The Gradconsult blog

By Kylie Cook Originally published on LinkedIn Every week, on movie night, my husband asks me what I want to watch, and every week I shout SHREK 2 at the top of my lungs. I don’t know how it started, but it always makes me chuckle on account of me being very easily pleased. My demands for the cinematic delight of everyone’s favourite CGI ogre are rarely indulged, but I know the film pretty well nonetheless. What’s the point? Well, there’s a bit where Donkey and Shrek are talking about people being like onions and having layers*, and I think ... read more

Mostly I’m a cynic. I don’t ponder if the glass is half full or half empty but work on the assumption that the glass will break, someone will cut their hand on it, I’ll be sued and sent to prison where I won’t even be the prison pin up because Harold in cell 72 has a frankly stunning wig collection. However there is one time of year that strips back all those feelings and reminds me what happiness is all about. I bloody love Christmas and this week I was put in charge of the office decorations. It’s about to ... read more

Do you remember last Christmas? Not the song, the season. It seems like a long time ago but it was less than two months. At Gradconsult towers we made merry and went a bit mad on the decorations but it was Christmas and we all go a bit mad. Thankfully now the decorations have been down for a while and we can all start to focus on work. Oh, hello Easter. When did you get here? The Christmas decorations were really a project I was behind. Christmas has a special place and the symbols make more sense. A fat man ... read more

Outside the throes of a fevered dream or a 1980s conservative party conference, where would you go to find salsa dancing, real ale and two local radio drive-time presenters? The Gradstock twitter feed. It’s an eclectic mix. Some of the followers are following back (good twitter etiquette is always appreciated) after we got a bit bold and made the first move. However some came from the same place as those shoes you see hanging on power lines or UKIP. Actually nobody really knows where they came from but there they are. But as with Gradstock itself, the policy of the ... read more

I thought it had happened again. This week the office had a new addition that most offices don’t, deckchairs. I assumed my idea for business hammocks in the office was being considered and the deckchairs were a semi trial run.  Deckchairs, by the way, are nowhere near as confusing to put up as all those 1970s sitcoms told me they are (damn it Terry and June). Sadly the deckchairs are not going to be a permanent addition to the office. They have been bitten by the bug and are off to seek their fortune in London. Like Dick Whittington but ... read more

This week a packet of crisps spoke to me about potential, and the idea that my legs wouldn’t be so cold if I set my trousers on fire. Once the fire service left I went back to check on the dangling snack bag. Still there.  In my mind the crisps existed in two states: one where it had leapt and the other where it had fallen. The jumping crisp is a mighty adventurer who wanted to find out everything the world outside its glass prison had to offer. It had moment of courage and decided to embrace something new. Unknowing ... read more

When it rains good things, it pours good things. This week is rained good things so hard that Noah would have stuck his head out of the window and shouted “Really? Again?”. The week featured the BBC, international clients and going live ( although not the old Saturday morning TV show with the silver fox himself, Philip Schofield). Woman’s Hour on BBC radio 4 isn’t a programme I’d listened to before this week. The truth is I’m not a woman and an hour is longer than I can usually focus on someth….I found a balloon! On Wednesday our MD, Rebecca ... read more

And so the decorations are down, the same five songs have stopped being played and the last mince pie has been dealt with. The New Year is here and 2015 is going to be, frankly I have no idea what it will be but since that never stopped anyone else, I’m going to give you my predictions for 2015. And I’m going to try a few methods to do it. Tea leaves Since we make our tea in the cup, this method proved a bit unreliable (hope that doesn’t become a theme while trying to predict the future). I made ... read more

“If you have it you don’t need it. If you need it, you don’t have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don’t need less of it. You need it to get it. And you certainly need it to get more of it. But if you don’t already have any of it to begin with, you can’t get any of it to get started. Which means you really have no idea how to get it in the first place, do you? You can share it, sure. You can even stockpile ... read more

“Is the milk off? Not at all. Would you like one lump or two?”  The day we changed to UHT milk. I’ve just opened the 5th window on my rather awesome Marvel comics advent calendar (please don’t tell Batman or anyone over at DC; I don’t need that kind of heat). Nothing surprising about that in and of itself but, just like that tin of prunes that somehow came loose from an international prune relief cargo plane, it struck me. If it’s the fifth of December, that means I’ve been working at Gradconsult for over two months. I genuinely had ... read more