Road courtesy

Unlike most people, driving for me is a chore. It’s not something that I would normally do for pleasure. Maybe I associate driving too much with work. I drive over 30 miles each way everyday to work and I use two main A roads (A35 and A30). The summer months do not pose a lot of problems but come autumn and winter, driving to work in the mornings sometimes is a challenge. Take for example today, sunrise is at 7:30am but I leave the house 6:45am. That means night time driving for me but with the added complication of fog and mist. I do hate tailgaters because they make me nervous—I was involved in a nasty car accident three years ago with a lorry who failed to stop in a roundabout and treated my car like a pinball!
Anyway, all I want to say is that I do appreciate any form of road courtesy. I guess road courtesy is a sign of a civilised society. I like it when I let someone go in front of me and I get a courtesy “wink” back or see a hand up saying thank you. I like the polite sign language between decent drivers. Everything becomes less stressful and I am sure there will be less road rage if only all drivers observe an amount of decorum on the roads—but that’s not all possible because some drivers are complete idiots!

Today is one of those days when I find some form of satisfaction from my job. It was a result of a team meeting that a year ago I could not have because of some historic issues. There were some changes during the start of this academic year which enabled me to concentrate on our core offerings and things are indeed looking up. I think success is a lot sweeter when you work hard for it. I feel that I have developed as a line manager—I know I wrote in the past that it is one of the things I hate about my job because you’re completely immersed with a disparate group of people who have their individual needs. Now I really feel I have a cohesive team and we are completely at ease with each other. My team has accepted me as their leader and they give me so much feedback! They acknowledge that our communication with each other works. Can you believe that? I feel very lucky indeed. I wish I could bottle this feeling and sniff it every time I feel down. This is the best I could do, remember it for all time.