Back in the late 19th century, US businesses introduced the concept of the time and motion study which mainly involved measuring an employee's productivity through subdividing their "job" into discrete tasks and, by using a watch, determining the "best" way to do a task so as to ensure the employee was working as efficiently (i.e. quickly) as possible.

Today was another chance for a decent catch up with Mrs M - it felt as if the shopping was somewhat incidental as we spent most of the mission having a good long chat. Well, Mrs M did most of the chatting as she wanted to talk about all the various challenges she was dealing with at the moment (mostly relating to the various carers that look after her husband), and I, in turn, did most of the listening.

So today's job would have been called "shopping". The fact that we spent most of the time standing still (me outside Mrs M's door, Mrs M in her doorway at least 2m away) having the interesting chat (with my actual journey to and from Tesco quick and largely painless), would probably mean we'd have been heavily marked down in any time and motion study.

But I'd like to think that the chat session was probably more important today than the shopping for Mrs M's overall welfare...which only goes to prove (if proof were ever needed) that management consultants don't always get it right!