Jackie Cameron - Coaching and Communication

Regular readers will know that I like to chat. In fact I think Twitter was evolved with me in mind. Actually - according to Wikipedia

Comedian Josh Marino created the twitter acronym; Typing What I’m Thinking To Everyone Reading

but as here in Scotland chatting a lot is known as wittering - I think that that is were it came from. But I digress .

I spent last week in New York with 5 girlfriends. Only 2 of us had been before and it was a joy to see the excitement of the others as we hit Times Square for the first time, or when they saw the Statue of Liberty from the boat , or when we reached the top of the Empire State Building ( hours of queues) and then again when we saw the Empire State Building at sunset from the Top of the Rock ( much much better). For us being in New York was a bit like being on a film set. Of course we had great fun together too.

As is often the case though the highlights of a trip are as much  to do with interactions with people as seeing the sights. New York was no different

• About an hour after we checked into our hotel we were in Times Square to pick up our New York Passes ( a great investment by the way). A young man approached me to ask me if we liked stand up comedy. Now of course he was selling tickets ( officially) but when I said that we were not interested he still chatted . A lovely welcome.
• One morning we were too early for the stores to open so we wandered into Central Park. The tour buses operate from there. Again we did not want to take a bus but the guy selling tickets who approached us walked along telling us about the city. Sure we might have changed our minds but he did not make us feel obligated. Next time maybe!
• In a bookstore I was browsing the business section when I was aware that the only other person nearby was sniffing loudly. Clearly he had a bad cold and I offered him some tissues. He introduced himself as Mathis, said he is planning a website on the back of the goodwill shown towards the US since President Obama’s election and I told him about Twitter. Fascinating for each of us - I hope.
• We decided we wanted to see a show - if we could get discounts. We saw the huge queue for the discounted tickets but there are people around who make sure that you only join the queue if you hav to. As we were happy to go along with ideas he suggested the show Altar Boyz. Now of course he gets a commission for sending us there but we got tickets at a price we were happy with and the show was great. Turned out also that he has spent some time in Aberdeen in Scotland and we had a chat about Scottish football .
• On the morning before we left to fly home we decided on another walk in Central Park taking the subway to 72nd St. Alas we did not read the signs well - rail works meant that the usual trains were not stopping there. We ended up at 128th ( I think) . A couple from Brazil( they told us) approached us and asked us what was going on. Their English was not good -  better than my Portugese though- but we made ourselves understood and they followed me ( no pressure..) backwards and forwards on the trains until we got to where we were heading.

It is  worth considering about stopping for a chat on any journey you are making - geographically or through your life. It can be very rewarding!

As I have mentioned before I am an obeyer of rules. On my flights last week I listened to the safety briefing from the cabin crew and I read the safety leaflet “in the seat pocket in front of me” because the Captain said I should. I expect that if airlines ever get to the stage where they do not think there was any point in this they would stop mentioning it!

Fire drills in the workplace can be a nuisance. I had to hang up on a client at a particularly tricky part of a conversation to take part in a fire drill. ( mind you the small break for each of us meant that we reached a conclusion more quickly than we might have otherwise..). And drills always seem to happen when the weather outside is at its worst.

These drills are there for a purpose too and after reading an article entitled “Staying Alive” in the Times this weekend it is all really clear to me.

Amanda Ripley has written a book based on 7 years research into how people “respond to extreme events” which evolved after - as a journalist - she was covering the aftermath of 9/11.  She  says that ” we vastly underestimate our survival chances” - which is great news.

What is even better is that she can tell us how to increase our chances of surviving.

She says that some people go blank in times of crisis - so add “freeze” to fight or flight - and that is no good at all. Our brains don’t function well when we are under extreme pressure  so “familiarity and knowledge”  which comes with drills can short circuit the paralysis response.

Last year I trained with our local Fire and Rescue service. Wearing full protective clothing and breathing apparatus we went into a burning building. The blackness of the smoke meant that for much of the time there was zero visibility and we worked round the room using the tips and techniques the firefighters had trained us in. Believe me - there can be nothing darker than a room full of smoke. So if you ever find yourself in that situation knowing your environment well enough to locate an exit would be critical. So by taking part in the drill you will have that information stored in your memory.

And by listening the the cabin crew you will know where your nearest exit is - not where you think it might be!

Ripley says that in real situations panic is rare. For those of us basing our fears on the disaster movies where someone - usually a women I have noticed - goes into panic mode and puts everyone else in danger that is good to know.

If you have time I urge you to read the full article ( link above). I found it enormously uplifting and encouraging. I will buy Amanda’s book.

In my previous post I mentioned that I was writing it in the local library in the main town in Shetland, Lerwick   and that i would then head for the airport to fly home to Edinburgh. That was at about 11.30 on Thursday 29th May ( that piece of information is important).

Over the previous week I had spent time in the Orkney Islands and had flown up to Shetland on Monday. The weather in the North of Scotland and the islands has been particularly good in May with long sunny days ( it gets dark very late in the evening and light very early in the morning) and although it felt a bit colder in Shetland it was still very pleasant. On my journey to the airport by the regular bus I realised that there was some low cloud settling and it would be fair to say that by the time I had reached the airport in the extreme south tip it was covered in fog.

Now of course we live in times where air tracking systems and planes can land and take off in all sorts of weather conditions but the added dimension in getting out of Sumburgh airport is that you can’t go anywhere if the plane you are travelling in does not get in first. And planes approach the runway from out at sea - which according to the lovely chap I spoke to at Kirkwall airport - is why they can take the planes that have to be rerouted.

Even though the planes that fly in and out of Shetland are only 35 seaters a few running late mean that the numbers of passengers clogging up the small airport terminal quickly grow. By about 4 hours after I had arrived 2 flights had already been cancelled and it did not look good for the flight to Edinburgh.

We were indeed cancelled along with those hoping to fly to Aberdeen and Inverness. Having to cope with really poor cell phone signal coverage which led to a series of disjointed calls and texts that arrived in the wrong order and also having rejected a 12 hour overnight ferry journey with no cabins available a mottley crew of us were left to be shipped back to Lerwick to stay in a hotel ( at British Airways expense - they were great throughout this whole saga).

During dinner ( also paid for) I learned that I was to be picked up at 6.30am to head back to the airport. When I got there I had a seat on a flight - to Kirkwall ( in the Orkney Islands so still not mainland Scotland) and then onto Glasgow. The observant amongst you will realise that I originally was heading for Edinburgh! But by this stage getting going was a really attractive option.

The flight to Kirkwall took 20 minutes - it was bright and sunny all the way. At the airport I now had a 4 hour wait til my flight to Glasgow. In the meantime all of those who were connecting to flights to Edinburgh ( there was one but it was fully booked), Inverness and Aberdeen headed off. The Glasgow flight was the last to go. We got to the departure lounge - and were told that there was a technical fault with our plane and we were delayed.

I have to say that at that point I felt I could take no more. 24 hours after first arriving at an airport to fly home I was once again waiting to see if indeed I would be able to. Because of the backlog of passengers from the day before and those who were always travelling on the Friday there were no spare seats to shift us to.

The little plane took off for a test flight and we kept our fingers crossed that it would come back safely - which it did - thankfully for the crew!

BA caved in and provided transport for me and the one other passenger who was trying to get back to Edinburgh and - having had to travel through Glasgow in the rush hour - I eventually got home at 6 pm on Friday - 26 hours later than I should have.

I have travelled a lot on business in my time. There have of course been delays and hitches - but nothing on this scale. But you know I learned a load from my this trip

• the people who live and work on remote islands have to build this into every trip they make. They take it in their stride
• and on that vein - divas take note - if you can’t get off the island you can’t get off the island! Full stop. Everybody has their reasons for needing to be somewhere else.
• at times of trouble it is easy to make new friends - I met a bunch of interesting people and we all clicked into “supporting each other ” mode. We even managed a few laughs.
• British Airways is taking a bit of stick right now for a whole load of reasons but their staff in Shetland and Orkney were great in really tough circumstances. Maybe they are used to it - but this was my only experience of delays on the islands.

After a week of lying on the beach, eating,drinking and sleeping  - my husband and I were happy enough to be heading home. There is a lot to do in the next couple of weeks and we felt suitably refreshed and ready to go.

We awoke to stong winds and torrential rain yesterday so that clinched it. We packed our bags and headed to the airport - looking forward to when we might be able to make another trip to paradise.

The queues at the airport alerted us that something was up.

British Airways’ “computers were down” . I don’t know what that meant in technical terms but it really caused disruption for us humans. All of the check-in process had to be done by hand. With pens and paper. And phone calls for each passenger to check what seats we should be in….. It took 4 hours to check all of the passengers onto our flight. Of course that meant we left late - and that also meant that we missed our connecting flight in London this morning and had a further 4 hour delay waiting for the next one.

Regular readers will know that I get cross about bad customer service. I started off feeling sorry for the staff dealing with this “crisis” yesterday until I realised that they did not seem to be doing any such thing. They were under attack of course - but a smile and an explanation would have gone a long way to settling people. Some information would have helped too. What did we get ? A photocopy of a letter from the Customer Services Manager ( handed out in the queue by someone who could have just passed on the message verbally) telling us that - wait for it - the computers were down. No kidding…

Now my husband had just read his annual book ( he only reads books on the beach) - the last Harry Potter book this time. He told me that the Dementers in the book could be overcome by positive thoughts - and encouraged me to overcome the dementers in the form of the uncommunicative staff and the irritating passengers right in front of me. One - a guy - who said that this always happened when he flew with British Airways and he had only made this trip with them in sufferance ( yeah right). The other was a lady who regaled anyone who would listen to tales about plane journeys she had been on that had gone wrong. And we were trapped. So I tried positive thinking - I really did - but even I ran out of positive thoughts.

One of the joys of being in the Caribbean is that everything is done in “Caribbean Time”. This really slows you down. Maybe that was why the BA staff at Grantley Adams Airport found it hard to step it up when they needed to.

Now I sound like a grumpy old “dementer” myself. Barbados is beautiful. We had a wonderful holiday.

Just in case anyone was wondering - I am having a wonderfully relaxing holiday in the Caribbean island of Barbados. Back next week for more conversations and observations!