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Old habits......!
Hello everyone. In order to share with you an event that highlighted to me the power of the subconcious I need to desribe some history about the place where I work.
RAF Sealand is no longer an RAF establishment, but it is where I started work as an MOD civilian in 1989. For many years we entered the camp through the main gate, greeted by a 'Hunter' aircraft on a stand visible from the dual carriageway. The site is quite large, and parking spaces were available in a number of places, choice governed by proximity to the building in which I worked. The journey to my car park took me alongside the expansive parade ground, past mess building and accommodation blocks.
Some years ago the civilian aspects of the site (military avionics repairs) became a trading fund for the MOD (called DARA) and the DARA buildings were 'fenced off' from the RAF ones. This meant that we no longer used the RAF entrance, instead entering by what was once a 'back door'. I still use the same car park but approach it from 'our side of the fence'.
There was some recent work carried out to the DARA entrance whick restricted vehicular access, so the rusty old RAF gates were opened once more and we were temporarily asked to use those. A gate in the fence allows us through to our work site. One morning I drove onto the site, and needed to turn left and carry straight on for several hundred yards. I was listening intently to the radio and turned left, then right, then another left-right then was forced to stop in front of a 10 ft high razor-wire topped fence!
A number of thoughts ran through my mind in very quick succession as I realised I had driven along the now overgrown lawns at the side of the parade ground, tracing the route of many years ago (one that I had used many hundreds of times).
That I had inadvertently gone into auto-pilot is interesting but not the most interesting thing. What prompted me to write this is that my very first thought as I saw the fence was, "Well that's going to prompt a few complaints - they expect us to use the old entrance and foget to open the internal gates!"
I think it's facinating that past learnt experience took me the wrong way, despite me knowing and having used the correct internal route from old camp to new site before. But even more amazing is that my initial response was to think that the razor-wire in front of me was SOMEONE'S MISTAKE!!!
We know that emotional hi-jacks can cause strong emotional responses, but I'm intigued to wonder how many really subtle character traits go unnoticed, yet are inappropriate under current circumstances, having been developed in the past?....
RAF Sealand is no longer an RAF establishment, but it is where I started work as an MOD civilian in 1989. For many years we entered the camp through the main gate, greeted by a 'Hunter' aircraft on a stand visible from the dual carriageway. The site is quite large, and parking spaces were available in a number of places, choice governed by proximity to the building in which I worked. The journey to my car park took me alongside the expansive parade ground, past mess building and accommodation blocks.
Some years ago the civilian aspects of the site (military avionics repairs) became a trading fund for the MOD (called DARA) and the DARA buildings were 'fenced off' from the RAF ones. This meant that we no longer used the RAF entrance, instead entering by what was once a 'back door'. I still use the same car park but approach it from 'our side of the fence'.
There was some recent work carried out to the DARA entrance whick restricted vehicular access, so the rusty old RAF gates were opened once more and we were temporarily asked to use those. A gate in the fence allows us through to our work site. One morning I drove onto the site, and needed to turn left and carry straight on for several hundred yards. I was listening intently to the radio and turned left, then right, then another left-right then was forced to stop in front of a 10 ft high razor-wire topped fence!
A number of thoughts ran through my mind in very quick succession as I realised I had driven along the now overgrown lawns at the side of the parade ground, tracing the route of many years ago (one that I had used many hundreds of times).
That I had inadvertently gone into auto-pilot is interesting but not the most interesting thing. What prompted me to write this is that my very first thought as I saw the fence was, "Well that's going to prompt a few complaints - they expect us to use the old entrance and foget to open the internal gates!"
I think it's facinating that past learnt experience took me the wrong way, despite me knowing and having used the correct internal route from old camp to new site before. But even more amazing is that my initial response was to think that the razor-wire in front of me was SOMEONE'S MISTAKE!!!
We know that emotional hi-jacks can cause strong emotional responses, but I'm intigued to wonder how many really subtle character traits go unnoticed, yet are inappropriate under current circumstances, having been developed in the past?....
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Le Fevre on -
and even when people are helped out with a different way of taking an (old but new) route they find it difficult to reopen the internal gates....
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