Copacetic

Darren asked people to write about their most serious injury as one of his 55 posts I hope you write" , so here you go Darren, be careful what you wish for.

I jumped through a plate glass window when I was younger, severing my femoral artery and puncturing my lower bowel with several pieces of glass. I was operated on that night ( a full midline laparotomy for those of you who are medically inclined), I was in intensive care for 5 days and spent 6 weeks in hospital after that. I lost a shed load of blood (I got 12 pints via transfusion) and had a catheter stiched onto my prick while I was sleeping, and when I woke up I had about 30 tension sutures stretched across my belly, which trust me, you don’t want to wake up to. I was also attached to the machine that goes bing.

The whole thing hurt like hell ( I now have a good idea what it feels like to be bayoneted), and pretty much had nothing to redeem it. I now have a killer scar running from just above my pubic bone to below my sternum and a nice ice breaker at dinner parties.

So this neatly segues into no. 55 on Darren’s list The only thing I can teach you is, don’t jump through a plate glass window, ever.

Enterprise Ireland Payment in Advance

Originally uploaded by Joe Drumgoole.

I got the attached letter today. If you can believe it, Enterprise Ireland, the government agency charged with fostering, encouraging the support of small businesses now wants payment in advance for its services.

Why? Why? What possible reason could their be for this other than some idiot bean counter ruling the roost.

Everybody I meet in EI is consistently helpful and well meaning, buts the organisation seems to an excellent example of lions led by donkeys.

Who makes these decisions? What is the justification?

This post (via stumbleupon.com) drew a chuckle. Here’s a few I liked,

• Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at
• If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat zone
• Incoming fire has the right of way
• The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire
• It’s not the one with your name on it; it’s the one addressed “to whom it may concern” you’ve got to think about
• Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder

Stop trying to get people to be smart and start from the other end of the scale. Try and stop them doing the most stupid thing. This works particularily well with smart people who are usually so busy being clever about stuff that they regularily do the dumbest thing in the playbook while engaging in some really smart piece of activity.

So, get your smart to start thinking about the  stupidest thing they could do, and then get them to not do it!

Simple really.