Vampire Energy
Electricity prices are presently rocketing around the world.
I read reports from England featuring such frights as a whopping fivefold increase in some energy bills.
News sites teem with tips on how to reduce the unwelcome incursion sapping your disposal income.
One such steer involves the slaying of vampire energy.
It means switching off completely vampire appliances.
Those items that when plugged in yet idle consume unnecessary electricity.
Not only in stand-by, but when not seeming 'on' too.
That dastardly LED light. Devious charger transformer. Disingenuous sleeping laptop.
The continual yet unused drain (according to major supplier Centrica) can possibly account for as much as 23pc of your energy bills.
Where else would you tolerate wasting an entire quarter of your precious cash?
Naturally, the parallel with humankind has not been missed.
Wikipedia uses relatively gentle framing;
metaphorically referring to people whose influence leaves a person feeling exhausted, unfocused, and depressed.
Those that suck the life out of you and your endeavours.
What about the deals we pursue. Where vampire prospects seek to undermine our efforts.
Such vampire buyers have a range of ways to drink your blood.
Restricting access to key players. Trying to take budget for themselves. Reporting back constantly to your competition.
They need not necessarily be openly hostile towards you either.
The low-level hum of information unsent, timelines pushed out, goalpost quietly shifted.
Nor are such vampires restricted to buyers. They also appear batlike (the scientific term for which I today learn; chiropteran) within clients. When those engaged in using your wares decide to mount a campaign against you in some way. Whether deliberately nefarious to oust you, or simply taking up absurd time with service requests outside your remit, they can really damage moral and motion for you.
Advice abounds on how to defeat the vampire.
We have our selling versions of garlic, mirrors and sunlight. As well as the more medieval decapitation, stake through the heart and burning.
I sense an extra flag on your forecasting sheet could well include reference to any such vampire hunting where you bid.
If nothing else, now ought prove a good time to have a mini-session looking at where those ghostly white skinned, red-eyed fangsters may reside. Then make a plan to send 'em back for a long spell in their coffin.