Sock Displacement Theories (A Recognised Branch of Sockology)
This is an investigation into the matter of sock displacement, better known as missing sock theories. Amongst other things, the problems caused by sock displacement can include marital disharmony and massive losses to industry as huge numbers of working hours are lost due to people, especially men, being late for work because of looking for their missing socks.
There are a number of issues under investigation. These may be summarised as what makes socks go missing, when they do go missing where do they go, what makes them come back and what can you, as a responsible sock owner, do about the problem.
There are a number of theories concerning why socks go missing. The main ones can be summarised as follows:
Firstly, the missing socks have simply never made it to the washing machine, and are either to be found secreted at the bottom of the laundry basket, under the bed, or in trouser legs.
Secondly, the socks become hidden in other garments in the washing, such as duvet covers, trousers and shirt sleeves.
Thirdly, the socks disappear into a fifth dimension and remain in the washing machine, but cannot be seen, and becoming temporarily invisible to the naked eye
Fourthly, the missing socks dematerialise and telekinetically rematerialise in a large hidden area believed to be several miles outside Milton Keynes. The exact location of the site is not known and can only be guessed at from an ancient map unexpectedly found in the boot of a Mazda MX5 lent to a hairdresser called Lisa in Farnborough in Hampshire in July 2001.
Fifthly, most washing machines contain a carefully designed extra area within the drum that opens up whilst the machine is operating, then closes when the cycle finishes, drawing small items – ie socks, into its confines.
Finally, the sock fairies take them. This theory is particularly prolific in dark outreaches of the West Country such as the beautiful village of Urchfont at the edge of Salisbury Plain, and in parts of Surrey.
Alien Abduction.
(???? Whether to include – Bloody Women Theory – propounded on basis that women simply sweep up the washing without checking whether they have picked up pairs of socks etc. Contrasting to the quickly formed Bloody Men Theory, which is of course that bloody men virtually never put their own washing in the washing machine: Perhaps to be supplemented by the Bloody Dog Theory – that the dog nicks them and eats them when they are really smelly.????)
It is interesting that the issue is rarely an existential one concerning these missing socks – for we are not left wondering whether they still exist, but with the sure certainty that they still do exist and that the question is simply where they have gone to.
Apart from those explanations already proffered as to the whereabouts of missing socks, the main question remains for those who favour the sock fairy theory – for the possibility must exist of sock mountains, just like tooth mountains built by the tooth fairies and biro mountains caused by the pen fairies. There is obviously a particular problem in developed urban areas, especially with blocks of high rise flats, where there simply is no garden available for the socks to be hidden at the bottom of.
Let us move on then to what causes the missing socks to re-emerge. The main trigger or replacement events, as sock theorists refer to them, are as follows:
a) the remaining sock going missing
b) the remaining sock fading by at least 25%
c) the remaining sock being filled up with catnip and chucked to the cat
d) the remaining sock being thrown away
e) the style of sock going completely out of fashion
f) the fairies getting fed up with the smell
g) the washing machine malfunctioning
h) the person who owned the missing sock leaving the household
i) the passage of a period of not less than three weeks
How then is one to overcome the problem of socks disappearing? There are several ways of displacement avoidance, much depending upon which of the original displacement theories you most favour:
a) Only wear odd socks – although this can have fashion implications
b) Don’t wear any socks
c) Tie or chain your socks together – remember though that this may make walking uncomfortable
d) Put your socks into one of those dinky little net bags when you wash them, then if one sock is going to disappear, there is a likelihood of all of them going at once
e) Wear long trousers so that the colour and style of socks does not draw attention, whether matching or no
f) Always buy all socks the same so that the missing offenders can not be identified
g) Never throw out or use for household cleaning or pet entertaining purposes your odd socks
h) Never remove your socks
Of course the whole subject of sock displacement theory generally only raises issues for those people who feel compelled to think of socks as necessarily coupled entities. If our society could come to terms with the phenomena of singleness, and be prepared to consider just the single sock in its own right, such investigation would be unnecessary. The psychological impacts of sock displacement are only just beginning to be fully understood.
Academic studies of the works of Freud, Kant, Heidegger and Marx are still being interpreted in the hope that these may shed some light upon our plight.
It has, though, to be accepted that it is inherent in the nature of a sock to want to go ‘walkabout’, but it is also true that much as Arnold Schwarzenegger in that great film Terminator, they also usually tend to have the attitude: ‘I’ll be back’ and in that hope we may rest.
Those persons interested in other artistic issues are invited to view the blog at http://arts-desire.blogspot.com/
Copyright Fiona K Taylor 2009
Script and lyrics written by Fiona K Taylor.
Saturday 21 February 2009
Monday 2 February 2009
Guide to Organising Meetings
Guide to organising meetings
People within the institution need training in respect of how to organise meetings. This guide has therefore been prepared to help those in positions of responsibility within the institution to follow the appropriate procedures for organising meetings, to identify the need to organise meetings and to improve the efficiency of the institution. There will be a meeting arranged to discuss this.
PROCEDURE FOR ORGANISING A MEETING
1. Decide upon the meeting to be arranged
2. Book the room with the person responsible for taking room bookings, who will be located somewhere other than where the meeting is to take place
3. Notify the people required to attend the meeting that the meeting is to take place and that they are required to attend
4. Ensure that other people seeking to hold a different meeting at the same time in the same place but with different people present do not do so
5. Attend the meeting
6. Go down the pub
IDENTIFYING PEOPLE WHO NEED TO ORGANISE MEETING
There are many reasons for organising meetings. It is important to consider at the outset the difference between the need for a meeting and the need to organise a meeting.
It is an unavoidable frustration of life that certain people feel compelled to organise meetings. These are the sort of people who will come up with very complex arguments to justify to others why a meeting is required, so that they can go on to organise it. These people tend to fall into one of several categories:
1. There is the common or garden ‘meeting organiser’, (hereinafter referred to as a ‘meeter’), who wants to organise meetings due to their own social inadequacy by virtue of the fact that unless they compel people to meet with them, they would spend their time alone. Often these people cannot cope with one to one conversations.
2. There is the meglo-meeter who needs to arrange meeting to demonstrate their perceived power over others.
3. There is the social hedo- meeter who wants any excuse to get groups of people together, (usually whom they like), to have a good time.
4. There is the manago-meeter who through a combination of education and mistake believes that meetings are a good way of disseminating information/ boosting morale/ saving time/ combining ‘forces’, (sort of two brains are better than one stuff for people who need the assistance of a second brain to progress in life...).
5. The efficio-meeter who understands that occasionally a meeting may be a necessary evil.
TECHNIQUES FOR COPING WITH COMPULSIVE MEETING ORGANISERS, (‘MEETERS’)
If you happen to work with somebody who feels the need to organise meetings there are several different techniques available for coping with this. One is of course to avoid attending them and their meetings completely, (see the publication Avoiding Meetings and Staying Employed for Art Lecturers). It is important to remember a few basic principles:
1. These are sad people
2. They probably don’t realise that they have a problem
3. It may not be a treatable condition
4. It may be a contagious condition
5. One tends to find that people who like being on committees especially feel the need to organise meetings. Avoid them like the plague, (see the Desiderata - ‘Avoid loud, vexatious and downright irritating people, especially those who feel the need to organise meetings’).
If you find that you are having to work with a compulsive meeting organiser, try to stay calm, speak to them slowly, appear to agree with them and always carry your diary, (filled with spaces that do not leave slots of time of more than an hour at any one time - even if you have to make up fictitious engagements).
Certain tactics may be used to try to discourage avid ‘meeters’, such as pointing out the inefficiency of holding most meeting, (see later details of efficiency of meetings). If, however, you have to put up with working with a ‘meeter’ all the time the best options are drink or leave!
GUIDANCE UPON ORGANISING MEETINGS
There are some basic considerations which need to be borne in mind when efficiently organising meetings. These are based upon the same premise as that for the investigation of criminal offences, much like a murder enquiry really:
1. Who
i) who is to be invited to the meeting
ii) who do you actually want to attend the meeting
iii) who is to arrange the meeting
iv) who must be contacted to book the meeting
v) who must be told about the meeting as a matter of etiquette
vi) who is to be in charge of the meeting
vii) who is to decide what happens at the meeting
viii) who is to record the outcome of the meeting
ix) who is to be informed or affected by the meeting
x) who will make the actual decisions at the meeting
xi) who should think they are making the decisions at the meeting
xii) who would it be better not to tell about the meeting
xiii) who will say what you want them to say at the meeting
xiv) who needs to be watched/ restrained/ controlled during the meeting
xv) who might try to subvert the meeting
xvi) who must take what action after the meeting
2. What
i) what is the meeting for
ii) what is the meeting supposed to give the impression to others of being for
iii) what do you want the meeting to decide
iv) what are the implications of getting the meeting wrong
iii) what is going to happen after the meeting.
3. Where
i) where is the meeting to be held
ii) where was the last meeting held, (if there was one - bearing in mind people may expect the next meeting to be held in the same place)
iii) where is the next meeting to be held
iv) where would you really rather be other than at a meeting
4. When
i) when is the meeting to take place
ii) when is the next meeting to take place
iii) when do the decisions reached at the meeting have to be actioned
iv) when can you escape from the meeting
5. Why
i) why is a meeting necessary
ii) why are you, (as opposed to anybody else), organising the meeting
(NB this will be because of one of the following:-
a) you are a ‘meeter’,
b) you are a ‘mug’
c) you are a sad bastard
d) you have no choice either because it is urgent or important
e) you think you are important)
iii) why are you not using the mode of communication that you are using to inform people of the meeting to convey the information that you want to convey during the course of the meeting, (if this is a meeting to disseminate information)
iv) why are you wasting people’s time
v) why are you not talking to people one to one
vi) why does it take a lot of people to reach a decision one person could make or has already made on a previous occasion
vii) why do you need to read this guidance
6. How
i) how is the meeting to be organised
ii) how are the decisions reached at the meeting to be communicated
iii) how can you avoid having to arrange the next meeting
iv) how are you going to avoid attending the next meeting
v) how are you going to convince the people who are at the meeting to decide what you want them to decide or to listen to what you want them to hear
vi) how are you going to convince people that they are making the decisions they want to make whilst you persuade them to make the decisions you want them to make
vii) how are you going to subvert the meeting
viii) how do you stop people talking drivel/ wittering on for hours/ boring you rigid at meetings
ix) how do you persuade a ‘meeter’ not to hold a meeting
x) how do you keep your job if this gets out
EFFICIENCY OF MEETINGS
If a lecturer is paid on average, say £26,000 per annum, that amounts to an average of £125 per day. If a lecturer is assumed to do an eight hour day, it costs £15.63 per hour for that lecturer to be engaged in meetings. If, say, ten lecturers on that salary are engaged in a two hour meeting that costs say £312.50, not taking account of the disruption caused. If in a college say 30 lecturers on salaries of £26,000 pa were each required to attend two meetings of two hours per week, that would cost a college £1875 per week or £97,500 p.a.
If say thirty students attend a meeting for half an hour when they would otherwise have been working, that is 15 hours of college work or the equivalent of nearly half a week’s work that is not done.
Could a meeting that costs say £312 to hold be avoided by one person being employed to make decisions; or the decisions of those who have already made the decisions but are holding a meeting to ratify the decisions, just being implemented without a meeting.
NOTICE OF MEETINGS
Notice of meetings may be communicated by
i) standard notice, such as on the notice board
ii) word of mouth
iii) announcement at a meeting held to plan the next meeting
iv) organised communication to specified representatives who themselves notify others of the meeting
v) e-mail
vi) fax
vii) telephone
viii) memo/letter
Such notice must be given in sufficient time for all necessary parties to receive adequate notification of the meeting.
People within the institution need training in respect of how to organise meetings. This guide has therefore been prepared to help those in positions of responsibility within the institution to follow the appropriate procedures for organising meetings, to identify the need to organise meetings and to improve the efficiency of the institution. There will be a meeting arranged to discuss this.
PROCEDURE FOR ORGANISING A MEETING
1. Decide upon the meeting to be arranged
2. Book the room with the person responsible for taking room bookings, who will be located somewhere other than where the meeting is to take place
3. Notify the people required to attend the meeting that the meeting is to take place and that they are required to attend
4. Ensure that other people seeking to hold a different meeting at the same time in the same place but with different people present do not do so
5. Attend the meeting
6. Go down the pub
IDENTIFYING PEOPLE WHO NEED TO ORGANISE MEETING
There are many reasons for organising meetings. It is important to consider at the outset the difference between the need for a meeting and the need to organise a meeting.
It is an unavoidable frustration of life that certain people feel compelled to organise meetings. These are the sort of people who will come up with very complex arguments to justify to others why a meeting is required, so that they can go on to organise it. These people tend to fall into one of several categories:
1. There is the common or garden ‘meeting organiser’, (hereinafter referred to as a ‘meeter’), who wants to organise meetings due to their own social inadequacy by virtue of the fact that unless they compel people to meet with them, they would spend their time alone. Often these people cannot cope with one to one conversations.
2. There is the meglo-meeter who needs to arrange meeting to demonstrate their perceived power over others.
3. There is the social hedo- meeter who wants any excuse to get groups of people together, (usually whom they like), to have a good time.
4. There is the manago-meeter who through a combination of education and mistake believes that meetings are a good way of disseminating information/ boosting morale/ saving time/ combining ‘forces’, (sort of two brains are better than one stuff for people who need the assistance of a second brain to progress in life...).
5. The efficio-meeter who understands that occasionally a meeting may be a necessary evil.
TECHNIQUES FOR COPING WITH COMPULSIVE MEETING ORGANISERS, (‘MEETERS’)
If you happen to work with somebody who feels the need to organise meetings there are several different techniques available for coping with this. One is of course to avoid attending them and their meetings completely, (see the publication Avoiding Meetings and Staying Employed for Art Lecturers). It is important to remember a few basic principles:
1. These are sad people
2. They probably don’t realise that they have a problem
3. It may not be a treatable condition
4. It may be a contagious condition
5. One tends to find that people who like being on committees especially feel the need to organise meetings. Avoid them like the plague, (see the Desiderata - ‘Avoid loud, vexatious and downright irritating people, especially those who feel the need to organise meetings’).
If you find that you are having to work with a compulsive meeting organiser, try to stay calm, speak to them slowly, appear to agree with them and always carry your diary, (filled with spaces that do not leave slots of time of more than an hour at any one time - even if you have to make up fictitious engagements).
Certain tactics may be used to try to discourage avid ‘meeters’, such as pointing out the inefficiency of holding most meeting, (see later details of efficiency of meetings). If, however, you have to put up with working with a ‘meeter’ all the time the best options are drink or leave!
GUIDANCE UPON ORGANISING MEETINGS
There are some basic considerations which need to be borne in mind when efficiently organising meetings. These are based upon the same premise as that for the investigation of criminal offences, much like a murder enquiry really:
1. Who
i) who is to be invited to the meeting
ii) who do you actually want to attend the meeting
iii) who is to arrange the meeting
iv) who must be contacted to book the meeting
v) who must be told about the meeting as a matter of etiquette
vi) who is to be in charge of the meeting
vii) who is to decide what happens at the meeting
viii) who is to record the outcome of the meeting
ix) who is to be informed or affected by the meeting
x) who will make the actual decisions at the meeting
xi) who should think they are making the decisions at the meeting
xii) who would it be better not to tell about the meeting
xiii) who will say what you want them to say at the meeting
xiv) who needs to be watched/ restrained/ controlled during the meeting
xv) who might try to subvert the meeting
xvi) who must take what action after the meeting
2. What
i) what is the meeting for
ii) what is the meeting supposed to give the impression to others of being for
iii) what do you want the meeting to decide
iv) what are the implications of getting the meeting wrong
iii) what is going to happen after the meeting.
3. Where
i) where is the meeting to be held
ii) where was the last meeting held, (if there was one - bearing in mind people may expect the next meeting to be held in the same place)
iii) where is the next meeting to be held
iv) where would you really rather be other than at a meeting
4. When
i) when is the meeting to take place
ii) when is the next meeting to take place
iii) when do the decisions reached at the meeting have to be actioned
iv) when can you escape from the meeting
5. Why
i) why is a meeting necessary
ii) why are you, (as opposed to anybody else), organising the meeting
(NB this will be because of one of the following:-
a) you are a ‘meeter’,
b) you are a ‘mug’
c) you are a sad bastard
d) you have no choice either because it is urgent or important
e) you think you are important)
iii) why are you not using the mode of communication that you are using to inform people of the meeting to convey the information that you want to convey during the course of the meeting, (if this is a meeting to disseminate information)
iv) why are you wasting people’s time
v) why are you not talking to people one to one
vi) why does it take a lot of people to reach a decision one person could make or has already made on a previous occasion
vii) why do you need to read this guidance
6. How
i) how is the meeting to be organised
ii) how are the decisions reached at the meeting to be communicated
iii) how can you avoid having to arrange the next meeting
iv) how are you going to avoid attending the next meeting
v) how are you going to convince the people who are at the meeting to decide what you want them to decide or to listen to what you want them to hear
vi) how are you going to convince people that they are making the decisions they want to make whilst you persuade them to make the decisions you want them to make
vii) how are you going to subvert the meeting
viii) how do you stop people talking drivel/ wittering on for hours/ boring you rigid at meetings
ix) how do you persuade a ‘meeter’ not to hold a meeting
x) how do you keep your job if this gets out
EFFICIENCY OF MEETINGS
If a lecturer is paid on average, say £26,000 per annum, that amounts to an average of £125 per day. If a lecturer is assumed to do an eight hour day, it costs £15.63 per hour for that lecturer to be engaged in meetings. If, say, ten lecturers on that salary are engaged in a two hour meeting that costs say £312.50, not taking account of the disruption caused. If in a college say 30 lecturers on salaries of £26,000 pa were each required to attend two meetings of two hours per week, that would cost a college £1875 per week or £97,500 p.a.
If say thirty students attend a meeting for half an hour when they would otherwise have been working, that is 15 hours of college work or the equivalent of nearly half a week’s work that is not done.
Could a meeting that costs say £312 to hold be avoided by one person being employed to make decisions; or the decisions of those who have already made the decisions but are holding a meeting to ratify the decisions, just being implemented without a meeting.
NOTICE OF MEETINGS
Notice of meetings may be communicated by
i) standard notice, such as on the notice board
ii) word of mouth
iii) announcement at a meeting held to plan the next meeting
iv) organised communication to specified representatives who themselves notify others of the meeting
v) e-mail
vi) fax
vii) telephone
viii) memo/letter
Such notice must be given in sufficient time for all necessary parties to receive adequate notification of the meeting.
Bit of Poetry to Change the Tone
I’d like to introduce you to me mate (X)
I’d like to introduce you to me mate
She loves to learn new words, like “Osculate”
Sagatiously she joins in conversation
As words become ideas by sublimation
And suddenly you get that bad sensation
When thrown a look of her disapprobation
She’ll masticate upon the words in mind
(You’d best not spell that wrong or she’ll go blind)
She’ll languidly allow a thought to flow
Then use the words she’s learnt to let you know
That you’re in trouble
She peregrinates with language spent in play
A quite delicious way to spend the day!
An epithet she’ll readily apply
Veridical, subliminal and dry
She’ll rarely be obsequious, not her role
Nor will she be mendacious on the whole
Solicitude for accuracy shows
As eloquently she explores her prose
Diaphanous and unctuous she is not
She’ll throw at you the sweetest word she’s got
Obtuse she may be, if she’s in the mood
But somehow from her lips it isn’t rude
Usually
And so it is I love the gorgeous way
That she and I can share our words in play
If you know what I mean
Subtle Palpable Enticement
Subtle palpable enticement
Of eye to eye to mouth to I
As smile whispers across your edge of lips
Contained in mischief
But whispered back to cheek and taughtened chin
Spark of light shows deep-welled pupils play
Lessons well learnt
In smoky amber moments of otherness
You chase my peripatetic thoughts
As searching for the sense in all these senses
I take myself away to closer be
Unfairly leave you tantalised alone
Yet closer than you know
Apt melodies envelope our slow dance
Of mind with melt-down mind
With gentle touch to back to lead me on
We tiptoe round the risk
As I to eye to mouth to eye
Explore
Consumed
The subtle touch as fingers
iced along my spine
hirsute prickle rises to the encounter
breath drawn sharp contracts within my lungs
Connected by the thread of angel’s hair
its febrile stretch electric
You consume me
My senses tightly focus
On your all
Epithileal tingle as current runs between your skin and mine
I breathe your heady scent with hidden raw
I hear your whisper just behind my thought
And taste the maybe juices on my tongue
Sweet bitter slightly salted I presume
My eyes are trapped within your browning gaze
I start to tremble
Your laugh begins to melt my weary heart
Your voice engaged in syzergy with mine
Your smile feels like the smell of fresh-cut grass
On summer days
I have to look away before you see
The power you’re exerting over me
I’m falling oh so gently into you
Osculated
The candle-light reflected in your eyes
en-sparkled me
stars leaping out to sing
sweet harmony
as huskily your story drew me in
you leaned
towards me
smiled
and said you’d show
me how
you had been kissed
I froze in couldn’t move in head explode
your lips so softly gently captured mine
sensation as I felt myself implode
our mouths combined
I melted then
incapable of no
your playful under breath of laugh as knowing
you were in control
you let me go
I’d like to introduce you to me mate
She loves to learn new words, like “Osculate”
Sagatiously she joins in conversation
As words become ideas by sublimation
And suddenly you get that bad sensation
When thrown a look of her disapprobation
She’ll masticate upon the words in mind
(You’d best not spell that wrong or she’ll go blind)
She’ll languidly allow a thought to flow
Then use the words she’s learnt to let you know
That you’re in trouble
She peregrinates with language spent in play
A quite delicious way to spend the day!
An epithet she’ll readily apply
Veridical, subliminal and dry
She’ll rarely be obsequious, not her role
Nor will she be mendacious on the whole
Solicitude for accuracy shows
As eloquently she explores her prose
Diaphanous and unctuous she is not
She’ll throw at you the sweetest word she’s got
Obtuse she may be, if she’s in the mood
But somehow from her lips it isn’t rude
Usually
And so it is I love the gorgeous way
That she and I can share our words in play
If you know what I mean
Subtle Palpable Enticement
Subtle palpable enticement
Of eye to eye to mouth to I
As smile whispers across your edge of lips
Contained in mischief
But whispered back to cheek and taughtened chin
Spark of light shows deep-welled pupils play
Lessons well learnt
In smoky amber moments of otherness
You chase my peripatetic thoughts
As searching for the sense in all these senses
I take myself away to closer be
Unfairly leave you tantalised alone
Yet closer than you know
Apt melodies envelope our slow dance
Of mind with melt-down mind
With gentle touch to back to lead me on
We tiptoe round the risk
As I to eye to mouth to eye
Explore
Consumed
The subtle touch as fingers
iced along my spine
hirsute prickle rises to the encounter
breath drawn sharp contracts within my lungs
Connected by the thread of angel’s hair
its febrile stretch electric
You consume me
My senses tightly focus
On your all
Epithileal tingle as current runs between your skin and mine
I breathe your heady scent with hidden raw
I hear your whisper just behind my thought
And taste the maybe juices on my tongue
Sweet bitter slightly salted I presume
My eyes are trapped within your browning gaze
I start to tremble
Your laugh begins to melt my weary heart
Your voice engaged in syzergy with mine
Your smile feels like the smell of fresh-cut grass
On summer days
I have to look away before you see
The power you’re exerting over me
I’m falling oh so gently into you
Osculated
The candle-light reflected in your eyes
en-sparkled me
stars leaping out to sing
sweet harmony
as huskily your story drew me in
you leaned
towards me
smiled
and said you’d show
me how
you had been kissed
I froze in couldn’t move in head explode
your lips so softly gently captured mine
sensation as I felt myself implode
our mouths combined
I melted then
incapable of no
your playful under breath of laugh as knowing
you were in control
you let me go
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