STREETWISE

One of the advantages of working with younger people is that they do help you retain your youth and keep up-to-date with the latest fashion / styles / fads / music etc. In my offices, possessing such knowledge qualifies you as streetwise or apparently just ‘street’!!
 
What is a little more difficult to manage I discover, is that what is streetwise to Tom my 20 year old employee, is not the same for Nadya the 28 year old. Nor is her idea of ‘street’, necessarily that of my 30 something Marcia. While our most experienced employee, Valerie, frankly couldn’t care what any of them thought about anything as she has “forgotten more than they have ever learnt”!
 
My dilemma is that somehow I want them ALL to think I’m cool (a word that probably negates the chance of that happening already) to which end I’ve been to see two live bands in the last week; Razorlight and The Doves. The latter were good, the former outstanding.
 
However while I assumed seeing two of today’s most eminent bands must aid my chances of being viewed as ‘hip’ (oh shut up!), in fact it did the opposite. My staff under the age of 25 believe music that involves people paying instruments is an outdated idea and band names that don’t end in a ‘z’ are just fuddy-duddy. Quite how some chap called Dizzy Rascal gets bonus points for having two ‘z’s, I’ll never understand.

The ladies of the office seem to be soul divas which means ideally the music should be all about the vocals, ideally belted out by a person with an octave range of a wolf. Valerie, bizarrely, likes boxing, but not noisy drums. Nigel said he liked the bands I was seeing. This could be perceived as positive news unless you know that he only listens to Melody FM, meaning that he actually hasn’t a clue who the bands are and is just humouring me.
 
It’s the ‘impossible dream’, to coin a song title the more discerning among you will know, to be universally popular I guess. In the cold light of day I have resigned myself to accepting there really is only one foolproof way to guarantee elevation to cool level – I reminded them all that I sign their pay cheques!! Instant, if not expensive, hero status.