I have been lucky with my work, in that it has allowed me to meet many people, cultures, and go to so many different countries, and experienced so many different things.
Way back in the 1980’s, working in Saudi Arabia for Saudi Computer Services / Texas Instruments, I was asked as Software Manager to go to the main offices of TI in Austin in Texas, USA, and the courses etc would require me to be there for three weeks.
My American counterparts, fellow colleagues were very friendly and hospitable, but at the weekends they would have finished their meetings and travel back to their families, leaving me by myself.
Nobody loved me, even then.
So, on the Friday night I flew off to Orlando to Walt Disney’s World. During the evening I planned my tour of the park, which rides I wanted to be on and experience, which rides would attract the biggest queues, choosing these first before the crowds built-up. I think I was first in the queue when the gates opened.
One of the rides I went on was It’s a Small World. You sit in a small boat, and float around a circuit.
The Walt Disney promotion says:-
“Take the legendary boat ride around the globe on this musical tour of nations. Hundreds of international dolls sing and dance to the famous “it’s a small world” medley. After it’s over, just try to get that tune out of your head.”
To this day I cannot get that tune out of my head, (click to hear), as we past dancing dolls, dressed in the traditional costumes of differing nations, singing that stupid song. Over and over again.
And it is a small world.
Yesterday I had a meeting in a small pub (public house, selling beer, drinks and food), called the Old Swan, right next to the River Thames in a small village near my home called Thames Ditton.
I am to travel to Bahrain in February, to deliver some courses for The Maker Over Experience (click to visit web site), run and owned by Dr Leila and Phil Edwards, and we were to finalize arrangements for the courses.
During the conversation, it became apparent that Leila and I had crossed paths before. It’s a small world. Maybe we did not meet face to face, but we had common associations, people and companies that we had done business or worked with.
As we swapped stories, it became apparent that our experiences with these organisations and people were similar if not the same.
We had done work for people, and despite heart rendering promises, they had failed to pay our fees, or deliver the goods they promised.
Some of the people we had worked with and for, had promoted themselves as having done this and that, having this qualification or that, having links with this person or that organisation, saying that they can do this or that, in other words, making wild promotional statements about themselves and their work.
It was after you had been pulled into their world, into the their spiders web, that you found that all the boasts, all the things they were saying, all the promises that had been made, were false.
It has become apparent to me that these sort of people can only see short term gains, they do not see the long term, also they use people for their own gain.
Sure enough, these people and organisations are no longer in business, they have in some cases gone bankrupt. Some have created new companies, new ventures, but like the dolls they sing the same song, they do the same thing. In English we have a saying that you cannot change a leopards spots.
In English we have another saying, an elephant never forgets. I cannot forget those dolls singing that song, It’s a Small World. It is strange the number of people I meet from different parts of the world who have had the same experiences with the same people.
A couple of other sayings we have in England, you get back what you give out, or what goes around, comes around.
Do not believe everything you read or see on a web site. Companies will advertise course dates that they will not run, and trainers who would not or will not consider working with that company.
Readers beware.