100 Days of Wonder – #12
Me on the day we left Disney World in January 2023. I am always slightly reluctant to return to reality and I have also usually forgotten how to be a responsible adult. I also always need a little while to readjust to ‘normal’ customer service because Disney level customer service is another level altogether. I don’t really understand how they do it but every interaction we have ever had with any cast member has been perfect. For the duration of the interaction they make you feel like you are the most important person in the world. That’s not to say that things have not gone wrong, they have, but the interactions are always so so good. I wish I could fully pin point the magic of that and try and bring it to my interactions. I think it is something about being fully present in the interaction, about not being distracted by the last one or the one that comes next or what’s for dinner or what spreadsheet needs filling in. It’s about understanding people in a split second, about engaging with them right where they are in the moment and it’s about never ever passing people from pillar to post. Having experienced what is possible I now often watch in restaurants, cafes and other customer service contexts and am bemused by how inefficient and bad it often is. People remember how you make them feel and Disney World makes me feel special, seen and cared for in just the right way. I hope that just sometimes at least, my colleagues and students feel even just some of that in our interactions.
100 Days of Wonder – #11
Ah Deadlines. Let’s ignore for a second that I look ridiculous and talk about deadlines. Anyone who has ever worked with me knows that I struggle to take academic deadlines seriously. Generally, if it is research related, I am likely to be late and if it is anything else, what I would call a real deadline with real consequences of not doing it on time, I am likely to be very last minute. Often that’s because I am overcommitted because I can’t say no. It’s not actually because I like the whooshing noise they make as they go past (sorry Douglas Adams). But Walt Disney wasn’t wrong. If I didn’t have a deadline I would faff forever. I need a deadline to get things done and focus the mind. I have accepted this as a way of working that sort of works for me. I faff around, I stop and start and never really get into it, I have ideas, I might even map them out, I procrastinate and then, with the deadline looming (or having arrived), I snap out of it and get shit done. It’s not pretty, sometimes it’s way more stressful than it needs to be but it’s how I have been getting stuff done all my life. I marvel at people who are organised, have an accurate sense of time and how long things might take and seem to be able to glide through life with a distinct lack of chaos. Deadlines can’t do that for me but they can at least ensure that I keep building my dreams – even if rarely on time.
100 Days of Wonder – #10
Perspective is a funny thing isn’t it. I like spending time at the Animal Kingdom, lots of time. I like the way taking time to watch the animals can flip the perspective. Who is watching and who is being watched? And I like the way the animals can also inspire stories in interesting ways, either because we can watch them from our very human perspectives, full of assumptions and preconceived ideas about life and the world, or for the opposite reason. What can we learn by watching if we try not to make any assumptions about what is happening? I spent ages watching the hippo half swim half walk a few laps on the bottom of their ‘lake’ before settling down as we see it in the picture. Almost immediately the bird came and used the hippo as a convenient perch in the water. What the picture doesn’t capture is how most adults didn’t see the hippo and most smaller children didn’t see the bird. Everyone was just looking at their eye level not bothering to look up or down. That’s what made me take the picture – I wanted a reminder that we rarely see the whole picture and if we want to get closer to doing so, we need to consciously deviate from our normal eye line. We might be surprised by what we see.
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