That is the title of a book I once hoped to live my life by. The theme of the book is that you should learn from the experiences of a high flyer, bypassing the mistakes of the uncogniscenti. Each page holds a large-fonted explanation of something vital to your success in ‘business’ or just ‘office life’. Examples include:
- Know the seating plan and etiquette before boarding the company jet
- You’ll never regret spending too much time with your children
- Never eat garlic at lunchtime
- Act as if someone is paying for every hour you spend at work. They are.
- An ink pen will always leak. Especially on a plane
- Coffee and pastry can count as a meal
I took a look at the book about four years ago. I looked at the seemingly irrelevant advice advice about doing the things that I thought I wanted to do well, and interpreted it. (I still haven’t been on a company jet). It was about the time that we started recruiting Australians at work. “Coffee and donuts is a meal” became “Beer and peanuts is a meal”. And the wierd thing is, there always tended to be a kind of pub in which beer and peanuts would feature. The kind of pub you wouldn’t intend to spend any time at all in. The kind of pub which relies on ‘geographical trade’. “I need to get a train from this place. I have 15 minutes, perhaps I will have a quick pint with my Australian friends”, always turned into, “Perhaps I should have some peanuts as the pub is still open.” An open pub to an Australian is akin to a red flag to a bull, and at that point you would realise that peanuts and perhaps a late night kebab would form your sustenance until the morn.
I went to one of those ‘station bars’ today. A weird thing happened when I left the ‘station pub’. For various reasons related to Midland Mainline, and late trains, I had to leave the pub twice. Both times, I left with the taste of Stella in my rushed-pint-the-train-is-leaving gullet. But also the taste of peanuts. Maybe they just put peanuts in the beer in station pubs, for this was the taste of peanuts I had not eaten. Figuring I might as well get hung for a sheep as lamb, I considered getting peanuts anyway. Maybe the ‘station pub’ was in it with the snack trolley on the train. The pub sells you the idea of peanuts, and the train’s snack trolley closes the sale.