The beautiful, minimalist black Mag-lite AA flashlight is another CBW (Can’t Be Without), which, at pounds 14.95, is 99p cheaper than the same available from Captain O M Watts’ yachtsmen’s catalogue and pounds 2.04 cheaper than the same in the Youth Hostel Association’s catalogue Now for some clothes: durable but chic. I think I’ll go for the natty navy Breton Cap, pounds 22.95, and matching stripy Breton T-shirt, at pounds 29.95 from Captain O M Watts Easy And something to finish the ensemble. I leaf through the no-frills Burlington catalogue and oh! ecstasy, I chance upon a pair of Katharine Hamnett peach-skin finished jeans. I fill in the form for pounds 59.50, knowing that I can send them back if they don’t fit and so relieved not to have to brave the Sloane Street shop I can hardly write straight.Mail-order shopping is no longer naff. Indeed, it is the only way to secure that perfect desert island luxury item.
Such as: a pounds 62 lapis blue Limoge egg from the GTC gift catalogue; or from Halycon Days, an enamel pug-shaped bonbonniere I’ve never seen anything like it. Never in a thousand shopping days could I have chanced upon this. Such a moment is the jewel in the crown of the mail-order experience. And at less than pounds 500 I simply Can’t Be Without it.Survival Shop: 0171- 388 8353 YHA : 0171-836 8541.Home Free: 01793 542685 GTC : 0171-730 0411 Halcyon Days: 0171-629 8811 Purves & Purves: 0171-436 886 Burlington: 0181-919 9123. 12 The Independent Magazine
whatever happened to 9 to 5?
The philosopher Bertrand Russell had the right attitude to work. He said, “One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”Stephen Palmer, director of the Centre for Stress Management in south London, is inclined to agree.
“People are letting themselves get stressed over minor things Seldom does anyone’s life depend on a manager’s decision. But they are getting as stressed as if it does.”Palmer, who is a psychologist, doesn’t underestimate the importance of occupational stress, which be says is becoming increasingly common as companies “downsize” and “delayer”, with the result that those remaining have to work “a damn sight harder”. It is just that he has a different approach from many other stress specialists. For him, the answer lies solely in exercise, diet, yoga or meditation. He believes that it is essential to teach employees “thinking skills”.His centre, which is one of the leading stress treatment centres in Britain, sees about 20 to 30 people a week from areas such as advertising, acting, publishing, journalism, banks, charities, the civil service and small businesses, and also runs counselling groups in industry.Many clients, whether in the public or private sector, are victims of “downsizing” At first, they see the reduction in staff as a challenge “They feel good. Others have been sacked or made redundant and they have been kept on They think ‘I have been saved’.
It is what they have been saved for that is the problem.”They can work these long hours only for so long. They can ignore their children, if they so choose – it is not children who petition for divorce – but they ignore their partners at their peril What happens is that their partners get fed up. They often decide that they have had enough.”So these long-day workers start having problems at home Relationships deteriorate That has an impact on their work. Instead of going off to work in the morning feeling cheerful, looking forward to another challenging day on an adrenaline high, they go to work knowing that things are not right with their partner. And they spend a lot of the day ruminating on their problems at home.”In marriages where both partners spend long hours at work, people can drift apart. Then one of them ‘clicks’ with someone else at the workplace He or she starts to have an affair.
That has a negative impact on work and home life.”The paradox is that when things start to go wrong, it is unusual for people to start going home earlier, to try to improve things. They stay longer and longer at work to avoid confronting the problems at home. When they get home, they get nagged, quite understandably, by their partner, who says: ‘Why are you so late again?’”Long hours often have a negative effect on couple’s sex lives, One of them often thinks that, because their partner is not interested in having sex, they don’t love them any more.”The other thing that may happen when people are ‘over challenged’ at work, is that they start to drink heavily or even to take drugs. Unfortunately, people who drink have a tendency to forget things.