"Sugar
and spice, and all things nice"
At 3.40am on Wednesday 1st April, 5lb 11oz of squalling infant
arrived in this world minus any prejudices, skills, biases, clothes, land
claims, soap-boxes, protest agendas, inhibitions or unrealistic expectations,
and proceeded to turn what passed for order into complete chaos. A look at the
mental processes we all go through during times of change.
I’ve been searching around for the operation manual that should have come with our new Daughter, or perhaps the CD-ROM Tutorial or On-line Help but alas, the manufacturer didn’t include it with the packaging. Neither can I find the remote to lower the volume or enact the ‘sleep’ function. A description of this new entity might be best summed up as a noise at one end and a complete lack of social responsibility at the other, and it continues to amaze me that bodily emissions of waste in solid, liquid and gaseous form are not only permitted but actively encouraged – dare I say even ‘cooed’ over if that is not too loose an expression - yet were this to occur in public and be perpetrated by an adult, there would be an entirely different response from bystanders.
In
spite of there be being no manual or peripheral equipment, we have two operators
in training – one full-time and one part-time. Part of the ‘person
description’ for operators appears to include being able to go without any
appreciable sleep for long periods of time, and make evaluative decisions with
little and conflicting information. I have watched with some clinical interest
the reactions of my two canine companions of some 8 years standing who have more
or less ruled their environment for that same length of time, being required now
to come to terms with an interloper, a usurper to the throne. The female appears
quite resigned (she’s had pups) and is given to long, suffering sighs and does
a vanishing act when the noise starts, yet at the same time sticks her head in
the bassinet occasionally just to check that all is well. The male on the other
hand has become almost aggressively protective and shows visual and audible
signs of distress when the squalling starts, to the extent of growling at all
and sundry with the exception of the full-time operator known colloquially as
‘mother’, and under protest accepts my presence albeit with a peculiar glint
in his eye. If these were two of the Dachshund variety or perhaps the gentle
Labrador, it might be less stressful, but as it is, I am for my sins ‘shared
caretaker’ of two fully-grown Dobermans.
One approaches the disciplinary function therefore with a degree of
circumspection. If you can imagine playing tennis with a live grenade in which
the pin is somewhat loose in its fitting you’ll have a rough idea…
You
may be thinking “well, we’re happy for you Steve (possibly with an element
of mischievous satisfaction), but why subject us to all this?”
One
of the most disruptive elements in our lives – and the root cause of many
‘stressors’ – is Change, and our ability or inability to manage it. We are
creatures of habit, and the large majority of us would prefer for Change to come
along in bite-size lumps. In our Change Management workshops, we use the
four-phase change model Denial, Resistance, Exploration and Commitment, and I
find myself in the none-too-comfortable position of evaluating my current mental
state against that model. As for the Denial phase, this new arrival was ordered
(and manufacturing started) some nine months ago, and the production process
carefully monitored (indeed, somewhat hard to ignore) during that time, so it
can be said that the impending arrival was eagerly awaited rather than denied.
Perhaps the Denial part could be applied to my thoughts that with careful
planning life might go on pretty much as normal. I have since found it
impossible to use a keyboard with one hand while at the same time jiggling
one’s knee up and down or swaying side to side, and it’s just as well I have
an oversize desk in order that the car-seat can fit between the phone and the
printer. Resistance? No point. Nature appears to have ensured that – by keying
the anxiety sensors in the adult brain to the exact vocal frequency of the noise
this entity makes - it is impossible to focus on a spreadsheet or document while
the noise continues and I am forced to cede operational control over to the
supplier of natural nutrient (whom I affectionately refer to as ‘Tanker’),
something that I am biologically unable to imitate or gain competency over.
Exploration – now, this is where I think I’m possibly at. A time of
wondering how life will be in the new situation, of questioning, of research
into sleep deprivation, of experimentation and mistakes, and of rediscovering
techniques and skills I thought I had forgotten. The Commitment phase had sort
of already begun some time ago, and will continue long into the future, and I
guess this shows me that while research may have identified a four-phase mental
process, it is not necessarily an ordered or structured process. At time of
writing we are experimenting with Job Enrichment, where I am in training to
prepare and administer synthetic nutrient (‘Formula’ to use the technical
jargon), making up for my lack of natural ability in order that I might be able
to share the refuelling process on the night shift. I am told that my occasional
lapses of concentration – particularly where I fall asleep mid-sentence –
will pass. I am also assured that my temporary dysfunction in terms of a newly
acquired tendency to emit a vocabulary of gutteral noises and babbling verbiage,
often a mixture of half-remembered nursery rhymes and 60’s chart-busters, will
also pass. I hope they are right.
Carpe
Diem
Steve Punter ANZIM,
Dip Bus (PMER), FHRINZ
Staff Training Associates Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand.
© Steve Punter 2001 All rights reserved by the author.