Telephobia

Brothers and sisters, and you in the cheap seats, it is time that I came out of the closet and 'fess up here and now. I believe in washing my dirty laundry in public, which is why I have a blog, innit, and today is the day for me.

Those of you who know me well will know that I have a bad case of arachnophobia, which put another way, means I petrified of araks. Such a phobia is no good for those of us gainfully 'employed' in buildings that are old dark and a little dusty in places, and to be honest, some of the araks that I have seen have not only had tattoos, but were of a dimension to warrant widened seating on an aeroplane. But it is not my irrational fear of araks that I have come here to discuss. No. 

I am deeply, irrationally, and annoyingly fearful of telephones. I am not referring to the actual article, as a Nokia handset doesn't in fact send me into paroxysms of hysteria or an effervescence of self-flagellation. No, it is the activity of the telephone that does it for me, and let me tell you why.

Once upon a time, I didn't mind the 'phone ringing. It would be my nan or a friend (the former who would batter on for two hours without taking a breath), and as such a source of joy. Then retail happened. And not only retail, but retail management. At that point I acquired my new fear for a new generation. 

In retail, and in particular in a sales environment, the telephone ringing was rarely the harbinger of joy. Indeed, if your sport of choice was a heady and masochistic desire for aural abuse, then a shop telephone was the place to be, and you would be oft pleased. In flooring (my former retail environment), we were paid to advise and then relieve the punter of sums of money which, in my case, peaked once at £17k per order. In flooring, such sums are paid for goods that have been untested, of varying shades to the colour swatch, fitted by human hands which are not always perfect, and with expectations at levels that would trouble the Vatican Army. At the least level, the telephone ringing would be a hapless soul demanding the whereabouts of their order, either in terms of the large lorry crossing the English Channel or else in the back of a battered white Tranny when the stuff is to be fitted. The answer, with every step of best preparation and expectation management, was insufficient and lacking for Mr & Mrs Customer, and so it began - the tirade. The abuse. The name calling. 

Then it would turn eight-thirty and the day would begin in earnest.

Once, some chap was chasing a cheap mattress that he had bought a week prior and that was on a fortnight lead time. When reminded that the nasty foam sprung object was still a week away, his retort was, I kid you not, that it would have been better if I had been in one of those two Towers (for this call took place on September 12th of that notable year). For retailers, such abuse is commonplace and much lamented, but it also stops us loving the fruit of the telephone.

Evidently, it is akin to some social-phobias and anxieties that can emerge - and telephobia is not an irrational fear of a voice in the ear (after all, I have several in my head), but of ridicule and abuse. It is closely related to glossophobia which I don't have (thankfully, in my trade). 

The upshot of years of retail 'phone abuse (often perpetuated by the upper ranks within the organisation too, I might add, and who would ever like being called 'crap' and 'shit' before the doors are even opened), is that I really truly struggle to take or make a telephone call to or from anyone. I would rather insert, slowly, white-hot copper wire into my pupil than take a call - which is inconvenient in this mobile-age and in my line of work. I have to know who it is before I answer it (and the cost of Caller Display was a non-negotiable, even before food). I hate 'phones. Simple. Where telephone calls are required I am the procrastinator extraordinare, risking (and probably achieving) the reputation of one who doesn't care enough to call, or else that I am disorganised and forgot. 

Well this is my confession. It is altogether worse.

...and Oxford customers were the worst by a country-mile, by the way (from a range of thirteen stores that I managed across much of the south of Britain)

Measuring the Unmeasurable

In my last life, as part of the world of retail and commerce, every breath and every scintilla of an iota of anything was measured, assessed, judged and listed. League tables, charts, lines and the implicit status attached to those devices were a daily reality. 

For example, we were set turnover targets (the volume level of sales) and cash targets (the levels of payments taken against orders made). Beyond that there were the good old Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which varied from business to business. On one hand, the business would be measured on its sales expressed in pounds per square foot of shop as a way of assessing the right product blend and placement. Alternatively, we could be measured on our UPT (units per transaction), ATV (average transaction value), gross and net margin per order or across the store, the penetration (in the flooring world) of underlay within sales, or else of the added extras like stain treatments or insurances. These KPIs would, by the manager, require driving and improving, and all the while,and the blessed chart or league would be the aide memoire in this. Not only would we fight against our own targets but be placed in direct competition with other stores so that you not only worked to exceed your targets, but that you were chart-topping types too. Lines, graphs and charts. Each measurable has its own chart, its own line, its own graph - and these would be expressed in terms of figures per week (WTD), per period - PTD (a given month), a quarter - QTD (a period of thirteen weeks), YTD (year to date) and LFL (like for like when compared to like periods a year prior). And so on ... 

Fortunately, I seem to have been born with a mind that, in a Russell Crowe-esque kind of way, can determine patterns within numbers on an instinctive level without a calculator. Give me ten minutes in front of thirteen pages of reports and I would be able to tell you who, why and indeed when, the weak link was so that the Buzzards could descend and Performance Manage them out of existence. 

Then I got myself ordained. 

What you discover in the ordained life is that you are exactly the same person pre-collar. you bring your own autisms and gifts, your own baggage and silage. You think like you previously thought and see the world through the same eyes in the self-same way. The ontological change may well be internal, but it doesn't grant you an whole-body transfiguration. So, take a man whose world is bounded by KPIs and put him into a place without them, and see what happens (forgive the exclusive language, but I am (I think) male). 

Curacy is a blessing because the boss in many ways replaces the edges formed by figure-work and the charts. Direction is given and feedback received and in the end, the week is completed. There is a due sense of achievement and of "hitting target" which is a compelling and positive feeling for those of us familiar with it. Such feelings are also addictive so that when one's curacy ends and we move to a place where there is a distinct lack of training-incumbent, the lack of edges and devices for measuring forms not freedom, but precipitous edges over which one could, and indeed does, fall. 

The joys of priesthood are many and varied and I wouldn't do or be anywhere else. Sadly, it is entirely free of measurables except the pathological need to increase numbers of bums on pews. The other one is paying the bills, but that is about it. This is a world that for some would be refreshingly free and I can appreciate that, but for target-intuitive people, it means that there is no line to inform us when the job is (if ever) done. So, if you are like me, you carry on working, striving towards a line that will never appear, working towards a target that was never set. There be danger here. Some people need edges and some people need to have edges removed or lowered. I need edges and so wonder how I might find them. 

Oddly, for one like me (and I am not alone), the pursuit of the ellusive target corrodes the one measurable that always gets corroded by people like me. Me. The measurable that is my health and well-being is sacrificed to the unmeasurable and non-quantifiable, and after a very positive ministerial review, have established my own self as a KPI in the little world of Cloake Priesthood and Ministry Plc. So, at 1.15pm on a Friday in September, I am going to stop work, have some lunch and do no more work today. I feel a slob-out session coming on. 

Happy New Year

Hello world!

You may, and not entirely unreasonably, be wondering why I am wishing you all a Happy New Year. Surely it is still August; surely the daylight (here, at least) lingers until almost 8pm; surely the Turkey population of Norfolk is in fine fettle. While I am at it, let me introduce you to the cartoon characters that most helpfully illustrate my personae - the one people think I have and the one I actually have. There you have it, in the forms of Ren and Stimpy, a timely pointer to my inner-misanthrope. 

Well, I took my rest. I stopped, I read, and indeed have written. It is true to say, dear reader, that I am using you as an excuse to step away from all matters "epiclesis", such as is my scholarly pleasure these days. The summer has proffered its own ups and downs but the English weather has erred towards the optimistic and my vegetables grew so that is alright. In fact, if you want runner beans, let me know - I am sick of bloody runner beans. 

Back to my unseasonal greeting. It bares a specific relationship to my last post when I effectively signed off for a while. During the intervening period I have also had a specific and full break from work (including the severing of electricity from the Silicon Chip Mistress for a full two weeks). I have discovered the very real pleasures of the Isle of Wight and enjoyed some very real quality time with my family. I continue to miss the worlds of Twitter and Facebook but not the effects that they had on me. Now, you may know what I mean when I say that in taking some time away (and I even locked my own study door and gave the key to someone else) I found some return to form in terms of creative juice. During my ordained ministry I have discovered that the summer holiday becomes a very rich seam for new and good ideas. So much so, in fact, that the return to work after a good summer holiday feels like a proper and good new beginning. 

For all sorts of reasons I have had to give serious thought to my working patterns. I, like all clergy, am my own worst enemy and only by my own hand will I live or die in this job. Fr Haggar will claim that I am bragging again, but the truth is, that 60-70 hour weeks, every week, is tantamount to gentle suicide and as such is quite removed from boasting about being awfully busy, to being a confession about getting the balance completely wrong. I think it is fair to say that I have approached my incumbency with the mindset of a business manager. I have placed high regard on targets in their form, the delivery of the product, getting it "right", success and growth. When I was a business manager, I was fairly successful and it paid the mortgage, but that was that and this is this. I am not a business manager, yet have significant responsibility for the Parish Plc. There is, whether we are honest about it or not, something of a spiritual profit involved, and for those profits to slip is regarded as anathema, failure, bad, wrong. So what to do?

Do you know what? I am going to try and achieve more by doing less. I am going to stop more, even start having lunch once in a while. The fact is, my summer vacation has been teaching me a yearly lesson that I have completely lost sight of - that when I am still, God speaks. When I am silent, I hear. When I shut my eyes, I see. When I stop thinking, I start to learn and begin to know. When I put down the tools of the trade, I can become very creative. It is also fair to say that pathological workaholism is an uneasy escape from the real work that is asked of a priest.

And after all, the results weren't and aren't ever really mine in the first place. 

Happy New Year, friends. Thank you for your companionship and for taking the time to stop by and read my paltry offerings. You are a blessing. 

Flannel-Squeezing

Daily routine with the kids is great in its own chaotic way. They have learned much of the basics of civilized human behaviour, and all that Mrs Acular and I need do is simply supervise. 

The other evening, I sat on the loo-lid, bemoaning in my heart what a lot of work I didn't manage to accomplish that day, while one of the Twins Aculae undertake her evening lavabo. My presence in the room was as much for the preservation of the condition of the bathroom floor and the avoidance of flooding as it was to do with the suitable removal of soap curds from the nether-places. Lost in my reverie of self-flagellation, it took me a moment to see that the little mite was struggling herself. 

She had daubed much detergent around her face and had rinsed her flannel. Because I grumble when she drips all over the floor, she laboured hard to squeeze the flannel free of excess water. Two hands, one spectacular grimace, the merest suggestion of a new vernacular and it was clear that she had squeezed the thing free of life so far as she could. But drip it did, and frown I did. I stated the profoundly obvious (a man thing, I believe) and suggested that she squeeze it again. She 'cleaned my windscreen' with a recounting of her previous fruitless labours, and started to become upset because she was not capable of removing a single molecule more. She even demonstrated it - knuckles white with exertion, skin waxen with the removal of blood. 

Then I did that other thing that all men do. I offered to solve the little-lady's problem. Here, let me have a go. And yes, I squeezed four and a half litres out of the jolly thing. With a single (and I venture to say vice-like) grip of my hand. Floods of water, a child looking askance at her smug father, and a moment of absolute revelation. 

I don't want to be needlessly schmaltzy, but after my effervescent internal self-apology for all that I couldn't and didn't do that day and in the presence of a little child who did all that she could with what she had, I saw it clearly. It is another statement of the obvious that I don't do what I do in my own strength anymore than the freshly fragranced spawn of my loins could wring that flannel dry alone. God is in there somewhere. In that simple transaction, undertaken so many times before and since, I learned to stop trying to do it all, alone. In that, I am most heartily guilty and also perhaps guilty of not receiving help well when it is offered. The second lesson for me was in her simple, but sufficient "thank you daddy". 

Killing the Old PCC

Kum Ba Ya, M'lud

Fret not, I am not about to emerge as the next headline after One Direction have moved aside. I have not strolled into church with my Ouzi Nine Millimeetah and popped caps into asses. No, none of that.

But ... the Old Order is no more. A new dawn breaks over Whitton.

Those of you familiar with the Parochial Church Council as an entity will know that it is a gathering of the willing who gather periodically to be talked at, either by the Vicar or else the Treasurer, or else the wind-bag who always has an argument for every occasion. They are normally constituted by the faithful and willing who, when they are elected are bright-eyes and fluffy-tailed. By the end of their tenure, they are The Haunted - characterised my sallow-eyes and rictus grin. They will have given up many hours of useful life and devoted it to sitting in and among the Windbags (see above), then dutifully getting on with the task in hand - or put another way, everything that needs doing around the place. 

The level of work covered is very distinctive at such meetings. The wattage of the bulb for use over the Decani choir stalls, so that Old Mrs Miggins cataract isn't scorched; the pile gauge and weight of the carpet sample for the littlies to sit on so that their fragile derrieres are not assaulted by the curvature of medieval stone; the correct  brand of nasty powered-coffee for use after parish events with and without liturgy; the colour of the door knob to the parish office up the stairs that no-one can climb without crampons and a rope; oh, and the pre-payment and accrual basis of the accounts in the fiscal year to date (that only a graduate accountant can fathom). Get the idea?

Well, things they are a-changing. I have never enjoyed sit-in-circles PCCs where every minute detail of every irrelevancy is discussed to the Nth degree (by three people while the remaining fourteen lose the will to live). There is much to be learned by the models established by many school Governing Bodies. 

From now on, the members of my next PCC will all belong to a committee. There will be six committees that range across all of parish life (comms, finance, pastoral, hall, buildings and fabric, children and young people). They needn't run those committees, but be critical friends and communicators (in both directions of that). They will submit reports prior to PCC meetings so that we can read them and come armed to fewer meetings, not more. There will be no such person as a PCC member who does not exist on a committee. What would be the point? In the end, it won't be the onerous duty of a dozen or so press-ganged people to run the entire show; with smaller groups working in this way, half the parish will share the fun.

Struggling for Stability

Sometimes you get weeks when things are busy and then there are weeks like the one I am having at present. It would be fair to say that I am working to absolute capacity this week, simply due to an un-plannable convergence of several factors - largely to do with the Occasional Offices and the needs of Lent and the imminent Passion.

As I sat in London traffic, a few days ago, bang below the landing flight-path to Heathrow, I watched a vast Boeing 747. It was a windy day - the sort you get when weather is fast approaching. It was blustery, so the pedestrians walking up and down West Hounslow's shopping streets were being buffeted all over the place.

And so was the plane. The first thing I noticed as the 600,000lb lump of aluminium descended was that despite appearing to be progressing gracefully in a very straight line (as they all seem to do when they descend), it was in fact flying at a rather odd angle into the wind. It was, to a lesser extent, flying sideways. The next thing I noticed is that as the people on the High Street were being jostled, so was this jet. As it approached my position, the effects of the wind upon it became more noticeable. It was being knocked all over the place. The wing on one side suddenly lifted and the plane made a perceptible slide to the other side. It corrected and the next salvo of invisible air came upon it. In every way, the plane was struggling just to maintain that air of graceful line-drawing to the ground.

As I sat in the car my first reaction was "I know how you feel, plane". The job of ministry is characterised by being very unpredictable. One week has the sense of being "quiet", with time to read and ponder. An hour later and the customary scan of the answer-machine, and a week of abject chaos ensues. In many ways, I have to be seen to be dignified and maintaining course. I don't think that the people of the parish need to be troubled with my wrestling with time and duty - that is not the relationship we have. When the fingertips have the feeling of losing grip in the crumbling edges, I have to look for all the world like I am stood on granite. 

To be sure I am not complaining - simply observing.  There are weeks like this, and all matters squeezed into each one is a privilege. It is just nice to know that at times I am not the only one ... as if I ever was!




As an aside, I have been amused to note that my ditty last week about One Direction has now been viewed in excess of 70,000 times. Such is the unpredictable Interweb!

House, Home & Office

May I introduce our lovely new home. Featured on the front page of the parish website for some time, I thought I would expand its cyber-fame.

House meet Readers

Readers meet House

That's that sorted then.

And what a lovely house it is. It has all we need plus thirty rooms that we can count as surplus (or where I can count my surplices, who knows), a wonderful mature garden with large trees and concomitant squirrels. We have presocratic Rhododendrons, a superfluity of lavender and much Christmas fodder in the form of re-planted trees and a significant sting of emergent holly. We have two foxes (those with fluffy tails, boys) and a significant flutter of wood pigeons. The two wild green parakeets are a mystery to us and out-yell Boeing 747s, but they add to the ambiance.

But this pile isn't simply home. To Mrs Acular and the Twins Aculae, it is - but to me it is the office, as it is to the parish administrator. In the last house, it was more home than office, as I didn't 'have people round', and we were miles from the church (all by plan - I am a welcoming host). This house will be where I receive guests, entertain visitors, hold meetings - and the usual scripting of sermons and all that. There has to be a boundary set, for the preservation and protection of all concerned, and then there is the invisible boundary that I have to set that means that I am not always at work (or never at work if I am a lazy sod). In this, I journey along a new road.

Yes, having tied accommodation is a joy, honour and privilege. We are incredibly fortunate and considerably blessed by it. At Theological College the tell us to 'work' a number of sessions a day, but not all. Some clergy abide by this fastidiously, others (read 'me') do not. The failing is on my part, as I am a self-confessed workaholic; though it is easy with work such as mine as it is so darned good.

Clocking off, for want of a better term, is hard. I can retire from the study and pad across the newly carpeted hallway to fashion a meal for la Famille d'Aculaire, but then I am only ten feet away from The Harridan Emailer and the Siren Telephone. They carry on unremittingly, and we clerics are endlessly lured to their bidding. Days off to date have been grand as the kids have been home, but from now on, they will be at school. Wife might even find herself a job, so my day off may mean me sitting at home with nothing but Harridan and Siren - to wit, no day off (much). It can be a problem.

Advice for clergy is to bugger awf on days and weeks off. To undertake a Staycation is to maintain a de facto Stayatworkation. So, we have to escape home which feels odd at times. This boundary setting permeates much of what we do. We want to be gracious and willing hosts all the while preserving safe space. We want and need to relax but our diligence means that very often the danger is we carry on until the job is done (which it never is). Danger!

For now, before 'work' starts, I will enjoy the new Cloake Castle. God Bless this house and all who dwell in and visit it.