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Will You? aka Dying by Numbers

Form PA1

Form IHT217

Form IHT205

Form R27

These are just some of the delightfully named pieces of paper I’ve had to fill out since Dad died. Although they’re available online you can’t complete any of them electronically. All must be downloaded, understood (and let me tell you these forms were designed with machines in mind, not humans), completed and sent off somewhere. Then you wait for your court interview which will lead to the issuing of a grant. This grant is a legal document to allow me to administer Dad’s estate.

Time passes slowly so you call to ask what’s going on and are told ‘no you can’t have the interview at the court building you asked for, we haven’t opened that building in over nine months’. Turns out HM Courts and Tribunal Service ‘offers’ these interviews at seven locations in and around London, and only one of them is regularly open. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to rethink that choice thing huh?

In due course a letter arrives and so yesterday I attended court for an interview. It was dry, necessary, neither polite nor impolite and mercifully brief. I had a few questions but the interviewer seemed to know nothing beyond the specific process of conducting the interview. Maybe I expect too much but this human interaction felt as dehumanising as the paperwork that had gone before.

I stood on the steps outside court after the interview so I could check in on Foursquare – (what a nerd!) and this post about making a will and stuff from Laurie Ruettimann popped onto my screen. Carole and I made our wills when we got married nigh on twenty years ago, and we keep our affairs in order so that when one or both of us dies….well you get the picture I hope.

My Dad was a super guy and he didn’t make a will. He did not expect to die on January 22nd 2012 and I didn’t expect him to either. Though yesterday was an important procedural milestone, here I am this Saturday morning staring at a screen and another huge pile of papers that stand between me and my grief. I totally know Dad wouldn’t have wanted this, and I don’t want it for you – that is for sure.

Do you know people you love and care about? Do you own stuff? Do you have a will?

 

 

Friday Fury – Bloggers!

I started blogging in late 2008 and I confess I felt a little like I was jumping on a bandwagon. There were a lot of blogs out there, why should I add another one to the pile?

This blog was started because I felt that there was something missing, a place for employee and customer and community stuff to collide. I’m motivated about making work better in order to deliver better service. I didn’t think about it much more beyond that – but I’d built up a few ideas to get me started and felt sure those and my passion for these connections would see me through. I was wrong. There’s a whole bunch of effort required to keep the train a rollin’.

Now it’s 2012 and it seems every Tom, Dick and Harry met Sally is just piling in. One of the by products of piling in is that after the euphoria of your first few comments and retweets comes the onset of frequent infrequency. It becomes clear that this blogging lark can be hard work, and the temptation to let it drift is often too seductive. The excellent A Better Mess blog says this about infrequency:

‘We crap rationalize with things like, “I’ll only write when I have something really important to say,” or “I’ll get back to blogging once I finish this project for work.” Rather than course correcting, the average blog dies a slow, painful and lingering demise. It’s a death march that not only disappoints your readers, it’s a public commitment that you’ve essentially neglected.’

And if you want people to read your blog, then frequently infrequent ain’t gonna get ’em.  And don’t give me any of that ‘I’m only writing for myself’ crap. Were that true then you’d be ‘blogging’ on one of these babies:

Typewriter

So get real y’all. Blogging takes guts, sweat, persistence and a depth of madness most folk can only dream of. And to that end, have a listen to this (lyrical kudos to @workessence for another musical collaboration):

Sweet Tweets

I participated in the fourth ConnectingHR Unconference yesterday. It was great, useful and fun. There’s a super write up about The Buzz in the Room by Alison Chisnell. I’m sure lots more blogs and other content will emerge very soon, for now I’d like to share just a few tweets that resonated with me:

@charlie_elise: Negative capability – being able to cope with uncertainty. >>When you relax into this, it is great fun.

@workessence: If you can’t measure it, its probably interesting. >>Yep! Worth a look at least.

Respect me, not my authority! >>Eric Cartman might not agree

Trust. Role model it upwards, don’t wait for the CEO. Doing what we say we will is everyone’s job.

I feel the need to meet! Community thrives on some eye contact.

Overheard: if you stand for nothing you’ll fall for everything. >>Subsequently discovered this was said by @sarmason

I’ve eaten my own weight in biscuits today @alisonchisnell

If a particular tweet or two caught your eye from yesterday’s event – please share it.