The Choir.

Watched ‘The Choir’, fabulous. Goes to show life is far better meeting challenges than sitting on your status quo. Quite made my heart weep with joy seeing all that delight generated by meeting them. But tell me, why do men move like they’ve never had sex in their life? I mean I’m no different but it intrigues me. We move like puppets. You can see our brains going, “So I move my knee to the right, oh right, OK now my left arm to a horizontal position, oh God and now my head round AND smile, no, no it’s all too much!” It’s not that with practice we could do it quicker it’s that this is our body we’re talking about. It can actually move itself very effectively without intervention from ‘head’ office. Burn your finger and it’s out of there before the e-mail about the forthcoming meeting regarding digit retraction has landed in a top floor in-tray let alone been discussed and a highly politicised memo passed back to the brachialis muscle in the forearm. But there’s probably a suspicion in all of us that to not go through this laborious process would lead to either collapsing in a heap on the floor or running naked through the streets shouting, “My mother was a sprout!” Abandon doesn’t work like that. Head office can still maintain an overview whilst leaving the lower floors to do a splendid job on their own. Everyone knows we do a better job than some muppet in the boardroom. But the inculcation of these management structures into our psyche is evident everywhere. “What on earth could my knee, or God forbid, my genitals, tell me about managing my personal corporate situation? Even my internal organs couldn’t grasp the complex decision making necessary to run this organisation!” We need to get a management consultant in. “Sir, may I call you Sir, you fail to realise you have an exceptional workforce using its best efforts every moment to support your company. Your constant interventions from above to control all their hard work is its single most damaging factor. Every single member of your workforce is best given the freedom to do what they do supremely well. All they need from you is good working conditions and to be listened to when they’re over worked.” Of course management says, “That’s all very well for him to say, he doesn’t have my responsibility to the share holders to think about.” What bloody share holders!? “Well there’s my family, neighbours, that person over there who’s looking at me, the woman on the train this morning who may have thought I had insufficient deodorant on, they’re endless.” And then to save the day Gareth Malone appears, da da didlly da de da, “Why not form a workplace choir?” Fabulous idea Gareth!