Jo Tells Me Where To Go
Continuing my series on the unsung heroes of 大象传媒 Radio Scotland and today we're in Inverness and introducing Joanne Morrison.
Jo is my Personal Assistant. She's the one who organises my diary in such a way that I end up criss-crossing Scotland every week. Frankly I think she doesn't like seeing me sitting in the office in Inverness. My recurring conversation with Jo involves the train service to Glasgow and whether or not I have to change at Perth. One day she's going to snap and force-feed me a copy of the train timetable.
Jo joined 大象传媒 Radio Scotland six months ago, after a career that included working for Northern Constabulary. She tells that the most confusing thing about the 大象传媒 is that so many people dress casually - jeans, t-shirts - and so it's difficult to tell which person "outranks" another. I suggested we bring in a system of uniforms and stripes, but only because I've always fancied wearing a peaked hat.
On a recent trip to New York, Jo went into an Apple store in Manhattan and bought herself a personal laptop computer. Returning to Scotland she realised that she'd been charged for software that wasn't actually installed on the machine. Her subsequent tales of late night transatlantic telephone calls - and her subsquent refund - told me a lot about her haggling skils.
"Not that I'm tight-fisted!" she protests. Then again, she's the only person in this building who can get a two-for-one deal from the vending machine.
