Waking up with John Humphrys

Every morning I wake up to the dulcet tones of broadcaster and journalist John Humphrys on Radio Four’s Today programme. He doesn’t exactly whisper sweet nothings into my shell-like, he can be quite disagreeable and argumentative, but something inside of me stirs and he gets me going every time in a way my Goblin Teasmade just can’t do.

Radio Four is one of the wonders of the modern world and represents everything that is great about the British Broadcasting Corporation or the BBC or the Beeb or Auntie as it’s variously and affectionately known. Being a pensioner, I no longer have to pay for my ‘TV licence’ but, for all those years I did, I never begrudged a single penny, not when I thought about the range and the quality of the services and programming on offer.

Now I read that Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw wants a debate on the future of funding for public sector broadcasting. Well Ben Bradshaw, Doris Brazil has had enough of you! Great Britain needs an institution that is motivated by quality not by profit, that has the resources to invest in world class natural history programming and sumptuous period drama, which delivers local as well as national news, and that provides intelligent radio twenty four three hundred and sixty five; an institution that has John Humphrys.

Cling film and Selloptape

“How many times do I have to tell you, to fold over the edge of the Sellotape when you’ve finished with it?”

The question was aimed at Flo and was not meant to be rhetorical.

She continued to fold cardigans, saying nothing, knowing very well this would infuriate me.

“I seem to spend half my waking hours hunting for the edge of it.”

Still silence. Did I let the subject drop? There was a bit of an atmosphere and I was worried customers would pick up on it, so I decided to clear the air. But not before Flo had acknowledged her misdemeanour.

“My eyesight isn’t what it was,” I said. “I must have spun this roll a hundred times, if only you would fold the edge when you’ve finished, it would save so much trouble.”

I had given Flo had an ace to serve. A perfectly poised opportunity to apologise.

Nothing.

I thought I was going to have a brain haemorrhage  there on the spot. And then Flo spoke.

“I have the same problem with cling film at home,” she said, without looking up.

I had every right to be frustrated, by the way Flo has directed my ear-bashing about the here and the now to something out of DBLW’s sphere. And also the misleading implication that these things just happen; that they are commonplace.

It was at this point I remembered my coaching skills. Many years ago I attended a management course at The Grand Hotel in Torquay. Called ‘Performance Coaching and Leadership Challenge with Occupational Organisational Stress Management including Developing Psychological Resilience & Impact – a Cognitive-Behavioural Approach’, at the time it felt like the the best two hours I’d ever spent. Drawing principally upon NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) techniques I would coach my co-worker into admitting she was infuriating.

I began by mirroring her body language, to build some empathy. So we folded cardigans together while I chose my words carefully, there must be congruence between language and message.

“All I’m saying, is don’t do it again,” I said.

If I could have stayed on my feet while simultaneously kicking myself, I would have done. The moment had got the better of me; I had forgotten everything I had been taught. That was not coaching.

In for a penny, in for a pound; I was just about to tell Flo that it was no coincidence that the Sellotape had almost given me an aneurism whilst her cling film was playing up, that when it came to rolls of diaphanous plastic, she was the common denominator… when the first customer of the day entered the shop.

We caught each other smiling at the lady, and we smiled at each other. At the end of the day Flo is a professional and we would bury our differences and pull together for the good of the organisation. And that that is how we roll.