In which Pooh learns that honey isn’t everything

from yesterday's Times

"It was Rabbit who started it. Dropping in on Winnie-The-Pooh one morning, he settled down importantly in an armchair and helped himself to a jar of honey. “Pooh,” he said. “Have you ever wondered what’s wrong with the Hundred Acre Wood?”

Pooh considered for a while. He felt like saying surprise visitors who come along and help themselves to one’s larder. But just in time he decided that would be A Selfish and Impolite Thing To Say.

“No, Rabbit,” he said instead. “It seems very nice just the way it is.”

“That, Pooh Bear,” said Rabbit, dipping his paw into the jar, “is because you don’t see The Bigger Picture.” He licked his paw and went on: “Can we honestly say, Pooh, that we are achieving our full potential? Are we exploiting all synergies and harnessing all efficiencies?”Pooh’s head swam. Rabbit had been like this since returning with an MBA from the Six Pines Business School. His words were twice as long as before and made half as much sense. All Pooh could think about was the level in the jar going down.

“I expect you’re right, Rabbit,” he said at last, straining to see how much was left in the pot: “Perhaps you should be setting out straight away to harness those fishes.”

“Efficiencies, Pooh, efficiencies,” corrected Rabbit. He sighed, his whiskers drooping. “The problem, of course, is remuneration. There are no incentives. How can Christopher Robin expect us to do our best when we get no bonuses. We need performance-related pay. Or, in your case, performance-related honey.”

Pooh’s ears pricked up at the mention of his favourite comestible. “What’s that mean?” he said.

“It means,” said Rabbit, “getting more honey for doing more of what you already do.”

“Like what?” said Pooh.

“Well, the things you already do, like inventing hums and going on expotitions and hunting heffalumps.”

“So,” said Pooh thoughtfully, after a very long pause. “If I invented more hums and went on more expotitions and hunted more heffalumps, I’d get more honey?”

“Precisely,” said Rabbit impatiently, looking like a company chairman with two board meetings and three takeovers to complete that day.

Pooh thought for a while. And the more he wrestled with the idea, the more it grew on him. He liked inventing hums and he liked honey. Doing more of one would lead to more of the other. He wasn’t so keen on heffalumps but perhaps they’d let him off that bit.

Rabbit and Pooh went off into the forest to spread the word. At Piglet’s, Rabbit waxed enthusiastically on the subject of performance-related haycorns. Tigger bounced with pleasure when told how he might get more extract-of-malt. “That’s exactly what Tiggers like best,” he announced.

Even Eeeyore was prepared to give it a go, after it was explained to him that in addition to his ordinary base pay thistles, he might also receive variable thistles, long-term incentive thistles and thistle options. “There’s no harm in trying it,” he said gloomily, “though I don’t suppose it’ll work.”

When they got to the Wolery, Owl, too, approved, and Owl, everyone agreed, had brains. He used a lot of long words, like incentivisation and top quartile rewards and options pricing and the importance of something he called the Blacksh-Owls formula.

When they put it to Christopher Robin, he said, alright then, we’ll do bonuses. And so it was decided.

The next day, Pooh got up. The sky was blue and the sun was shining and he thought this is just the day for a Little Something, followed by a game of Pooh Sticks with all the others, followed by another Little Something.

He rushed off to Piglet’s. “Are you coming for a game of Pooh Sticks?” he asked.

Piglet looked a bit sheepish, or as sheepish as a very small pig could look. “Er, well normally I’d like to Pooh, but I just have a couple of haycorns, er, I mean errands, to run.” And he scampered off.

Just then Tigger passed by. “Too busy to stop now, Pooh. If I hit my bounce target, I can have as much extract-of-malt as I can eat,” and he boinged off in the direction of the Place Where The Woozle Wasn’t.

Pooh tramped on, hoping to find someone to play with. Round a gorse bush, he came across a long line of animals. Rabbit was at the front and all his Friends and Relations followed, with Alexander Beetle, Small and Smallest-of-All taking up the rear. “Move aside, please, Pooh,” said Rabbit. “We’re off to make a start on the Two Hundred Acre Wood project.”

“The Two Hundred Acre Wood?” said Pooh.

“We’re expanding. It’s called Progress, Pooh.” And with that Rabbit was gone, urging his charges onward. Pooh couldn’t help noticing that Small and Smallest-of-All didn’t look like they were having a good time.

Pooh sat on a tree stump and pondered. Well, if everyone else is too busy to play, then so shall I be, he thought. And with that, he decided to make up a new hum and earn himself some honey.

But it was a funny thing. The more he racked his brains to come up with the words, the less the words wanted to come out. His Tiddely Poms got tangled up with his Tiddle Um Tums.

“Bother!” said Pooh and decided to go on an Expotition instead. He stomped off in the direction of Kanga’s house, determined to discover something. He’d already done the North Pole, so he decided to search for the West Pole. But here was another funny thing, he found. Expotitions for one were nowhere near as much fun as expotitions with all the others. “Bother!” he said again.

By the end of the day, Pooh was thoroughly fed up. But there was worse to come. As he returned home through the forest, he noticed something seemed to have gone wrong with it. The Six Pine Trees were down to One Pine Tree. The gorse bushes were flattened. The neat paths were pocked with craters. Tigger, in his desire for more extract-of-malt, had destroyed half the forest by excessive bouncing. Even Eeyore’s Gloomy Place, where few animals strayed apart from Eeyore, was dotted with Tigger-sized holes.

The animals gathered round the wreckage and saw Tigger looking pleased and sitting upon a huge stack of extract-of-malt jars.

Piglet looked at Tigger’s huge pyramid of extract-of-malt, and then he looked at his own meagre pile of haycorns, and he felt a funny feeling he’d never felt before and wasn’t very proud of.

Just then Christopher Robin arrived. Pooh peered round at the devastation: “I’m not sure this was such a good idea. Can we go back to the old way please?”

“Silly old bear,” said Christopher Robin. “Of course we can."