I like London in August. You tend to get space to think. And with the parliamentary recess well underway and most of our elected representatives away, we have a welcome opportunity to reflect on what has been a truly turbulent year.
In the last few months it has sometimes been very hard to truly make sense of what is happening. Failed financial services sector, collapse in the property market, Allowance-Gate, soaring unemployment, nationalised banks, an election on the horizon, the London Olympics around the corner......we certainly live in a funny old world.
Sometimes you need some distance and perspective. Recharging the batteries is essential - we're only human after all - harnessing every ounce of energy and focus to address these challenges is vital.
Returning to London, I was really disappointed to catch up on the ongoing dispute between National Express and the RMT causing so much disruption to the lives of poor commuters travelling to London from East Anglia.
In particular, I was very worried about Scary Ange (the formidable, stick-thin, force-to-be-reckoned-with who manages an extraordinary 14 people's diaries in my department at CBRE).
Ange is a single mum who commutes on the c2c into the City from Grays and I was anxious for her. But I need not have feared, c2c are not part of the dispute and she has been singing the praises of c2c (and the wonders of air-conditioned trains and, it would also appear, the cheaper train fares!).
No, the real horror stories came from poor Michelle from Broxbourne, having to spend £50 a day to get into work as she had to take cabs from her home to Epping to pick up the Central Line and another of Scary Ange's pals getting a ticket on her car at Pitsea for parking there, despite the fact that it was previously agreed there would be free parking at various car parks (I understand this was taken off the website the day after it had been on there; scandalous really).
We also have the ongoing postal workers dispute and I have to say I think the collateral damage caused to the Post Office by its trade unions over the last ten years is, frankly, unforgivable. We used to have the best postal service in the world.
And now I hear that London firefighters are planning strike action. Where will it all end?
Industrial unrest on top of this painful recession is something that I truly dread (and I trailed this anxiety in the blog some months ago). We need to avoid this at all costs. Management and employee representatives must sit down and work through their issues.
It is in no-one's interest for us to have another Winter of Discontent. Given the meltdown currently being witnessed in many other aspects of our lives, I fear this is a very real danger.
This is indeed A Moment and we need to grasp it. We must find a way through.
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