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We’ve Lost Our Focus. The Reason Behind SHRINKFLATION

I read once that what we focus on is what we head towards. The deeper meaning didn’t register immediately, but I understood the basic premise of the saying. It was a while later whilst watching motorcycle racing on the television that the true meaning revealed itself to me. The event was a World Superbike race, and two riders were battling for the lead position. The viewing perspective changed to the onboard camera that was pointing at the rider, and you could see the rider’s helmet and visor as he approached a fast left-hand corner. As he leaned the bike into the corner, his head turned to the left at a more acute angle than the bike was turning. “He’s not looking where he’s going, isn’t that dangerous?”, commented my wife. As a lifelong motorcyclist myself, I explained that you always concentrated on the exit of a turn or a corner, as bikes don’t have steering wheels and you have to use your body weight and positioning to change the direction of the bike. It was then that the metaphoric light bulb over my head switched on and I truly understood the meaning of the saying. What you focus on is what you head towards.

To carry on with the motorcycling analogy, I realised that this saying was the underpinning basis of motorcycling safety. As part of learning defensive riding, you are taught to always look for your escape route or exit. If a vehicle pulls out in front of you, immediately look to see a path that will not only avoid the vehicle, but will also not put you in further danger. This is something that I was never taught when learning to drive a car, and I believe this is why so many people have crashes. Drivers tend to concentrate on the car that has just pulled out in front of them rather than trying to avoid it and inevitably the two collide. In the US, there is a famous stretch of straight road that goes for mile after mile across endless desert. The local state troopers are amazed at the constant stream of accidents they are called out to where drivers have embedded the front of their vehicle into a telegraph pole. With mile after mile of straight road and an unchanging view out of the windscreen, a telegraph pole can become fascinating. What you focus on is what you head towards!

I soon realised that this principle can be applied to all areas of your life and if adhered to diligently, it can make a world of difference. How many people make plans to do something, whether it’s to get a new job, or to lose weight, only to find that a few short weeks later they are no further forward with their plans. Sure, CVs were sent off, the gym was attended and in the first couple of weeks the enthusiasm was high. But when the results don’t materialise quite as quickly as we would like that enthusiasm starts to wan. We start to find excuses not to do that workout, or we persuade ourselves that we quite like our current job, and anyway, we might get that promotion after all. In short, we lose our focus. No matter how detailed our initial plans were to achieve our goals, without dedicated focus, our attention soon starts to drift.

Don’t worry, this isn’t some motivational diatribe aimed at pumping you up to change your life in ten easy steps! No, instead, what I want to explore is just how our focus can affect and change the outcomes of our actions. More importantly, it is when we examine the focus of those around us, that we start to see the true picture and understand what is going on. A short while ago, I wrote a piece on this blog about how I had the answer to all the world’s problems The Answer To The World’s Problems! ALL OF THEM!! – abolish money!

Now, on the basis that this is highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, perhaps we need to analyse our attitude towards money and especially where it relates to the world of commerce and industry. Once upon a time, a company would offer a product or service, and money was a by-product of offering these said products or services. A well-made product or well delivered service would result not only in the proffering of money in exchange, but also the promise of further revenue for the supply of more of the same products and services. The focus of the company would be to ensure that their products and services maintain the standards that their customers had come to expect, and this would be their reassurance to place repeat business in the future. Not only this, but the company would grow a reputation for supplying great quality products and services and this is how they would grow their customer base. Word would get around, the wheels of marketing would turn and slowly but surely the company would grow. More products and services would be sold and in turn the company’s revenue would increase. Happy days!! But should the quality decrease, so would the sales and ultimately the revenue, so the focus was always on maintaining the quality that company’s reputation was built on.

Businessman standing in front of projection screen. Projector reflects dollar signs to screen and businessman’s back.

Change the focus though and the picture begins to change. Slowly, as the company grows and revenues increase, the things that were paramount in importance start to be replaced by new goals and directives. Things such as quality, value for money and high levels of service start to slip as they are replaced by gross margins, working capital and EBITDA. Financial metrics start to become the new focus. To some degree, it makes sense, as staff need to be paid, suppliers need paying and you need to ensure that you can keep the lights and heating on.

In the day-to-day hubbub of everyday business, it is easy to lose sight of the things that really contribute to these financial metrics. Namely, maintaining high standards of quality and ensuring that your customers are happy. Instead, the attention is drawn to the rising wages bill, how are we going to pay the suppliers on time and thoughts slip to how we can make savings instead.

In short, the focus shifts towards money. How many of us have been told by our boss, that, “it’s all about the bottom line”; “this is a business and not a charity; “it’s all about making money”. As money becomes the main focus, attention to quality and value for money shrink ever smaller. As revenue and profits start to plateau, companies look to other means to hold their profits. On one side of the equation, you have revenue and on the other you have costs. If one side isn’t going up, you need to reduce the other and this means, cutting staff, lowering wages, renegotiating purchasing contracts, or looking for alternative, cheaper suppliers. With the combination of less staff doing more work along with the quality of the raw materials dwindling, it doesn’t take long for the quality of the product to decline. However, the company has no intention of lowering their prices, so the result is the customer getting an inferior product and therefore less value for their money.

This is nothing new and we have all experienced this a lot over the years. However, real costs now being almost as low as they can go, companies are having to look to new areas in order make these savings and what I am talking about is a relatively new phenomenon – shrinkflation! At first it was quite surreptitious, and a lot of people didn’t notice. The size of things seemed to shrink. That chocolate bar that we remember as being huge as a kid now seems a tad smaller. “No, it’s not!”, the manufacturer cries, “It’s just that your hands were a lot smaller as a child!”. That must be it, we try and persuade ourselves, but deep down we know it’s not quite true.

Thinking they have got away with it, the shrinkflation continues. Products continue to get incrementally smaller, packets of biscuits now contain two or three less than before, multi-packs now have one less item, but in every case the price remains the same. The quality of the raw materials and ingredients used gets compromised and slowly we start to notice that things don’t last quite as long, or taste quite the same. Still, we continue to pay the same price.

In one case, a food manufacturer was accused of using horse meat in some of its products as a replacement for beef. And again, with no amendment to the price to take this into account – even if using horse meat had even been acceptable in the first place.

The other tactic to hoodwink us into thinking that lowering quality standards is acceptable is another new phenomenon – inbuilt obsolescence. No longer are products built to last as long as possible. Kitchen appliances last for mere moments in comparison to the lifetime that they seemed to last. Hell, I remember my mother using the same vacuum cleaner for my entire childhood and we had a fridge that lasted for well over twenty years. Not any longer. We are now told that it is better if we replace our electrical items and gadgets every couple of years, but no one can ever give a satisfactory reason to back this up. And just who does it benefit – us the consumers, the environment perhaps?? No, of course not. The only ones to benefit are the manufacturers.

And why? It is down to the all-consuming pursuit of the dollar (please substitute the currency appropriate to your own region! 😊). The focus is on money and nothing else. How can these companies make more for less. How can they maximise their profits. How can they placate their shareholders. How can they grab a larger share of the marketplace. How can they satiate their never-ending greed. And who pays the price? The real price?

You and me, of course.

If only there was an answer.

Well, there is. Change the focus. Remove it altogether.

Abolish money!!

I Blame Stephen King

I consider myself lucky on two counts. Firstly, I have always loved books and secondly, I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged me to read from a very young age. The third thing that I should also thank my lucky stars for was having a parent that believed that a child shouldn’t be constricted to reading material purely based on their age alone. If there was something that I wanted to read and as long as it was child appropriate, I was encouraged to read it. And so, at age nine, I learned about The Lord of the Rings and announced that I would like to read it. Rather than being discouraged and told that it was too difficult for a young child, my dad blew the dust from his old copy and together we embraced the long and winding journey through Middle Earth. Alas, the journey was short lived, and I barely made it out of the Shire. The language was beyond my understanding, some words and names were too complicated to “sound out” and the plot was a little too convoluted to follow with my limited life experience. My interest soon waned, and my attention wandered to other books on the shelves of my bookcase. However, my interest in all things hobbits and elves wasn’t diminished and if anything, my desire to complete the book had increased, although, at some level, I understood that it was beyond my reach as a nine-year-old. It would be another two years before I finished reading the book.

The years went by and my love of books and reading never abated. I progressed from Winnie the Pooh to Paddington bear and then onto Roald Dahl. However, the book that stood out for me, and I still re-read it occasionally, was Treasure Island. I still get a shiver when I imagine hiding in an apple barrel, holding my breath so as not to be discovered by cut-throat pirates. The boy’s-own adventure of the book was what enthralled me initially, but it was the slight frisson of fear that captured and held me.

I was twelve when I discovered the work of Stephen King. My friend’s older brother had a book which had a picture on the spine that mesmerised me. The picture was of a grotesquely twisted face, be-fanged and with piercing red eyes, the face of a vampire. I had to know what it was about and after promising to return it, my friend lent me the book. The book was Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I was hooked and so began my forty-six-year adventure into the complexly beautiful world of a master storyteller.

I soon learnt that there was more than horror to the stories of Mr King. It was the characters that imprinted themselves on my memory long after the book was finished and returned to the bookshelf. I first discovered this whilst reading Christine. The story of a quiet, unassuming boy trying to navigate the turbulent waters of the ocean that is adolescence. Distracted by the opportunity to restore an old 1957 Plymouth Fury, the project soon becomes an obsession, and you are left wondering whether it is the car that is possessed or the boy as he is transformed into a sneering, maelstrom of rage and fury, far worse than the bullies and tormentors that he once feared and cowered from.

And so, my journey began. From The Shining to Pet Cemetery; from The Stand to Needful Things; from The Tommyknockers to Insomnia, my rapacious appetite never seemed to be truly sated. Every new book was eagerly anticipated and on finishing each one, my heart felt a heaviness as though saying farewell to an old friend.

For me, the real epiphany came with The Dark Tower series of novels. The first book, The Gunslinger introduces you to the initial two characters; a young boy named Jake, destined to a fate he could never begin to imagine, and a dusty, enigmatic cowboy named Roland who would become his reluctant mentor. The second book, The Drawing of the Three introduces Eddie and Odetta and the quest for the Dark Tower begins in earnest. There are five more books that take you on the most incredible journey to distant lands that lay nestled in alternative times and universes.

For me, Mr King’s skill is building and describing the characters in his books, and you don’t just feel like you know them, you feel part of the story. You care what happens to them. For me, the real skill comes in the empathy that you develop with these characters. Their hearts and minds are laid bare, and you get to share their every thought and emotion. You feel as though these are emotions that you yourself have had but have never shared with anyone and there they are laid bare on the pages of the book. It is though Stephen King has reached into your mind and is able to see into every dark recess and shadowy corner.

However, it is not my intention to write a review on the works of Stephen King. Plenty of these exist already, and I fear that any effort I might make would be inadequate in the extreme. Instead, my intention is to try and convey what an impact that art, and creative writing in particular can have on your life. My family and friends all know my love of books and I often get asked who my favourite books and authors are. If I had to list a “top 10”, some of the books that would make the list are Treasure Island (of course), 1984, Catcher in The Rye, Rebecca, Lord of the Rings and of course, The Dark Tower series. It is the mention of the latter that always seems to instigate the raising of eyebrows followed by, “what, Stephen King, the horror writer!” I used to feel compelled to point out that I bet some of their favourite films are The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand By Me and did they realise these are based on Stephen King books. Now however, I just smile, nod and say, yeah, that’s the bloke.

I suppose that brings me full circle and back round to my love of reading and that I blame Mr King for being a big part of the reason as to just why I love reading. For me, great books always has one common denominator – great characters. Characters that you can identify with, that speak to you on a personal level and that live on in your heart long after the book is finished. I don’t imagine for a single moment that my inane ramblings will every reach the attention of Mr King, but if they should, I would like to say one thing to him.

Dear Constant Writer.

You have given me joy and laughter. You have given me solace in times of sorrow. You have provided me with sanctuary at times when all I have wanted is to withdraw from the world. You have filled me with wonder just when I thought cynicism would consume me. You have fed my imagination and taken me to places that I could never have thought to exist. I read once that in order to create anything of true worth, you have to give part of yourself to it, no matter how painful this may be. It is for this that I thank you the most.

Thank you.

Election Talk Again – Who Foots The Bill?

With the country being in disarray and the cost of living crisis being the hot topic of the moment, every politician is being asked how the policies on their manifestoes are going to be funded. Growth seems to be the answer for one or two of the parties, whilst this is a great idea in theory, it is a bit like telling your mortgage provider that your next payments are coming from your imminent lottery win! Good luck with that.

With this in mind, it gave me a chance to regurgitate another one of my older posts. Originally titled, Once Jesters Now Kings, it was my response to a news story of the time commenting on the high salaries of certain BBC presenters and personalities. Reading through the post again, I still believe that the basic premise is relevant and would provide a viable alternative to raise much needed funds for public services…

I’m sure that everyone has noticed the slight kafuffle in the news concerning the salaries of a number of BBC employees. Whilst I agree with what seems to be the overwhelming opinion that these salaries seem to be completely out of step compared to the average wage of your general BBC viewer, especially when it is said viewers that are funding these pay packets, my concern comes from a slightly different direction.

Let’s step back a few years to an age when entertainment came in a slightly more basic format. Back to a time when what was considered to be entertainment was watching someone dressed in bright coloured clothing, perhaps juggling or walking on their hands. Jesters in favour were rewarded with scraps of food, a place to sleep and maybe the odd coin or two if their antics and stories were funny enough. Jesters, or fools as they were commonly called, were considered to be no more than servants and were treated accordingly.

Fast forward a few hundred years and entertainment and more importantly, entertainers, are now viewed in a completely different light. Some are now the earning elite and command vastly inflated salaries for what appears to be the most perfunctory of roles. Whilst you could argue that newsreaders and the like perform a vital role bringing us the latest news and current affairs, does this really justify six and seven figure salaries. Especially when you consider that the average annual salary in the UK is approximately £26K. Basically, the lowest paid are helping to pay the wages of the top 1% of earners – that sounds fair! To look at it another way, if you were to relieve the top BBC earner of their salary, you would be able to give 440 nurses a £5K per annum pay rise.

And then it dawned on me. There is a solution to this problem. Are these people going to relinquish their salaries and take a huge pay cut? Of course not. Instead, what we should do, is re-categorise everyone’s job based on its usefulness and contribution to the rest of society. For example, jobs such as nurses, police officers, firefighters, teachers etc., would be seen as vital as their contribution is immense. As a result, these jobs would score relatively low. On the other hand, jobs such as actors, film stars, pop musicians, footballers (other sports are currently available) would be scored highly as their contribution to society would be seen to be comparatively low. Should the scoring system not be the other way around, I hear you cry! No, no, no. The reason being, the lower score a job carries, the lower tax that that person has to pay. Conversely, the higher the score, the higher the tax. Imagine an actor earning several millions for making a single movie paying 70 or 80% income tax, or a football player earning £500K per week paying a similar amount. All of a sudden, we would be in a position to lower the tax for everyone employed in one of these more “vital” roles, maybe even to the point that certain roles would actually be tax exempt. Writing off the income tax bill for a nurse is almost the equivalent of awarding them a 25% par rise.

I understand that there would be a huge resistance to such a scheme, but only from those top earners that are in that top 1% category. It would be down to the rest of us to ensure that the scheme was adhered to and people were accountable for what they owed. Incentive schemes could be set up, whereby discounts were applied for people that willingly “gave up” a percentage of their earnings. So, the footballer earning £500K per week could be liable for a £350K income tax bill, or alternatively they could “surrender” £250K of their salary into a government pot that then went to help fund health care, education, the police force etc.

On the other side of the coin, perhaps it would help encourage more people into jobs that were once seen as vocational rather than a career path to higher earnings. Am I being idealistic as well as unrealistic. Probably, but something has to be done to try and address the balance. And when all is said and done, if I were that footballer whose £500K per week was slashed to a mere £250K, could I survive. Possibly. It would be a struggle, but I’d give it a go!!

Back From The Dead!

Okay, so I am not literally back from the dead, that really would be something to write about! It just feels like it, certainly in terms of my absence from posting on my site, as it has been almost three years now! And lets face it, there has certainly been plenty to comment about. Brexit, deathly pandemics, world leaders that make the Three Stooges look like the Brains Trust and not to mention the economic melt-down of the free world. Whatever next, war in Europe! Oh yeah, there’s that as well.

All in all, it has been quite a crappy time and it doesn’t look like getting better any time soon. Oh well, there is always emigrating to Mars to look forward to (and by that I mean the chocolate factory in Slough of course!!).

For those of you that have read any of my content here, you will know that I have opinions on such things and I’m not afraid to share them. I like to think that I apply a little common sense and rationale to my “solutions”, even if some of them are a little tongue in cheek. As we seem to be hurtling towards the abyss with Armageddon lurking like the grim reaper, the onus seems to be put more and more on the populace to sort things out. I have had a lot of thoughts on things such as climate change, pollution, economic disparity, social inequality and technology’s hand in the downturn of our society and over the weeks I will tackle each one individually.

Next week, I am hoping to start with a fairly small, innocuous topic – IT’S TIME TO ABOLISH MONEY!!!

A little ambitious and unworkable? Maybe not! Not so much down with capitalism, more, let’s see an end to consumerism.

Thanks as always for reading so far, and stay tuned for my thoughts on how abolishing money could instantly solve many of our current problems!

The Mastaba House. A Gratuitous Plug.

A close family member has recently written a book and after much persuasion and cajoling, they have decided to publish it. I had made the decision not to push or advertise any products on my blog, but decided to make an exception with this one. Well, it is family! I’ve cut and pasted the “blurb” about the story-line, but if you click on the image to the right, this will take you straight to the amazon store.

“At a séance, Danny receives a curious message. Just three words. Car. Red. Fire. Danny dismisses it as nonsense. After all, his car is silver. The following morning whilst out running, Danny passes a small forest beyond a gate. In a clearing he can see a brick building, no larger than a garden shed. It looks completely out of place, so Danny climbs the gate to investigate.

An alarm rings and Danny wakes in his bed. His running clothes lie unworn and it is clear that Danny hasn’t left his room. It must have been a dream, albeit, an extremely realistic one. Danny’s day continues to unravel. At work, his pass won’t allow him access and he is unable to log into his computer. As he tries to rectify the issues, he is told that his details are no longer on the company database. Later on, his bank and credit cards are refused and he is told that he doesn’t hold an account with the bank. He feels as though his life is slowly being erased. When his car won’t start, he calls his friend for a lift. They are involved in a terrible accident and whilst Danny and his friend escape, the car explodes and through the flames, Danny thinks he sees someone. The car is red.

Danny confides in his best friend Jackie and she insists on seeing the forest. They discover that the building does exist and after some research they learn that it’s called Mastaba House and is owned by the secretive Genesis Foundation. When Jackie suddenly disappears, Danny is convinced that all of these events are intertwined. As he sets out to find his friend, Danny is approached by Derek Stevens. Claiming to have seen Jackie, the mysterious old man tells Danny that he used to work for The Genesis Foundation and that he can help.

As the two men search for Jackie, Danny learns that he has a secret. An artefact left by a distant relative may hold the key to everything that is going on. Will Danny find his friend and in doing so, learn the secret hidden deep below Mastaba House. Or will The Genesis Foundation beat him to it. “

Please take a look, you can even download and read it for free for a limited period of time. And if you like it, leave a comment. I know it will be greatly appreciated.