Recreational Whinge: I’ve just read in the online news that in the state of Queensland in Australia that there is a call to remove pool cues and glass ashtrays from pubs because the end up being used as weapons, particularly against paramedics and ambulance crews when that have to show up to the pub to provide medical assistance.  Some places have already banned glasses to prevent “glassing” attacks.  I am astounding at the lengths we have to go, or the directions we have to consider, just to try to reduce the harm caused by violence and in particular alcohol-fueled violence.

Here’s the article if you’d like to read it for yourself.  Highly recommended and check out the different views on this.

Recreational Whinge:  It never ceases to amaze me how often I hear people say, “I can’t deal with emotions!” 

I hear it in both my personal and professional life, and although I fully respect that emotionally charged situations can be challenging, I find irresponsible (and maybe even lazy) when people don’t care or try to understand someone else (or themselves) at an emotional level.

Recreational Whinge:  Something has been happening in the past two hours that I need to share and whinge about. 

I’ve been astounded by the number of people who have responded to a requst of mine with something along the lines of, “But what will you give me in return?”

Recreational Whinge: If you’ve read my bio, you know I’m a professional life and executive coach.  Of course, I absolutely love what I do for a living and have been at it, growing myself and others, for 20 years.  I kind of feel I’ve “done my time” enough to have a recreational whinge about something that happens quite often:  People wanting to relinquish their rights to independent thought to their coach, or anyone else.

I’m sorry, but as the Australian saying goes, “That’s just not on, mate.”

I’ll give you an example:  I was running a workshop some time ago and after spending a couple of really full-on days exploring various problem solving models, new ways of thinking, brainstorming solutions, etc, and we had the walls literally covered with flip chart diagrams, participants would still throw out questions at the end of the second day saying, “but how do I address XYZ situation?”

Argh!

The reason I had a moment of frustration (which OK, I still carry a bit of from time to time) is that after all that exploration of various tools for their “toolkit”, some people still wanted someone else to solve their problem, to tell them specifically what to do, to take the action on their behalf.