprint. She gave him his R10 and he went on his way. What he didn't know was that the bank charged him R7 (I kid you not, that was the exact figure) for this service. If he had drawn out all his money at once, this might have been less significant but crime levels were (are?) high in South Africa, especially in the poorer areas where Thando lived, so the tendency was only ever to carry money enough for your immediate needs, taxis, buses and the day's food supplies. People like Thando had to deal in cash, because their illiteracy meant that they couldn't use the pay-by-card option.

So, not only did Thando get penalised for being poor, he suffered the double whammy of being further penalised for being uneducated, too.

But it's not just Thando. And it's not just in South Africa.

In the UK, much of our banking is free. The flip side is that it is also slower. Everything takes longer. And you can do so much less at the hole-in-the-wall. But you learn to live with that. However, if you're having a bad month and one of your standing orders bounces, there is a fee of £22 that is levied. So basically, they're fining you for being broke.

As I have already (very publicly) stated, my business is being declared bankrupt. This morning, I was advised that I need to pay £2500 for this process. It seems I am too broke to go bankrupt. Go figure.

I'm not sure what happens next. I am going to see an insolvency adviser to discuss my options.

I apologise if this transparency makes you feel uncomfortable. I just hope that it will prove helpful to others who may be having a tough time of things, right now.

I also think it's important to shine a spotlight on some of the things that strike me as being out of balance in society. After all, the fat cats of the banking industry are the ones taking home the huge bonuses.

Everyone knows my understanding of accounting is negligible, but I can't help feeling the wrong people are paying for those bonuses.

Hans Rosling: 200 years of health and wealth in 4 minutes

Professor Hans Rosling waxes enthusiastic as he shows an animation of world health and wealth over the past two hundred years. It's an excellent video and he ends it on a very positive note. Perhaps you have to be African, though, to grieve over the fact that the back end of the continuum is almost entirely blue.

BOGOL and such

The UK is tentatively sticking its head out from under the recession, so they tell us. The figures show a miniscule growth in the economy during the last three months of 2009. But then, as my 18 year old son pointed out, those are not really reliable data, since we're looking at the period around Christmas, after all.

Some news reports have spoken of slowing down of the increase in the unemployment levels. I haven't found any online articles to confirm this, yet. It is some comfort if it's true, but we are all looking for a decrease in the unemployment levels.

So, most of us are some way from optimistic.

This is reflected by the fact that TV advertising at the moment includes several items aimed at saving money. And, of course, all the major supermarkets are out there proving to us that they have our best interests at heart.

Here is just a random selection of the things that have made a blip on my radar in the last week:

• Asda is offering blankets with sleeves to reduce heating bills. So you can snuggle up on the couch instead of turning up the heating. I'm not sure why you can't just wear a sweater or use a normal blanket. We do... always have done. My husband, my snuggly blanket and the rugby on a Saturday afternoon. Bliss.
  
• Tesco has changed their BOGOF (buy one, get one free) offer to BOGOL (buy one, get one later) in an attempt to reduce waste. Let's face it, if you only need one cabbage but take an extra one, because it's free, the second one is likely to go off before you come to use it. So now, instead of a free cabbage, you get a voucher entitling you to a free cabbage when you need it.
  
• Sainsbury is trying to encourage us to keep and use our leftovers, by handing out little plastic lunch box thingies at the cash points with every purchase.

It puts me in mind of 'Make do and Mend'.

I have to say that, as gestures go, Tesco's impresses me the most. But then, perhaps the others have other ideas that haven't made it onto my radar, yet.

Let's hope that we have turned the corner and that things start to improve soon.

Living next door to Calvin

Recently, I invoked the ire of a fellow South African with a blog post about the declining state of things in that country. One of his/her comments seemed to imply a belief that the economic decline in 'the west' was not going to have an impact there. I beg to differ. My view is that the world these days is so interconnected, we no longer live in national siloes, where the (mis)fortunes of one country stop at its borders.

Earlier today, I found myself choking in disbelief at a view expressed by a pregnant, unemployed English teenager living on benefits (welfare). She was being interviewed on a radio programme together with former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. The host asked her her views on the economic downturn, to which she blithely replied, "It doesn't affect me." To give him his due, the interviewer remarked that she was then the only person unaffected by the situation.

By contrast, some of the Indian people I follow on Twitter report that they are watching the western economy with a cautious eye. Apparently they have seen little evidence of the downturn there, thus far, but they expect that it will hit. Particularly in the massive off-shore outsourcing market.

I recently posted a rather upbeat post in which I declared you all to be local. This has its downside, too. What affects you, affects me. Never did the passage "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." (Romans 12:15) have more relevance!

I know that things are probably tough for you, right now. They're tough for me, too. And they look set to get tougher. Just today, I was chatting with a lady I met as we were out walking our respective dogs (I've mentioned before my tendency to talk to any and everybody, anywhere, anytime) and she told me that the school which is almost next door to my house has just laid off 10 full time teachers, four learning support assistants and 10 cleaners. Unless the school has adopted some creative methods for taking up the slack, that's a whole cohort of kids whose education has been negatively impacted. And believe me when I say that this high school has the sort of catchment that can least afford it!

I don't understand much about finance and economy. If there is such a condition as dysfinancia, I have it. Severely. But from the little I do understand, I would say that it will be another 18 months or so before the economy starts to swing back up again, and another decade before we recover from the effects of this recession.

In this space we can alert one another to opportunities. We can empathise with one another. We can mentor one another. We can provide guidance. If the rope really hits the rudder, we might even find ourselves reaching out to some of our number in material ways.

So let's keep it real. No denial here, okay?

Big question: making it up as I go along

This month's big question from LCB is around the economy.

What is the impact of the economy on you and your organization? What are you doing as a result?

You will notice that we are more than halfway through the month and I am only just getting around to answering. This is due to the nature of the response!

You see, I am my organisation! Up until September last year, I was one of 28K people working for a blue chip corporate. Then I found myself peremptorily unemployed. I have been advised by more than one person who is in a position to know about these things, that I had a strong case for constructive dismissal. But that's not really how I roll. I preferred to look on the situation as being a case of divine intervention. I had been thinking about striking out on my own for a while, but I just couldn't pluck up the courage to jump ship. I guess I needed a push, and I got one.

Had I been working within the blue chip corporate, when this question came up, I wouldn't have been able to answer it, since I never got to see more than my little patch. it was a bit like being in a glass bottomed boat: I only got to see the patch of sea in my immediate environs.

Looking at the timing of the start of my solo venture, just as the economy went into freefall on a scale that made a blip on Everyman's radar, I can adopt one of two stances.

On the down side, L&D is always (foolishly, to my mind) the first thing to go, so organisations cut back on the learning provision to their staff. This means there is less work to be had, so the outlook might seem bleak.

On the up side. As the L&D budget gets cut, so - often - does the L&D headcount. Many companies choose to outsource instead. This is where I come in. Those companies with foresight look at ways in which they can encourage their staff to minimise the impact of the crunch on the bottom line. Sometimes they bring in people like me to help them. So the outlook might seem quite rosy.

I am not an economist. In fact, if there is such a condition as dysfinancia - I have it. I can't trot out models and forecasts and all that malarkey. I have to stick with things like ethos and values and all that intangible stuff.

One thing I have promised myself: no matter how tough it gets, I am not going to start being stingy with my advice and suggestions. I am not suddenly going to start charging people for sharing the benefit of my experience. I am not going to stop contributing to discussion forums where my perspective may be of help to people desperately trying to develop learning solutions on tighter budgets (or even no budget at all, in some cases).

And another thing (I am going to take a deep breath and say this 'out loud', because I have been through a rough patch in which my confidence has ebbed):

I am damned good at what I do!

I understand learning. I understand learners. I am unafraid to ask the difficult questions. I am unafraid to push back and say why a thing should be done differently (or not at all). I am ever ready to champion the cause of the learner and his/her perspective.

Hopefully, all these things will count in my favour. Hopefully, so will things like the fact that, when a client recently approached me for a quote for Articulate training, I told them that if I were making the call on behalf of their (non-profit) organisation, I would opt for the wealth of free resources available from Articulate themselves instead of spending money. And, if I were to spend money, I would opt for the training they provide, since they do so at a price I can't hope to compete with.

Hopefully my integrity will become a hallmark of my brand.

Hopefully I will weather this storm, because I have no desire to find that my principles have a price tag, after all!

Better than that, I hope to be able to help a few others weather it too.

Unemployment rises further

Unemployment has been creeping steadily upward in the UK. We are approaching the 2million mark.

Today, BMW laid off 850 people in the Mini plant in the UK. Every day we hear yet another story of people being laid off.. and the blue-collar workers often seem to be the hardest hit. We live in a pretty blue-collar area and one can almost see the change in people's demeanour. Every new story is like another physical blow. Today's was particularly tough because the workers were given only 1 hour's notice. The announcement was made an hour before the end of a shift and it got pretty ugly.

The first time I heard this, I huffed and puffed in indignation. Then I did a little research and discovered that the majority of the people affected were from an agency. They were not employees and therefore not entitled to a redundancy package. In effect, BMW did nothing illegal.

Sadly, in these uncertain times, more and more companies are going the route of engaging agency personnel, rather than committing themselves to employees... and all that that entails.

I understand that BMW needs to think of their bottom line. But I am saddened that there seems to be no middle ground. That the bottom line is pursued at the cost of many people's livelihoods. Where are these peremptorily unemployed people going to turn?

For us in the field of L&D, there is no distinction. When we provide learning solutions and performance support, we do so for everyone equally, because productivity levels need to be consistent across all contributors.

Just imagine this scenario:

Company X, like so many others, is facing a dry patch. But they understand how economies work. They know that the tide will turn. They know that all their staff members have families to feed. They know that people are being laid off left and right, and that any workers they lay off will have little chance of finding other employment.

So they sit down with their staff. They lay their cards on the table. They discuss ways that they can all weather the storm. Together.

Staff members are challenged to use this period to hone their skills. To broaden their skillsets. To examine their process and systems to see where they can be improved and optimised. Those who want to take early retirement are permitted to do so. But no-one is laid off. Everyone is in the same boat and everyone busts a gut to row in the same direction.

When the storm passes - as all storms eventually do - imagine the loyalty of the workforce to a company that demonstrated that, when it said "Our people are our greatest asset," it meant it! Imagine the buy-in of a team of people who have helped to bring the company through. Imagine the bonds that have been forged between people who have had to bear one another's burdens is a way they hadn't been called on to do in generations. Imagine the increased skill sets. The honed processes.

And...

Imagine the readiness to take full advantage of the newly buoying economy, while other companies are frantically recruiting and up-skilling.

Or am I just dreaming one of my idealist, Utopian dreams again?

Cardboard boxes, the ecology and business ethics

We are moving house. Anyone else who has ever moved house (which is just about anyone, I guess) will know that it usually entails a fair number of cardboard boxes.

Of course, I have been collecting some from work, and we had kept a few nice strong ones from the last move, but we have been forced to buy several.

One of the places we went to in our quest for the best deal was a stationery supplier. Everywhere you looked in the store, there were boxes of stock. Most of their products are delivered in boxes - most of them perfect sizes for packing and moving. Paper, binders, you name it. It all comes in boxes, which they then unpack onto their shelves and sell singly. In some sections of the store, there were moutains of sealed boxes, topped off by the contents of the few that had been opened. In top of the shelving, were unopened boxes containing new stock. Boxes. Everywhere. But you can't have those. You have to buy purpose-made boxes at £3 each, or in packs of 5... or 10.

So what are they going to do with all the hundreds (thousands?) of boxes in which their stock is packaged for delivery? They're going to take them out back, flatten them and bale them, so that they can be collected for recycling. Presumably by some large, diesel fume emitting vehicle which will take to some carbon-footpring producing recycling plant.

Why can't they let us have them instead?

Well because they sell boxes, you see, so it would interfere with their profits. Why should they give away something when they can sell it for a ridiculous sum of money?

Why can't they sell those ones for a nominal fee (or even better for a donation to some green organisation)?

Well, because, they're not set up for that, you see.

Why not?

Look lady, we just aren't. Do you want the boxes or don't you?

Well I don't, but I need them. Nevertheless, I am going to go and buy them somewhere else (a) because they're cheaper, (b) because that company doesn't have boxes standing around that they could give away and (c) because I've got the hump now and I'm blowed if you're getting a penny out of me. Have a nice day, won't you?

Okay. So what has this got to with learning?

Simply this:

If I know something that you need to know, I will gladly let you have it (free, gratis and for nothing). I have been on the receiving end of generosity of this sort for several years as a learning professional, and I have "grown up" with this attitude.

Not only is it generous, it makes sense. It keeps the knowledge economy flowing, it moves us all forward, and we all grow knowledge richer together. This in turn, makes good fiscal sense, since we can implement the new knowledge in the fulfillment of our day jobs.

How very "pay it forward", and how very much to my liking!