Targets
Have you noticed, WordPress is now setting you goals? It is giving you targets to reach, five posts at a time, and when you reach your target, it sets you another five. It’s like working at McDonalds, collecting little stars for completing a task.
I am not sure if giving people targets to achieve, actually makes them do a job any better. I think they devote more time to achieving the goal, than they do to doing a good job. Targets can actually have the opposite effect than their original intention. Lets say, I am desperately worried about not achieving my next 5 WordPress posts. What do I do? The obvious answer would be, write less in each post. But that would make them less interesting. Therefor, the target has been reached, but the initial intention is lost.
I think, when you give the police, ambulance, the health service, and education, targets to achieve, you run a great risk of doing harm to the service we all expect. Great emphasis has been put on education, as successive governments have wanted more success in students grades, larger ratios of high pass levels. Yet when those targets are reached, some people question the results, asking “Have the exams become easier”?
What targets don’t take into account is… some children are fucking stupid. And what is overlooked is, we need the stupid people as much as we need the clever ones. If everyone is deemed clever, who on earth is going to do the shitty jobs? If you think I am being harsh, think back to your school days, and how many geniuses you knew in your class. Yet nowadays, everyone is expected to achieve. Stupidity is now someone else’s failure, a blip in a set of figures which needs to be addressed. Targets are a joke, and not a very funny one. If you give someone a target, they will work out how to cheat the system.
We went on this flower course, and we passed, which you may think is pretty cool… until you realise, all 21 of us passed. That’s a 100% success ratio! Highly unlikely, me thinks! But when you are paying for private tuition, you’d be pretty pissed to be handed a fail! So, although I really value what we learned, and we did learn a lot, I don’t value the certificate. It’s just something for show, something which may please a client. But it’s not something I personally cherish. I may value it more, if some people on the course had failed, because I believe, if the flowers had wilted and died in my hands, I would still have passed.
This tummy bug thing seems to be going around, I have heard a few people say they know someone who has had it, or has it, in some form or another. The technical medical term is “The Trots”! You’ll hear terms like… “Yeah so and so has the trots too”! This of course, refers to the main symptom of trotting back and forth to the toilet 20 times per day. Other symptoms include, making noises like you’ve just been shot, or fallen off a skyscraper, and occasionally mumbling stuff like “I wanna die”! These are all tell tale signs, so beware, the dreaded lurgy is amongst us! Don’t breath the air!
We were invited around to my folks for tea on Sunday evening, which was quite nice… it saved me cookin’! So, we set off to arrive there around 6-ish, which means leaving home, around 6-ish to drive the five miles or so… it seemed to work out, as we got there not long after 6-ish. I’m not sure how long “ish” is. I guess 6-ish stretches to about 6.15… when time changes and becomes known as “quarter past-ish”.
Matty is now cured of “The Trots”. The mere mention of food, just a couple of days ago made him feel ill… now he can stand in my Mums kitchen, and breath in Sunday roast. A sure sign, the patient is on the mend. Actually, there are other signs of being cured, as the patient regains interest in other areas too. But we won’t go into those.
We watched Top Gear, the first of the new series where Clarkson, Hampster and C’tain Slow, test drove three family hatchbacks for our perusal. The Lamborghini Aventador, the McLaren MP4 and the Noble M600… or as they are collectively known around here, cobble scrapers. They remind me of some of my acquaintances, very, very pretty, well poised, but also, pretty useless at anything practical. Nice to look at, nice to be inside, a nice pose to show your friends… but you wouldn’t want to live with one. High maintainance and expensive to look after… and always breaking down.
Actually, that’s not true… the Lamborghini is an Audi… they never break down.
Later, back at home, we also watched “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne”, a documentary, biography type film made by his son Jack. Now if there was ever an advert against too much drink, and too many drugs… Ozzy is that advert. When someone like Tommy Lee, says you are “Over the top”… and won’t hang out with you, because you are pretty gross… you’ve got serious problems.
I enjoyed watching, more for the music than anything else, but it makes me think my Dad is right. You don’t have to like someone as a person, to like what they do. You can like the music, and distinguish it from the man himself. Not that he’s not likable, he would just drive me nuts!
The weekend was pretty nice. Nice to be back to some normality after 3 days of mayhem. My Nan is still in hospital but she’s doing OK, more observation than treatment really. I’ve not been to see her, but others have, and they say she’s doing fine. My week coming up is pretty busy, as the flower course last week made me re-arrange a couple of photo jobs… Pretty good, as they could have got someone else, rather than putting up with my re-scheduling.
So, I had best get on with my day, and I’ll let you get on with your’s too…
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