The swan and monopoly

The swan is all calm on the surface and paddling like mad underneath. In my blogosphere it has appeared calm I’ll admit – not much to report because this time of year for me is much behind the scenes planning rather than upfront action. I am sure that there is a better way to do business planning that doesn’t involve sweat and tears if not blood. Planning in the last couple of years has involved art as well as science as we try and divine what is going to happen in the economy around us. Each year we refine the process and each year we can think of things we should have done better. Grit teeth and work through it!

Numbers One and Two Grandsons spend Friday nights with us. This gives us the opportunity to spoil them and their parents a night off (more of a morning not being woken up at 6 a.m.) They are now into Monopoly. Our game started on Friday evening and had to be halted when the players were falling asleep. Number One Grandson and I continued this morning. I was losing money hand over fist and he was winning. He is very competitive – hates losing and likes winning. He had a dilemma: I was losing enough to be in danger of going out altogether – too many visits to gaol and I kept landing on his multi-housed properties - but he very much wanted to continue playing. So he decided to forgo his rentals in order to keep me in the game longer. Therefore the fun of the game outweighed the satisfaction of winning. We called time as we had to go but I am sure that there is a very significant lesson here which could probably form the basis of a three volume management tome but for the life of me I can’t think what it is. All offers of co-authorship gratefully received.