Jackie Hartley’s BLOG

Just come across a wonderful quote:
‘Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.’ Goethe
I do this all the time and, boy, does it get me into trouble. Why? Because people always seem to interpret statements such as

You can do better […]

Reading a great book at the moment called The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom to the Test of Modern Science. It’s the book behind the newspaper article I posted on, How to be happy at Work, which is how I got onto the book. Anyway, it really does have a good look at the whole […]

As one of my biggest gripes is the poor state of CVs in this country I thought I would start a short series of entries on how to produce a half decent CV. So here is entry number 1, I will keep posting on this over the coming weeks.
Firstly - please don’t use a template […]

Just read an interesting article in the Guardian about how to be happy, both in life and in work. Apparently as human beings we only thrive when we have the right relationship with others, with our work and with something larger than ourselves. We have a need for ‘effectance’ - to feel we are having […]

So, hot on the heels of disparaging comments about our young people’s A level results, one charity is now taking a pot shot at the value of these same young people taking gap years. Apparently going off to poorer countries in the world to travel, see the sights, help out in local schools or on […]

Here we go again. Our young people have once again slogged their guts out to please their parents, teachers and prospective universities by doing brilliantly well in their A levels and what do the critics say?

‘A levels are obviously too easy now.’
‘Students are picking all the easy subjects like psychology.’
‘How are universities going to identify […]

I have to say I think City & Guilds are doing a fantastic job making the case for the vocational route. In addition to their Vocational Rich List they have also been involved in research to see how happy people are in their jobs. And guess what, the top ten jobs on that list are […]

We have our 2 year old grandson, Harry, staying with us at the moment. My daughter (now a single mum) is away on a business trip. Each day I drop Harry off and collect him from his childminder’s (the same lady who looked after my daughters for 14 years - how lovely is that?) and […]

Just had an interesting experience. Something I wrote in this blog got under somebody’s skin and they mentioned this to someone else, who contacted me and said it would be ‘political’ to remove the entry. I refused (though I did chicken out and amend the entry to ‘tone it down’ - I know, I’m pathetic […]

I wanted to jump for joy when, doing some research for a World of Work pack I am writing, I came across the City & Guilds Vocational Rich List. This is a list of people who have made millions by working their way up the craft or vocational route into business. And what a list:

John […]