Trying too hard, Parts 1, 2 and 3

Trying too hard (part one)

Balfour Beatty, our biggest construction firm, are building some offices in central London. A construction company in Rome or Paris or Barcelona would display a little dignity and style, and screen their scaffolding  with an unadorned illustration of the finished project behind. Maybe it goes with being the country’s biggest construction company, but BB have chosen instead to make some important corporate statements.

The first is about safety on site. Every construction site has a sign of some kind on that topic, warning of hazards, counselling against risk. This one is displayed in two-metre high type. It says:

WE WILL ACHIEVE ZERO HARM.

ZERO DEATHS.

ZERO INJURIES TO THE PUBLIC.

ZERO RUINED LIVES AMONG ALL OUR PEOPLE.

What? To whom did they delegate the task of writing this? The Workers’ Safety Committee? The Department of Corporate Anguish? You hardly need to close your eyes to hear Martin Luther King pounding it out on some angry Southern rostrum.

It’s supposed to be reassuring. To confirm in us a feeling of confidence in their dedication to safety. But it does the opposite.

It raises in us the cold fear of the possible. We all knew construction accidents were unpleasant, at best. But the news that they can affect the public, as well as the guys who forgot to don their hard hats, is novel and alarming. And the notion that they can be bad enough to Ruin the Lives Among All Our People strikes a deadly chord of plague, pestilence and war.

Yes. I know they mean what they say. They write from the heart. But there are times when it’s best to temper the message. We all fear for our loved ones at times. Travelling alone. Walking in the dark. But we just say ‘keep safe, love.’ We don’t add ‘because you might be grabbed around the throat by a crazed half-man-half-ape, raped, strangled, then beheaded with a blunt spoon before being hurled into a septic whirlpool full of starving killer whales.’

When I see the Balfour Beatty sign, I cross to the other side of the road, until I’m safely past. I hope All Our People do the same.

Trying too hard (part two)

Adjacent to their Martin Luther King speech, Balfour Beatty have given in to the wretched impulse to spill the corporate mission statement, or vision, or whatever they call it these days. It says ‘How we’ll get there’. There, presumably, is the place where zero lives are ruined among all our people. A kind of corporate promised land. The process involves: Leading, Simplifying, Rethinking, Involving, Learning and Tracking.

What a mess. Everybody can’t lead. You can’t simplify something as necessarily complex as a construction project (you’re paid to cope with the complexity, guys). Please don’t rethink the bloody thing when it’s half built. Don’t involve any more people than you absolutely have to. If you must learn on the job, make sure it’s on somebody else’s job, not mine, please. And as for tracking, well. Three white men went that way. About an hour ago. One of them is wounded in the leg.

Trying too hard (part three)

These civil engineers with a compulsion to communicate also proudly claim that they are ‘committed to preserving heritage within (sic) the creation of an inspiring new office environment’.  A picture captioned Project Start shows a dignified and elegant four-storey late Victorian commercial terrace, in good shape. Alongside it, a picture captioned ‘Project Finish’ shows the terrace replaced by a brutalist lump of piggy-eyed grey concrete.

They may possibly achieve Zero Harm on the construction site. If the finished job demonstrates their commitment to preserving heritage, Maximum Harm springs to mind.

Keep it simple, your honour.

Why is Judge Judy one of America’s highest-rated TV shows? Why is her show so popular with viewers all over the English-speaking world?

The plaintiffs and defendants are very ordinary people. Some of them would appear to be naturally delinquent, to some degree. Few of them seem to be the beneficiaries of higher education, and doubtless none of them would claim to be intellectuals. In truth, they’re not really very interesting people.

The cases are trivial. He stole my TV. She owes me a hundred bucks. We wonder if these matters would ever have come before a real court in the first place. Are they really proper court material, we ask?

And Judge Judy herself is not someone you’d want to appear before – or maybe even sit beside on a bus.

Dull cases, brought by ordinary, sometimes rather dull, people. Cases determined in summary style, often perversely, by a generally unlikeable judge.  What makes it such compelling viewing?

Simplicity. There are goodies and baddies. We can quickly decide who’s which, and take sides.

We can try and predict  for whom the judge will find, and why. And it’s all over in a relative flash. Three or four cases in half an hour?

People like justice. Of course we do. In a world where we sometimes doubt such a quality exists, we can watch Judge Judy dispense it rapid-fire. When we agree with her, we’re reassured. When we disagree, we can relish our righteous indignation.

And this isn’t play stuff. Scheindlin’s findin’s are bindin’. As far as the participants are concerned, this is as good as a real court of law.

But, by golly, it’s so simple. Unlike a real court of law, we can understand it. Because Judge Judy speaks not only like hizonner, but – you remember that junior school teacher? In fact, you remember how that junior school teacher treated you almost like another parent?  In language we could – and still can – clearly understand. That made it very clear who was wrong, and who was right, and what ought to be. There’s no mistaking Judge Judy. If you done wrong, you’ll know all about it. If you bin wronged, she may not like you, but she’ll look after you.

And don’t you dare answer back…

Judge Judy is about as authoritative as one could wish to be. Everyone listening to her knows where they stand. Everyone listening knows exactly what she means. The way Judge Judy delivers it, even though you may not like it, you know she’s right. At worst, you suspect she’s right.

And she does it without long speeches, without long words, without pompous oratory.

Come on guys, there’s a lesson here. Keep it simple. Keep it short. And keep it in plain language. Easy Understanding Wins Followers.

You may be a businessman, or an official, or a politician. But if you can engage your audience the way Judge Judy does, they’ll keep coming back for more. Even if they don’t like you.

They really wouldn't like it

The aggrieved family are interviewed outside the courthouse, asked about the reaction to the acquittal of the man who set fire to their house.

They say ‘ We’d just like to say how angry we are…’

A senior Army officer is interviewed on the radio.  Some of his troops had got carried away with war, and had abused a prisoner. The regiment was ashamed.

He says ‘ I’d like to apologise, most sincerely…’

The CEO of the oil company is asked about spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico. He says ‘ I’d like to say how sorry we are…’

None of them mean it.

They certainly don’t like saying these things. They don’t enjoy it, and there’s no pleasure in making their statements.

The aggrieved family can be forgiven. They almost certainly don’t have helpers experienced in the matters of media interviews and public statements.

The army officer does, though. And the CEO. They should know better. They should pick their words more carefully.

‘I have to say how sorry we are…’

‘I must apologise…’

Or even ‘We regret. We are sorry. We apologise.’

It’s not that listeners forensically examine such statements, looking for poorly-chosen words and phrases. We hear – and listen – very quickly these days. On the run, on the fly. We don’t remember the exact words. Rather, we absorb a sense of someone’s meaning. On the way, we unconsciously calculate their sincerity.

Everyday words and phrases slip by us un-noted. Speakers often introduce a statement with ‘I’d like to say – this or that.’  It’s commonplace.

But something happens with a change of words. Phrases such as ‘We regret’ or ‘We’re sorry’ or ‘We apologise’ are much less commonplace. They trigger that little extra recognition that turns a statement away from the glib, toward the genuine. All without the listener really knowing it’s happening.

Just a few better-chosen words can change a message from one that people hear – into one to which they listen.

Let's all sing from the same list of words

Robust. That’s the word of the month.  Ask anyone in government about the UK’s summer riots, and the response will include the word ‘robust’.

Doesn’t matter who you ask. Robust policing. Robust legislation. Robust sentencing. A robust approach. A robust response.

Alright, alright. Enough with the robustness. We get it. You plan on not pussyfooting around.

But it’s not credible. This month’s buzzword turns fast into this month’s cliché. And clichés simply skate lightly and unrecognised across a listener’s awareness. They become a devalued currency.

What happened? Did someone in Downing Street send a text to everyone, telling them the key word was 'robust'?  Fine, if they also allowed the speakers to choose their own form of words to mean the same thing (as if they were people with independent minds).

May be the speakers simply wanted to sound like The Leader – ‘I’m on the same page as David, y’know’.  Maybe they were afraid of not sounding like The Leader – ‘if I say something different, it may backfire on me. If I say what Downing Street says, at least I won’t be blamed on my own’.

Or maybe they just thought robust was a bloody good word, and couldn’t come up with anything better.

Any of these possibilities is worrisome. Of course the management team should sound like it’s together on an issue. But parrot-speak is pointless.

When a director ‘gives’ an actor his lines, he’s doing the acting for him. The result is simply bad, unconvincing acting. Let the actor find a way to deliver the meaning, and suddenly, the performance goes from ham to convincing. Same when some turkey in corporate communications tells the management team what to say. Two spokesmen later, the strategy is glaring.

When a spokesman decides to copy his guv’nor, he simply sounds like a mindless puppet (OK, so all puppets are mindless, but we’re trying to make a point here). Nobody really believes he means what he says.

When people are well-briefed, in a constant and fundamental way, they’ll know the right thing to say without waiting for an SMS script. There’s a chance people will begin to believe them.

If they don’t instinctively know what to say, without being given their lines, maybe they shouldn’t be in that role. And if you don’t trust them to say the right thing on their own, maybe you shouldn’t be managing them.

And besides, most of the time they don’t mean robust. Robust defences, robust legislation, maybe. Robust policing? Robust sentencing? No. If they really want to stick to the theme there, the word they should use is robustious.

Bet they don’t.

This is no time to be coy

Good sailing shoes are waterproof. Which usually means, they don’t ventilate well. Smelly shoes are often a notable facet of life aboard small boats.

My own shoes got a degree too lived-in on a recent passage from Liverpool to Southampton. The rest of the crew were pretty kind about it. But I know that’s what they were doing, so I resolved to prevent the problem happening again.

I bought a bottle of shoe deodorant.  This is what it says on the label:

Clarks Odour Killer Spray with its unique odour-eliminating formula disrupts the metabolic process of unwanted odour-causing micro-organisms and thus interrupts their ability to function, grow and reproduce.

Run that by me again? Ignore the 27-word, one-sentence length of the paragraph. Even the first and only comma, three words from end, has a begrudging feel about it..

But my point is this: what we read isn’t selling copy. It’s a lazy parroting of the manufacturers’ brief to the packaging designers. It’s a rambling explanation of how the stuff works. It doesn’t make me feel any better for buying it.

Surely, if we disrupt the metabolic process of anything to the point where it can’t function, grow and reproduce (which is a bit like saying ‘Hello, good evening and welcome’), we pretty much kill the beggar. That, I’m sure, is how your average smelly-trainer-wearing jock would prefer to articulate it. And why do we specify that it works on unwanted odour-causing micro-organisms? Aren’t they all unwanted? Does it spare the wanted ones?

What’s wrong with telling it like it is? Odour Killer Spray kills the bugs that make shoes smelly. One squirt, and your shoes are fresh again!

I know what’s wrong with it. It means hiring a writer. But nowadays, the ability to touch-text is more highly regarded than the ability to spell, or parse a sentence. No need to pay someone to do what I can do myself, they say.

The label also features two simple drawings. One of a hand, squirting the stuff from the bottle into a shoe. In case you don’t know how to squirt deodorant into a shoe. And a picture of a shoe drying. Little lines throb and radiate from the entire shoe. Those little lines make it look just like the stinky shoe it was in the first place …

I guess they didn’t want to hire an art director, either.

He didn't really mean that, part III

They have introduced a new kind of driving test. The new challenge for would-be qualified drivers is: navigation. At a certain point in their test, candidates will be asked to follow the road signs to a particular destination. Yes, really.

You might think this part of the test had already been covered by some element of the basic literacy education which most of receive. And no, it's not an anti-immigrant language skills thing - reading a road-sign is different to reading a newspaper. The reasons for this new element of the driving test are explained by Mr Trevor Wedge, who holds the unlikely position of Chief Driving Test Examiner. He was interviewed on the wireless this morning.

Mr Wedge said, and I quote him verbatim: 'We want to drive down casualties on our roads, and we know that new drivers, particularly, have difficulty especially in the first few months after their test.'

Drive down casualties on our roads? How reading direction signs helps drivers do that, I can't imagine. We might be better off if we lined up people, at random places on the carriageway, and scored the test candidates on the basis of how many they could 'drive down', like skittles.

And if we can't get Mr Wedge on a communications course very quickly, perhaps we should start with him as the first skittle.

How not to American Express yourself

I try not to make individuals the target of my criticism. On the basis that we all make mistakes, I prefer to carp about collective conduct. But when somebody is described as an ‘Editor-in-Chief’, they’ve been set up as some kind of higher being, and deserve specific scrutiny. After all, might we not learn from someone who is a something-in-chief?

Christian Swalbach is Editor-in-Chief of a vain publication called Departures. It’s a magazine published by American Express. It’s supposed to make us feel affluent, and to encourage us to rack up more expenditure on our American Express cards. On the way to doing that, it publishes ads for ridiculous watches, daft motor cars, stupid boats, and silly fashion. It also wallows in what it evidently kids itself is mellifluous up-market editorial copy.

You and I both know very well that, these days, rich people can’t read nor write. They don’t need to. They have people to text for them. But it’s the way of those who promote conspicuous consumption – and I should know – to lard things up with oily imagery and pompous copy. They simply hate the idea that their target audience might be plumbers and plasterers and car-dealers. And sadly, though most of those who flick through Departures magazine may never note the shortcomings of Mr Swalbach’s careless copy, you and I will. And, you’ll agree, that’s enough to count.

In the Autumn 2010 issue of Departures, Swalbach plants his stake in the editorial high ground, under the heading Checking In. He opens thus:

The great American songwriter Johnny Mercer's haunting lyrics in The Autumn Leaves are among the most evocative of the season we now embrace: "The falling leaves / Drift by the window / The autumn leaves / Of red and gold." But the hallmark of the prose is the forlorn realisation that summer is over and winter will soon be upon us.

Prose, Christian? Song lyrics, verse, surely. Hallmark? Something by which we measure the provenance of something, a means of gauging quality, a proof mark? Ah, forget it, says Christian. Prose and Hallmark are words that sound nice, and ones which most people don’t use. Chuck ‘em in. And press on:

For many who holidayed on a cramped stretch of sand, elbowed their way past a myriad of other hikers on a particular trellis of trail or had to manoeuvre, cheek-by-jowl, through crowded pavilions and airport terminals, that recognition is a welcome one. And it's a wake-up call for us to rethink our next holiday.

We might decide it’s not worth worrying about when the noun holiday took itself a verb form. We may decide it would be tiresome to note that he means a myriad other hikers, rather than a myriad of. We’ll also ignore the cliché cheek by jowl, which suggests Mr Swalbach was either too tired or too lazy to bother with originality. But, for a man who evidently thinks he’s literate, the mis-spelling of pavillions is unforgivable. We might question whether he really means pavillions. But we're being hard enough on him already. That it takes him 41, count them - 41, words to get to the subject of a no-less-than-57-word sentence, tells us something. It tells us he’d never get a job on a proper newspaper.

Why is it, for example, that we happily join the crowded conga-line of holidaymakers for a destination, overflowing with the demimonde, when the very same place, region or locality is virtually uninhabited by the visiting gentry in the off-season, where you'll be rewarded by lower rates and great service?

Oh, what? Demimonde? Christian, what are you on about? The demi-monde is, literally a half-world. The term describes a society of kept women, mistresses, or the dodgy end of a trade or profession - private banking or fine-art dealing (for example). And what’s the point of the phrase ‘the very same place, region or locality’? Looks like inspiration was so short here, our Editor-in-Chief just decided to cut-and-paste his thesaurus. Gentry? The paragraph construction suggests the word is being used as a synonym for demimonde. Which it ain’t.

Perhaps it's human nature for us to congregate, but more and more of us, myself included, are now happily eschewing on-season travel for what can be colloquially described as, off-season sojourns.

Myself, Christian, in the way you’ve used it here, is a solecism popular with junior managers and local government officials. It’s frequently, but almost always wrongly, used instead of ‘me’ or ‘I’. Just say me, Christian. We all know what you mean. And don’t even think about using the word eschewing, ever again, unless you really are some Dickensian puffball. In this case, hardly anybody knows what you mean. Nor do we think anyone, speaking colloquially, would use the phrase off-season sojourn.

Are we beginning to wish Mr Swalbach would simply sojourn-off, here? I know I am.

Take a place like Florence, as an example, where in January, 250,000 fewer visitors per month crowd into its ancient streets than they do in August. That means, you won't have to elbow your way past day-trippers at the Duomo or the uber crowds at the Uffizi. Or the Mediterranean, where in late-autumn, you can have places like Southern Spain or even islands like Crete, Ibiza and Sicily all to yourself during a period when they are at their most flattering, agreeable and price-wise.

Christian, if you want people to read your editorial, use language they use. Please. Why say ‘as an example’ when you can say for example. It’s one-third shorter and faster. (In communications, pal, short and fast is good). And it’s what they say. The than they do in August should simply be than in August.

Elbow past? Hang on. We were elbowing past in the first paragraph. Repetition of that kind is simply sloppy writing. Stop it.

Uber crowd? Huge crowd. Enormous crowd. Big crowd. Mega-crowd, if you must. Or maybe he really does mean an uber crowd. One that's above all the others.

And the next question is…can anyone understand the last sentence of that paragraph?
Here it is again, for those of you who missed it before: Or the Mediterranean, where in late-autumn, you can have places like Southern Spain or even islands like Crete, Ibiza and Sicily all to yourself during a period when they are at their most flattering, agreeable and price-wise.

There’s no scope for debate here, except to ask: what the hell does that actually mean? Anything? Nothing? Is this why I have an American Express card?

And while most of us are unfortunately tied to the annual calendar of school holidays and half terms, nowhere does it dictate that we need to head to the usual destinations at the customary times.

Christian, Christian, Christian. Nowhere does it dictate. Nowhere does what dictate? Maybe you mean the annual calendar. In which case, you don’t mean it, you mean, that calendar.

Instead, if summer travel is a must, then make for locales usually associated with the opposite season. The Caribbean, for example, which is much less crowded in summer also offers competitive rates - on average of around 40% lower than those in its usual high season of December. July and August are also prime months for visiting the Maldives, where you can spot manta rays thanks to lower plankton levels and enjoy rates that are, on average, 44% lower than in January.

Yes, I hear you crying out for straightjackets and padded cells, already. We’ll gloss over the on average of around 40%. It’s likely he originally wrote an average of, then changed to on average, and forgot to take the of out*. But, as we’re already very clear, this is an Editor-in-Chief in a hell of a hurry. We understand.

But, guys, what’s with the lower plankton levels in the Maldives, and the visibility of manta rays thanks. Exactly how does a manta ray express its thanks to lower plankton? Does levels of lower plankton mean clearer water? Or are there more manta rays because there’s lower plankton? And these 44% lower rates of plankton. Should they be 44% lower rates of summer travel? Or 44% lower holiday costs? Please. Read that last sentence again, carefully, and tell me what, in the name of merciful God does this man actually mean.

With all that in mind, in this edition of Departures, we've showcased three regions that are ideally explored in late autumn and early winter. For those who travel to New York City often but rarely head out to the suburbs, indulge us by reading New York Escapes on page 30. You'll be surprised at what's on The Big Apple's doorstep. Similarly unexpected are the bevy of attractions in a quiet and picturesque slice of Wales, which when the Ryder Cup has come and gone will be an ideal region to repair to from London. Read about it on page 17.

Enough, enough. Forget the absence of commas in sentence two. Forget the failure to tell us which slice of Wales, more missing commas, more Pickwickian repairing from London. It all hurts much too much.

And speaking of Italy, and Tuscany in particular, we drop into Maremma - an unexplored and mostly unknown corner that demands your attention. We hope we've managed to capture yours with some food for thought and, as usual, articles that inspire you to enjoy life to the fullest.

No! NO! Stop this, now! Italy? Who was speaking of Italy? There was a mention of Florence, several paragraphs back. But, Christian, old boy, your prose simply isn’t that memorable. We forgot Florence. We lost Florence, in the fog of rambling illiteracy and stumbling articulation that would seem to be one of the hallmarks of your style.

Oh – and what do you hope you’ve captured? My mostly unknown corner? See what I mean …


CHRISTIAN SCHWALBACH
Editor in Chief - Departures Europe
God bless him.

*Probably the first and last time any of us will see a sentence which ends, correctly, with the words ‘the of out.’ Enjoy it.