Absence makes the Farmers stranger...

Get me - doing two blogs in one week again. You can tell I'm not spending half of my life on an aeroplane now eh?

Something funny has started to happen since the travel ban was imposed. I have had my own little mobile phone for a long time - it's very nice although the buttons are a bit big for my paws.  Anyhow, that's not the point.  This phone, although very pretty, never used to ring very much.  The Farmers and the Cheese Suppliers and the Miss Mooses would wait until they saw me, and meetings would be planned and I would attend.

Now it's a case of 'out of sight' but not 'out of mind'.  They still have meetings with me but this is how it happens.

My phone rings.  I answer it. 'Hello, Mouse speaking.'

'Mouse!' bellows the Farmer / Supplier / Miss Moose (except of course, Miss Mooses do not bellow, they speak softly). 'It's me, I'm in a meeting room.  I've got several other people with me.  We have some questions...'

And off they go, question after question. 'The Cheese Suppliers are not working quickly enough.' 'What is the re-order process when we want more Cheese?' 'What if we want a different packaging?' 'What is the name of the Cow supplying the milk for my Cheese?' 'I spoke to the Cheese Supplier and told him we wanted to increase our order, but only the original amount turned up.' etc etc.

All perfectly reasonable, I suppose. But it puts a Mouse on the spot somewhat.

What if I say something that isn't quite correct, or they misunderstand me? What if I don't know the answer?  What if I need to go for a wee and am hopping from paw to paw?

Now I know that when the Farmers made their own Cheese, this is the sort of banter they would have with each other as part of the process.  But it has all changed.  It is no business of the Farmers' which Cow is used for Milk (it says so in the contract - the Cheese Suppliers may use whichever cow they so choose, or a mix of milk from different cows).  There is a process to be followed.  Order increases have to be controlled by a CCR (Cheese Change Request)and go through the system - a chat with Supplier is only that, a chat.

And most of all, where are their good, old fashioned manners?  If you want to ask me all of these questions I am quite happy to answer them IF you:-

Send me a meeting invitation.
Send me your list of questions.
Send me an agenda.
Tell me who will be at the meeting.
Ask me if I want to invite someone.

That way, I can make sure I am prepared.  I can do my homework first, check the contract, ask the Suppliers (or invite them to speak for themselves) and I can make sure I've been for a wee.

It's enough to drive a Mouse to drink...

Hiccup-ingly yours,
Mouse xx

The Taming of the Rare Beast...

Is it true that a little Mouse can ever triumph over a big, snarly, scary all powerful Rare Beast with exceptionally large, stampy feet?

My encounter with The Rare Beast (come on, keep up, it's at least two posts ago) had left me feeling rather shaky of paw and whisker.  I pondered and worried and nearly drove myself furless trying to work out how to win and maintain the trust of the Farmers and the Cheese Suppliers.  And then I came up with a plan.

Do nothing.

Literally, to not care.

The Rare Beast liked this approach. With no little Mouse getting under his great big feet he was free to go and do whatever he pleased with the Farmers. 'You will like me, Farmers.  I am a Rare Beast and I am all Powerful.'

'Where is our cheese, Rare Beast?' (and where is that nice little Mouse who is quite sweet and funny?)

'Never mind your cheese.  There are rules.  Here are the rules.' (Hands over a long list, headed 'Rules', and typed in tiny font, using all kinds of complicated words).

'Mouse, we have a problem.'

'Sorry, Farmers, you have to ask The Rare Beast.' (And back I go to making pretty coloured charts for my office wall).

This goes on for a few weeks. I meet with The Rare Beast every week and he gives me updates.  He looks fraught and is speaking very quickly.  I am relaxed with my feet paws up on the table and a cocktail in my paw.  Okay I might be fibbing about the cocktail.  And the paws on the table.  But I am relaxed.

The Rare Beast's confidence is not dented - he talks about a new, far less Rare Beast who works with him now who 'is not as robust as me, Mouse. Nobody is.' But I notice his feet look a bit smaller.

And then I went on holiday.  It was lovely.  I went in a tent with my small boss, Edie, and played Super Mouse games for two weeks. 

I come back for my meeting with The Rare Beast and he knocks on my door (that's new - he used to charge through it).  He looks weary.

'Mouse,' he says, 'I am glad you are back.  I have been TOO busy.  The Farmers are continually asking questions and the Cheese Suppliers aren't speaking to me.  Even the Cheese Integration Co-operative, who I work for, are not speaking to me.  The Farmers are speaking to me.  Well, they're shouting at me.'

I look at his feet.  They have shrunk.  Small.  Tiny.  Teeny, weeny little feet that a baby Sparrow would have trouble hopping on.  That's what happens when you kick too many creatures too hard, I suspect.

'I got in a bit of a muddle, Mouse.  I mixed up an order for 500 Gorgonzola with an order for 3000 Edam.  And I delivered a consignment of extra strong mature cheddar to the Farmers' Annual Rugby event wrapped in pink tissue by mistake.'

I don't break a smile.  Not even a twitch of the whiskers.

'Okay Rare Beast.  Would you like my help?'

'Yes please, Mouse.  Although not really too much, as I am actually very very clever and quite Rare...'

'Whatever, Rare Beast.  Whatever.'

As for Super Mouse, the picture is of me in my sleeping bag, with my Super Mouse headband on as a necklace.  I hope you like it.

With Smiley Squeaks,

Mouse xx

Grounded...

Here's a question for you.  What do you get if you send your Miss Mouses, your Kitties, Ponies and Fairys all over Europe keeping Cheese and Fish customers connected to the Suppliers?  

Answer?  A big travel bill.

The boss, Edie, has discovered that her forecast travel budget of £12.82 has been somewhat exceeded and I am therefore grounded.  In some ways a travel ban is no bad thing, I no longer have a permanent suitcase in my room (well I do, but only because I'm too lazy to put it away), my working day has more or less dropped to a normal 9-5 (and a bit, at either end)and I am not spending my life running after cancelled planes, sitting in wet patches or being rescheduled.  I more or less know where I am and where I will be and I get to spend a lot of time in my home office, which is great as I sometimes don't brush my whiskers until lunchtime.

But in other ways - well - oh I know it makes sense but I have spent a lot of time building up my relationships with the Miss Mooses and the Farmers and the Cheese Suppliers and because of this, I can do it all by telephone very easily but, oh there is something about looking each other in the eye and shaking paws. A big part of what I have been doing is about meeting new people and creatures and working together to make something that doesn't work very well, work a whole lot better.  I looked all of this up in the dictionary and it took me ages, but it came up with 'job satisfaction'.

And I miss airports and funny hours and drinking a lot of coffee. I miss waking up seeing the Malmo skyline.  I miss sitting out in the square with a blanket on my knee and a heater next to me in the middle of Winter just watching the world go by.  After all, I am a travelling Mouse. What will become of my little blog if 'The Adventures of a Travelling Mouse' are now reporting my ventures to the Supermarket for extra cheese rations?  I will have to think of another title, perhaps 'The Adventures of SuperMouse'.

Actually that makes me think of a holiday I took this Summer with the boss, Edie, and her Big People.  Edie made me a cape and a headband and let me be SuperMouse for the entire stay in a tent. It was a very big tent and the wind and rain were very bad.  I think it's only my SuperMouse powers that stopped the tent from blowing away.

I also went cycling - maybe I will tell you all a bit about that in my next blog!

In the meantime I will keep my feet on the ground, my paws on the keyboard, and a bit of my heart in Sweden.

Saluting you!
Mouse xx

Mouse and The Rare Beast...

I meet all sorts of creatures in my frankly not quite normal job.  It is a strange industry with long and complicated processes - do you remember the Cheese Farmers and the tale I told of how they outsourced their cheese production to two Service Providers? one provider took over the cows and now run milk production, and the other provider is in charge of packaging and logistics?  No?  Take five minutes and scroll down to the blog entry entitled ‘Collaborative Working’, and then come back and read this.

Done that? right.  Well, to cut a long story short, after the closure of the Farm Shop due to the non arrival of the ordered cheese, the Farmers complained so much that the suppliers set up a Cheese Integration Group.  Well, one of the suppliers did.  The Cheese Integration Group is supposed to be an independent body who oversee fair play in the production of Cheese.  That means managing the suppliers and, indeed, the Farmers themselves if they misbehave - like agreeing to have Cheese delivered in August and then complaining when it hasn’t arrived by June - a full two months before the agreed date.  This is supposed to make my Mouse life easier, by having only one body to go to instead of two.  Perfect.  In theory.

Only the Cheese Integration Group is actually run by the supplier who took over the cows and milk production, and the supplier who packages and ships the cheese doesn’t really see why they should have to bother with the Cheese Integration Group at all. 

Anyway - the Cheese Integration Group were doing okay.  The Farmers knew that they had to play fair and we would get reports on Cheese Production on a regular basis.  The man from the Cheese Integration Group came out to see the Farmers with me and explained how things worked and the Farmers appreciated that.  

And then I met The Rare Beast.

One day I had my usual Cheese Integration Group meeting and in came a new creature, whom I had never encountered before.

‘Hello Mouse, I am The Rare Beast.’ said The Rare Beast, holding out a sharp clawed paw.

I opened my mouth to respond...

‘I am a Rare Beast.’ said The Rare Beast, ‘because I am very good at my job.  I have been a Cheese Producer and I have packaged Cheese and I know exactly how it works.  And I have been a Farmer too.  I am coming out to meet the Farmers with you and I will sort everything out because that is what I am good at.  I have been fixing things for over 100 years and there is not one experience I cannot resolve.  I am very well thought of Mouse.’

‘Oh I...’ said I, about to welcome him and tell him all about the problems we have had with the Cheese Production Process.

‘Look at my feet, Mouse.  Do  you see my feet?’  I look at The Rare Beast’s feet.  They are huge.

‘Do you know how I got big, magnificent feet like this, Mouse?  I got them by kicking people.  I am very good at kicking people.  I can kick Cheese Producers and I can kick Packing and Logistics people.  And I can kick cows.  Hard.’  I think this sounds very unfair and not really very nice, and I can’t help thinking, as he is looking at me with his yellow beast eyes, that he would probably enjoy kicking Miss Mouses around too.

And so I take The Rare Beast to meet the Farmers.  It is odd travelling with a Rare Beast and I am not quite sure what to talk about.  I tell The Rare Beast, as we buy a sandwich, that I am a vegetarian Mouse and I love Cheese.  ‘Yes,’ says The Rare Beast. ‘I know all about vegetarians.  I am a vegetarian also.  Except when I eat meat.’

I think he wants to add ‘and Mice.’

I explain that the Farmers are very cross as they have had no Cheese, their Farm Shop has now closed, and they have signed a contract with a Supermarket, to supply Cheese, but there is no Cheese forthcoming.  The milk producer keeps coming back with silly questions like ‘what number of spots must the cow producing the milk have?’ or ‘What level of creaminess must the milk have?’  Silly questions, designed to stall the process and give them more time (I suspect that they have not been looking after their cows very well and some have got fed up and gone to other farms, but they are not letting on).  The packaging and logistics supplier simply isn’t talking to the Cheese Integration Group as they don’t see why they have to.

The Rare Beast scares me.  But if he can scare the milk producers into producing milk, and the packing and logistics suppliers into packing the cheese and delivering it to the Supermarket, the farmers will be happy.  I prefer to work nicely with the suppliers, but the situation calls for drastic action.

The Rare Beast meets the Farmers, and proceeds to tell them that THEY MUST specify the level of creaminess of the milk, and the number of spots on the cow.  The Farmers become very upset and argue that they only ordered cheese, and how the Suppliers make the cheese is up to them.

I look at The Rare Beast and say ‘They are right, Rare Beast.  Please help us get what they ordered.  We shouldn’t have to do silly things...’

The Rare Beast fixes me with his yellow glare.  His sharp claws dig into his own wrist.  The Farmers leave, and I scoot out, but I am not quick enough.  The Rare Beast corners me.

‘Little Mouse.’ he says. ‘I am a RARE BEAST and I have been a RARE BEAST for many years.  I do not DO things.  I kick out with my giant shoes and make people sorry.  I will make the cows sorry.  I will make the packing people sorry.’

‘But you are making the Farmers sorry too.’ I say, ‘and the Farmers are paying our wages.’

The Rare Beast laughs.  ‘I think that you will find that the Farmers will do as I say.  And you, Mouse, will not get in the way of my kicking with my giant shoes.’

I glare at The Rare Beast and have a little think.  People with giant shoes, I think to myself, are bound to trip themselves up sooner or later.  Even Rare Beasts.

With an air of frost penetrating the warm, July day, The Rare Beast and I travel back to our respective homes, sharing some of the journey along the way.  The Rare Beast does make one attempt at small talk:

‘I do not do my job in order to make friends, Mouse.  I am The Rare Beast and I walk alone.  I do not need friends.’

Just as well, Rare Beast.  Just as well.

With curious anticipation,

Mouse xx