Put down the technology and talk
It has been a very difficult week. Sadly Tony Diggle a good friend and talented gardener decided to end his own life. Tony was just 44 years old, married to fabulous lady with three wonderful children. He must have been in terrible pain to do such a thing. He was an incredibly generous guy with a great desire to please and provide his family with all that he could and much more. He was the type of man that wanted his staff and customers to be happy and hated letting anyone down. Trying to please everyone all the time of course is impossible and the saddest thing of all is that Tony was loved and respected by his family and the wider community but obviously never realised what he offered was far beyond what was needed.
In a past life I worked as a volunteer for the Samaritans (called Suicide Hotline in the U.S.) which is a helpline for those feeling desperate and suicidal. It is something that I derived a great deal of satisfaction from and was a tremendous life experience. In these more than challenging times we need to reassure the people we are concerned with how much we do care and more than that, take time to listen to what they might want to say. Samaritans is a brilliant organisation to either call if you are feeling down or volunteer if you feel you could help and is a completely confidential service.
Work pressures as ever are often very high and with a combination of financial, social and material expectations, life can often seem to be bleak and overwhelming.
Over the past few months I have been pleased to see that many of my colleagues at thebigword have embraced our new buddy scheme which aims to support new staff who have recently joined the company, many from different countries and cultures. It is also great to see many of our staff volunteer with a number of the communal activities that the company is involved in.
It is a great challenge and pressure for us all to be a success at the workplace and more importantly at home, neither in my opinion need to be mutually exclusive of the other.
So please take a moment to make time to speak to friends, loved ones and colleagues. The operative word is talk! Not Twitter or Face Book or even SMS etc these can be great to receive but ‘talking is best’.
Looking forward to hearing how you are getting along and have a good week.
In a past life I worked as a volunteer for the Samaritans (called Suicide Hotline in the U.S.) which is a helpline for those feeling desperate and suicidal. It is something that I derived a great deal of satisfaction from and was a tremendous life experience. In these more than challenging times we need to reassure the people we are concerned with how much we do care and more than that, take time to listen to what they might want to say. Samaritans is a brilliant organisation to either call if you are feeling down or volunteer if you feel you could help and is a completely confidential service.
Work pressures as ever are often very high and with a combination of financial, social and material expectations, life can often seem to be bleak and overwhelming.
Over the past few months I have been pleased to see that many of my colleagues at thebigword have embraced our new buddy scheme which aims to support new staff who have recently joined the company, many from different countries and cultures. It is also great to see many of our staff volunteer with a number of the communal activities that the company is involved in.
It is a great challenge and pressure for us all to be a success at the workplace and more importantly at home, neither in my opinion need to be mutually exclusive of the other.
So please take a moment to make time to speak to friends, loved ones and colleagues. The operative word is talk! Not Twitter or Face Book or even SMS etc these can be great to receive but ‘talking is best’.
Looking forward to hearing how you are getting along and have a good week.
