Force of habit

Bribery’s a little more expensive than blackmail, but a great deal more pleasant to apply, without being necessarily less effective.

In fact, combined with the power of habit, it can be immensely powerful.

I noticed this with our dogs. Many dogs resist having their lead put back on at the end of a walk off the lead. But I made a point of always giving them a treat each when it came to the moment to have the lead clipped back on their collars. Now as we approach the gate to the park, they don’t even wait to be called, but come trotting over expectantly, straining their necks for the lead and their treat.

Toffee (left) and Luci (right)
Open to bribery as a reinforcement of habit

See? The effect of habit taught through bribery. A powerful force.

It doesn’t affect dogs only. I speak authoritatively only for myself, naturally, but if I am at all representative of humanity, then I it feels as though mankind too is very much a creature of habit.

Now, two apparently unrelated but in fact closely linked changes have considerably improved my life over the last six months or so.

The first was getting a new job, in a company with a product I believe in, and colleagues for whom I feel, almost without exception, not just great affection but also considerable admiration.

The second was buying a new car. The link with the previous change was that the company, in return for paying me a car allowance, required me to have a car significantly less old than the one I was still driving. It was a Toyota Avensis and it had served me well for eight years, though recently it had begun to develop little minor problems which quickly piled up costs to repair.

Besides, the Avensis was a diesel. I don’t like diesel for ecological reasons. And, in addition, it left what was a relatively large car, with all the comfort that implies, underpowered for its size. It just didn’t have that little bit of punch which it’s pleasant to be able to call on when you want to get past a lorry or out of a side turning onto a busy road.

So I’m delighted with the car I replaced it with. Another Toyota (I’ve become a fan), it’s an Auris, the next model down, and a hybrid – ecologically much more dependable – and fuelled not with diesel but petrol (OK, OK, transatlantic cousins: gasoline). Being smaller, it has just that little extra poke which makes it much more pleasurable to drive.

The highly satisfying new job has me doing a lot of travelling. That means that the satisfaction comes with a certain degree of tiredness. On Friday, I was returning from a client visit in the Auris – so both sources of pleasure were combined – and feeling pretty worn out – so I was paying the price.

A couple of miles from home I decided I would do my final duty of the week and fill up with fuel. And that’s where the force of habit kicked in. A habit built up over eight years and a cause for what might have turned into a minor disaster.

I carefully filled the car’s tank. With diesel.

It wasn’t till I was nearly home that I realised what I’d done, when the car juddered and lost power.

Fortunately, my breakdown recovery service was able to send someone around to drain the tank. The job wasn’t done until 11:00 at night, but at least it was done, though at more than a little cost to myself: the breakdown service covered the cost of the callout but not of the work – they said that it was down to “pilot error”, and I didn’t have the heart to point out I hadn’t been trying to fly the damned car.

That, however, wasn’t the end of my woes. At the end of the process, the car refused to start, instead displaying a message “check hybrid system”. The fuel drainage man suggested I leave it till the morning when “things will have settled down” and the engine might work again.

I regarded this as a ridiculously unlikely proposition, but it was 11:00 and I was by now exceedingly weary. I also didn’t think he could fix the car anyway.

In the morning, the same message was displayed on the dashboard and the motor still wouldn’t start. Fortunately, the breakdown service was prepared to get the car towed into the Toyota garage as part of the same incident, and at no charge.

So in it went.

By this time I was beginning to feel the car was sending me a message. “You did this to me? You were that stupid? Thoughtless and inattentive?”

I was trying to beam it reassuring messages. “Don’t get me wrong. I really like you. I really like driving in you. Please don’t hold a moment’s inattention against me.”

Fortunately, once in the Toyota garage the car was among friends. I was warned that “check hybrid system” could mean having to buy a new battery at colossal cost – like a fifth of what I paid for the whole car – but a highly friendly and immensely competent mechanic (from the Baltic states: why do Brits want to keep these great people out?) cooed over the controls, spoke soothingly to the car, and worked some sort of magic, so that within minutes the engine started up again and began running smoothly once more.

It was like being forgiven and given a second chance which, believe me, is just as gratifying from an inanimate object as from a human being.

That left me feeling well-disposed to cars of a tolerant nature. But, above all, conscious of how damaging force of habit can be. Something I really need to resist in the future.

However much I reinforce it with treats it in the dogs.

Ikea style the Toyota way

It’s so passé to build up stocks of goods long before you need them. These days, ‘Just In Time’ – the Toyota way – is very much the holy Grail of production techniques. So I was delighted to live by Toyota principles this weekend.

At Christmas, we’re being joined by a relatively large number of friends and relatives. Actually, they’re all relatives if we count out-laws as well as in-laws, and I very much do: the company will include one of my charming daughters-out-law and her parents.

The only problem is that there isn’t enough space around the table kindly passed to me by my mother. A beautiful piece of teak from the days before we knew not to use tropical hardwood for furniture. But it really only seats six and we’re likely to be seven or eight.

So we needed a new table. It was therefore opportune that old friends from Edinburgh came to see us this weekend, and were joined by other friends, and sons, and partners.

That focused the mind. The call of Ikea came loud and clear, and we answered it yesterday. This morning we had set to work to put the table together. Not too early, given that we’d had a few drinks yesterday evening: we started at 11:30 and the meal was due to be served at 1:00.

Just in time production became not so much desirable as absolutely essential.

And we knew it could easily turn into just too late.

Those watching us were openly sceptical.

‘It’ll never be done in time.’

‘Should I ring the others and tell them to come later?’

The amazing thing about assembling Ikea furniture is that, like tying a bow tie, the magic only happens at the end. Have you ever tried tying a bow tie? You pass one end round the other, you make a bow, you loop round it and suddenly you’re faced with a final tuck-and-tighten and it’s perfectly obvious that no knot is going to form. Then you do it and – lo and behold – the miracle occurs and a beautifully formed bow knot appears.

So it was with the Ikea table. At 12:50, what we had was a nondescript wooden framework with various protruding bits which didn’t seem designed to fit with anything else. Most suspicious of all, we had four dowelling rods left with nowhere to put them. Had they supplied too many? Had we fitted too few? Would the whole thing fail to form or, worse still, fall apart as soon as the meal was placed on it?

The ambient scepticism level was palpably growing.

But we persevered. My friend Hakim voiced the unfortunate question, ‘why don’t you hold, this time, while I screw?’, but fortunately the Ikea context was obvious to anyone who glanced up, shocked, to see what we were talking about.

A few more washers and bolts, and we were ready to turn the thing over from where it was lying, top down, on the floor. As it came upright it was revealed to be – slightly astonishingly even though it was what we’d been aiming at – a table. We pulled the two ends apart and inserted a leaf and, hey presto, the trick was done: we could sit nine to eat the fabulous Tajine Danielle had prepared (in both a meat and vegetarian version, to accommodate all tastes), followed by the excellent cheesecake brought by Brenda, one of our guests.

And Brenda knocked on the door just as we secured the table leaf in place. OK, so it was 1:03, but since our aim was to complete as she arrived, I regard that as Just In Time and not an instant too late.

The table that provided much pleasure this afternoon.
And it was ready just in time.

So we enjoyed a great meal in congenial company. And provided a striking vindication of the Toyota way.

As for Christmas – we’re ready with positively weeks to spare.