It’s good to talk

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility,
Witty without affectation, free without indecency,
Learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood

Sometimes those weird days of 2020-2021 seem like we imagined them. Those days when we weren’t supposed to go out and do that most human of things – communicate, in person, with our fellow beings. Instead, we holed up, and communicated via the only mechanisms left to us – the telephone (for those of us over a certain age), our laptops, 3m apart over the garden fence, and our smartphones.

There were some good things to come out of those times. We discovered that it really isn’t always productive t get up at stupid-o-clock and drive halfway round the country for a short meeting, or, to be fair, maybe a series of them, before setting ff back into the car and the traffic. We found out that sometimes those meetings can be just as useful via the magic of Teams, reducing one’s carbon footprint, reducing the wear and tear on the car and oneself, and giving us back the time that would otherwise have been spent travelling.

Not always though. There are times, as we discovered when we were finally allowed back into normal society, when the in-person, human touch is really what’s needed. This was made clear to me yesterday as I trudged round halls 4 and 5 of the NEC in Birmingham at the first day of the Installer Live show.

T’s been a while since I’ve been to the NEC, and certainly a good while since I’ve been to a big exhibition that’s been as busy as yesterday was – I’m taking the NMBS and NBG shows out of the equation as they are specifically merchant-orientated and a bit different as a result. I haven’t had to do that slalom thing in the aisles at a show for a long time. I’ve not had to queue up to get onto a stand to speak to someone for a good while either. Lots of the stand had games and activities so they were proving a draw, there were loads of football games, a couple of world-class darts players, basketball games and the IPG’s toss-a-turd into the lavvy competition. I couldn’t bring myself to have a go at that one to be honest, although the second prize, of a year’s supply of loo-roll would be quite useful I suppose. Maybe that’s why it was so busy.

It wasn’t just the novelty stands and the games that seemed to be hauling in the plumbing punters either, they appeared to be queuing round the block just to get their badges scanned at the Worcester Bosch one. Heat pumps were everywhere, and, from talking to a few of the suppliers, it seems as though the message has got through, that installers understand they need to know about this new technology because their customers will be asking for it. Even if those customers aren’t quite ready for the transition to a heat pump, they want to know about it, about the benefits, the drawbacks, and how it will all work.

Everywhere, there were people chatting and conversing, learning, explaining, finding out the latest products, understanding the new ways of doing things, or just shooting the breeze with customers and colleagues, past and present. I saw a few people I’ve not seen in years, and it was lovely. I swear one of them didn’t look a day older than when we worked together 10 years ago.

It’s good to talk.