Simon Minty's recent thoughts and more

Spend a couple of minutes thinking about the answers to these questions.  What’s working ok for work and for home? What’s difficult? What do you do to make yourself happy?                         OK, I’ve thought about it. Here’s mine... Understated mug Work - Like many, I’m working from home. For me that means delivering virtual training. I’ve bought a fan to cool me as my office area gets hot. I have acquired two understated mugs so, during video calls I look professional and not a teenager with a Simpsons or Snoopy mug. I like my ‘commute’ from the kitchen to the office.  Home - Communication with my family is way more than usual. Video calls, audio calls, even the odd card or letter. I like that. I sleep a bit more.  Difficult - The loss of human contact, someone in the same room, a handshake, a hug, a wink. I miss going to dinner with an interesting person, not seeing theatre or ...

Lockdown, shake up, lay down This is longer than the page. On a desktop, scroll down the body of the text to read it all.  Well what are we to do? Everything has changed. We sort of saw it coming but by golly, it got big very quickly. I’m in lockdown in London. I don’t have a specific underlying condition in addition to my impairment, making me more susceptible. By the way I prefer the word susceptible to vulnerable any day of the week. However, I am staying in.  Going out for a bit I had a busy diary, March through mid-July. And then in the middle of March, I saw diary appointments, conferences, training, travel, all fade away. Within a week, my diary was empty, save a stubborn, optimistic appointment in July. I did my last face to face training on 17th March in Bristol; Managing mental health at work. It already felt like we (me and co-trainer Juliette Burton) shouldn’t be there. The hotel was empty and felt weird when we arrived. Hand sanitiser on every de...

Simon about to go on stage at EY, with a poster quote above him asking 'why do uncertain times need the certainty of purpose?' It's been quite a start to the year. Various projects were postponed from the end of 2018 and like a concertina, they bunched up into the start of 2019. That meant a lot of travel, including two trips to Berlin, one to Munich, then to Zurich, one to Australia and one to the USA all before April.  A trip to a very cold Berlin, in January was for pleasure as was the long trip 'down under', but the remainder have been work.  I love travel and working abroad. You can read how much in a  blog  from last year. Indeed, I've recently written a chapter for a forthcoming book about international consultancy and diversity with Middlesex University. However, on the final trip when I was in the USA I got what I only can describe as travellers’ blues. I've talked about it on stage at a few conferences subsequently with ...