An interesting exchange with the bank

Just had an interesting exchange with the bank which I thought was worth sharing. It made me smile anyway. After dealing with a fairly mundane query, the conversation went like this:

Me: Thanks for your help
Bank: Is there anything else we can help you with today?
Me: No thank you.
B: Wait a minute! Before you go, could I ask you a couple of questions?
Me: Groan
B: (After a bit of waffle)... why don't you use your current account with us as your main account?
Me: Well, first I don't like your internet banking system. It's annoying.
B: Erm... well you get free European travel insurance
Me: Well if you were to issue me with a debit card it might allow for me to do something with my account
B: Erm well to do that we'd actually probably have to open up another account (blah blah...)
Me: No. Also, whilst we're on the subject I never actually wanted 2 accounts in the first place, let alone 3. I opened it after opening a savings account with you. Once I'd put money in to my savings account I then discovered that the only way to take my money out again was to open a current account. But you didn't tell me that when I opened the savings account, did you?
B: (squirms)
Me: Well anyway, as I said thanks very much for your help.
B: Okbye (hangs up very quickly)

I didn't realise before this exchange that actually I'm a little bit tired/ grouchy, and could probably do with going to bed. I also didn't realise just how much I'm not happy with the hassle it takes me to access my money in this account. Is it a little bit bad that I enjoyed this exchange though?

Just in case you're interested, the bank in question is Nationwide.

The Lottery Fascinates Me

There is a frankly massive Euromillions jackpot of £68,000,000 that looks like it might be won tonight.

I never used to understand the allure of the lottery. Yeah so there are big prizes, but there are even bigger odds. Huge odds. ENORMOUS odds! I remember working out in one maths lesson way back when I was at school that the odds of winning the 'normal' UK lottery are one in fourteen million. One in fourteen MILLION. Then there is the Euromillions, for which the odds for winning the maximum stake are one in SEVENTY SIX MILLION... but the jackpot is far greater. Understanding just how infinitesimally small those odds are is pretty much on par with trying to understand just how much money is on the table. It's just too much to comprehend.

So for a while I was dismissive of anyone who played the lottery. I mean, it's just a tax on people who can't do maths, isn't it? Slowly I realised the flaw to that logic: you gotta be in it to win it.

It wasn't until I played the lottery that I realised just how enjoyable it is to spend the winnings in your head. I have spent can spend endless hours endless hours thinking about whether or not I would buy a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, an Aston Martin or maybe even an Audi R8. Through so much indecision I have come up with a cunning plan as to how I would decide which supercar to buy. What I'd do is invite a salesperson from each of the big names to bring a car to my brand new track (because let's face it, you can't have an amazing car without anywhere to drive it properly, can you?). They would all be invited on the same day and in the knowledge that their competitors will be there too, but with the promise that I will buy one of their cars. I'd then enjoy a day sampling the finest motorcar engineering the world has to offer, whilst taking much pleasure in pitting the salespeople against each other. I haven't thought about this much. Nope, not at all.

But then I played it once or twice. That was it, I began to be inexorably lured towards buying another ticket. I don't play with any sense of regularity, but the temptation of a rollover is often enough to convince me to put my pound coin or few where my mouth is.

So yeah, the lottery fascinates me. I imagine that it will continue to fascinate me for some time. I like trying to stretch my brain to understand the sheer scale of odds and the possible but just that little bit too far out of reach reward. Most of all I like thinking about how I would spend the money if I were to win it.

Camera Club. My Camera Club.

This post has been composing itself in my head for ages now. I finally got down to writing it, so here it is.

I like photography. I like photography because anyone can take a photo. Most people can take a good photo if they think about it enough (or if they take enough photos). What far fewer people can do is take an outstanding photo. That's what motivates me.

I was chatting about photography with a few colleagues a few months ago. One of them turned round to me and said "why don't you start a Wood Mackenzie camera club?". Initially I was dismissive, but then I thought about it a bit...

Prior to this conversation I had attended a local camera club a few times. Whilst there I tried to make some contacts in the 10 minute tea break, but everyone went from sitting down to standing in insular groups of 2-3 people, talking quietly with one another. The lectures were of an amazing standard, but something was missing: networking. A friend of mine is the Vice President of said local camera club, and what I think I said to him is that it's a superb and very well established camera club but it just isn't for me.

As I'm sure you're probably aware already, photography is a very popular hobby.  Some people even manage to make a living out of it. Whilst pondering my colleague's idea I was already aware that what seemed like a larger percentage of my colleagues than the norm also enjoy photography.

So I decided to start up a Wood Mackenzie photography club, also known as Woodmac Photographers. I did this for a two reasons. Over time it's become apparent that there are many more reasons to support the concept of a photography club, but I'll explore them another time. These are the reasons I started it:

1. It was apparent that my colleagues are custodians of a vast amount of knowledge. I wanted find a way to encourage them to share it.
2. I wanted to persuade a few people to join me on various photography excursions.

After speaking to a couple of colleagues to see if they were interested (they were) I put a post up on the intranet page for the Edinburgh office. I was overwhelmed by the response. Slowly but surely people got in touch, then before I knew it there were 11 of us! Then I got a response from someone who works in the Sydney office, who had decided to start up the Sydney contingent!

So I had a few members, but what to do with them? I ended up arranging two meetings a month, the first being an informal meeting at the office to chat about photo stuff and the second a trip to take a few photos. I'm not ashamed to admit that I kind of pinched this two meetings a month format from Livingston Round Table, it works well. 

To date I have been constantly amazed by the relentless enthusiasm shown by my club. All they needed was the idea of knowledge sharing and they were off. They might benefit from the occasional nudge every now and then, but they're genuinely unstoppable! To illustrate this: we've been setting ourselves monthly challenges to take a photo on a subject, and then we come back to compare them as a group. After a couple of months I noticed that the enthusiasm in the challenges was starting to wane. Well, I suggested that we maybe give the challenges a break for a couple of months. The response? "No! Let's agree on a challenge this month!"

A colleague who I worked with in the Edinburgh office before she moved to Australia was back visiting Edinburgh recently. She told me a great story about how she'd gone into the pub near the Sydney office to catch up with some of the guys, but she found a few people huddled around a laptop. They were looking at pictures of flowers, landscapes and food. They were chatting about things like 'composition' and 'converging lines'. Upon asking them what they were doing (in a few more words than that), they answered that it was the photography club. That I started. On the other side of the world!

I've learned a lot since I started Woodmac Photographers, which is great. What I think is even better is that I know that my colleagues have learned so much more from each other. We've taken lots of photos, many of which wouldn't have been taken if the club didn't exist. I'm proud of my club, and I'm excited to see what happens next.

So that's my story so far. But have you got anything you're passionate about? Yeah, you. Would you like to do the same thing? Try it, I think you might just be surprised by the results.