Do you have any idea why decided blogging every day for the whole month of September was a good idea? Maybe you know I like setting myself up to fail - today is Day One and away we go with a theme of "Return" which thejamjar decides to resoundingly ignore.

Three things I considered writing

01: As I drifted off to sleep the other night, I construted the bones of a modern-day fairy story where a fair maiden learned to make jam. After all her years of honing her skills and becoming solidly average at making jam, an evil over-lord who didn't know how to make jam was employed by the realm and stopped everyone else from making jam rather than let people do what he couldn't do. The kingdom was jamless and the fair maiden and all the people in the land were miserable.

The story had a beginning and a middle but failed to resolve itself in the end. There could have been a fairy tale ending but seeing as the whole thing was based on a true story - it really needed a more realistic conclusion which I really couldn't imagine. Maybe every living miserably and jamlessly ever after is how life would have served it up afterall.

02: While I was in the kitchen here at work I thought about how we're (out in the real world) always banging on about putting the customer at the centre of the interaction/experience/service and how we (here in the unreal world) ought to think about doing the same thing with our colleagues.

When making decisions about filing systems or work functions or fund raising ideas or projects, putting our colleagues at the centre of the equation sure can make the process easier to define. For instance - when determining the best way to file something - think how someone new to the company might go looking for that file. Say it's the recipe for blackberry jam. One might put it in a file named JAM in order of when that recipe was developed: date order. Now as a new person, or a person unfamiliar with the history of the organisation, they will eventually find that recipe but they're going to have to flip through every page of that file before they find it (no, you can't search, we're in the unreal world where everything is hard filed).

Think if that new person thought "OKay, blackberry jam recipe might be in the RECIPE file, under JAM, under BLACKBERRY." if they were the smart kind of new employee. They are bound to find it faster than having to talk to three different vintage members of staff to find out that the recipe was developed for the Scone Convention of 2003 and eventually finding the recipe under 2003, MAY, 12, CONVENTION, AFTERNOON TEA, BLACKBERRY JAM RECIPE. And yet, we continue to date order here in the unreal world - if only we put our colleagues and future colleages into the centre of our decidings, how much brighter, and more sensible, our future might be.

03: Tonight when I go home, if all things are equal and a suitable vehicle was procured, there will be a roasted lamb with mint jelly waiting for my dinner. I think back to how many years it took me to learn to roast a lamb. It's a relatively simple dish, but like many simple things, you need to know a lot before mastering it. I considered writing - maybe making a video - about how to roast a lamb. That way, maybe one day, helping a hapless, hungry, housewife (I use that term loosely) to be able to do a decent job with a leg of lamb for her family.

My mouth just filled with saliva then.

What I ended up writing about

And so, as we start another sentence with a conjunction, I realise that this is really a warning to you, beloved reader. A warning that even though I run a self-indulgent blog, it's about to disappear down it's own navel gazing rabbit hole as I decide to write every day in September. Not only will there be a blog every day (oh man I already know that's just asking for trouble) there will also be more "I"s than ever used ever anywhere. Though maybe, if I (there I go again!) try and put the reader at the centre of my posts, I might come out with something that is of some use to some of you. Which in turn, will be of use to me.

My rules for myself this month are simple:

• blog every day
• use words - written or spoken
• a photo on it's own is not a post, Michelle
• let readers suggest topics or subjects in the comments of any day to help on those 'stucky' days when Michelle can't think of a blooming thing to say.

 

Wish me luck, adorable readers - as I wish luck to you if you're going to keep me in your RSS feed.