My Thrilling (sic) Week

As I alluded to earlier, my posts have been affected by a combination of laziness, apathy and work. Well, after this short-ish break from writing the laziness should have disappeared, the apathy I’m afraid is still infecting just about every area of my mind and body. I just can’t be arsed with very much at the moment. Call it pre-Spring lethargy. I’m just about to emerge from a semi-hibernation state as the days thankfully get longer, the temperature rises, the sun feels warmer, and everything ids just that much brighter. I am most definitely NOT a winter person.

As for the work, well this has been a trying and testing week and this means its far better than it has been recently.

Work in the last few weeks has risen from being a source of gloom and depression in my life (see posts passim) , to one of abject boredom and …..yep, apathy. From the dark days just before Christmas, this recent spell, this week particularly has been the equivalent of someone shining a torch into a cold, dark and windowless room. Not everything is bathed in light, but at least now I can see. So this week I have been asked to share my normal responsibility hat (Business/Technical Process Management) with the Capacity Planning hat, as their manager is off on leave, along with deputising for The SchoolTeacher. Yep, I’ve been wearing three hats this week and it has helped the concept of work rise to the giddy level of mildly interesting. Because of this, writing has been difficult because I’m not up with the news, other than the footie, whereas normally about 20% of my day is concerned with surfing the net reading news sites, shopping or reading/commenting on other blogs.

Still, it s a living isn’t it?

The downside of this extra level of responsibility has been the meetings I have attended this week. Virtually every day has been between 50 and 75% filled with meetings. And, yes, most of them were a waste of time. One Corporate Moron even invited me to the worst of the worst, the pre-meeting meeting. That’s a bit like being asked to take a small dump before the main one just to make sure you know what you’re doing. I did the honourable thing and accepted of course, I just didn’t turn up, claiming somewhat falsely that shambolic bus service between the “business park” I work on and our HQ (the venue for the pre-meeting meeting, and the …err…meeting) had gone AWOL and therefore I had been forced to walk the 3 miles or so. The bus service (laid on by The Company to discourage car usage between sites) is so bloody useless that no-one ever bothers to question this excuse no matter how regularly you trot it out. So, I thought I’d share some of the meetings so you’d know just what a load of bollocks major organizations can be.

1.) Budget Forecasts – this is laughable. We sit around trying to estimate what we need for the forthcoming year, usually in September. Then we meet monthly after that to witness the people seated at the Big Table report back on what has been “challenged” and to watch our hard worked calculations be reduced to a derisory amount barely above “fuck all”, whilst these corporate bollocks gobbledygook indoctrinated Senior Muppets laughably attempt to “lead” and “inspire” us to execute the “Vision” of delivering more but spending less. Apparently we should see the budget slashing exercise as a “challenge” and not a “constraint”. Interesting ploy this – asking suppliers to cut their charges but give us more is one element of this. I wonder what would happen if I tried to buy a pint of Guinness in my local (£3) and then “challenged” The Governor to part with it, plus lob in a “value add” side dish of Liver and Bacon, whilst reducing my “capital outlay” to £2.25. I think you can see what I mean here. And I’m pretty sure The Governor would retort with something along the lines “Don’t take the piss, £3 or get out”

2.) Purchasing System Workshop - apparently we are all a bunch of clueless fuckwits who have been unwittingly misusing the on-line purchasing system wrong for years now. Hmmm, wonder if that’s anything to do with not being trained, canned because it was deemed to costly. Instead we were issued with laminate guides to assist us through this inordinately complex, unreliable and unfriendly system. So, we attend a workshop run by someone who is a clueless fuckwit to demonstrate how to use it properly for “human resource purchase” or “contractors” as we know them. The “facilitator” was unfamiliar with the system having only started using it a month ago. The test purchasing system hadn’t been……err…tested and therefore didn’t work. So we spent 90 minutes undergoing a Death by Powerpoint slideshow on how it should look were to working, and what it should show in reality. This was the equivalent of Stevie Wonder showing Ray Charles how to drive a DeLorean.

3.) Organization Target Meeting - in other words what roles can we outsource, what departments and functions can be dropped, how can we slim down and reduce our human resource costs. In other words, how can we fuck people’s lives and aspirations up in order run the business effectively and efficiently? Needless to say, the socialist devil in me kicked in, and my suggestion along the lines of “ Why not make people feel part of the company, reward them appropriately, treat them like humans and not as resources, encourage them to contribute, empower them to make decisions, stop employing as many contractors and increase the number of full time employees so that they can identify with the company and appreciate the level of quality they deliver” didn’t go down to well. Well, they did ask for honest suggestions but I guess they didn’t want to hear my view that you get what you pay for. Of all the meetings this week, this was the most heinous and disagreeable..

The last meeting was also one where The School Teacher had asked me to attend in his absence. It’s all part of his plan to “increase my visibility”. To analogise this, he sees himself as a Tony Blair/David Cameron type figure, and therefore I’m his potential John Prescott/George Osborne. Whilst I appreciate his trust I’m really am not comfortable with meetings that discuss people’s futures as if they were akin to clutter in the garage. Once again I fear my big opinionated mouth will limit any career progression. The other thing that might hold me back is my utter refusal to sit at “Big table” meetings and do what the others do. The Shepherd invites discussion and then ensues a group of desperate wannabees, noses pointing firmly to his rectal area, spouting off soundbite bollocks of the bleeding obvious in order to ensure their voices are heard and he can acknowledge their contribution, no matter how irrelevant or meaningless it may be. Perhaps I am growing some balls and a spine in my increasing middle aged period.

However, the upside is some impending visits abroad with The Schoolteachers blessing in order to learn how others work and to see what we can learn and deploy. Starting with Milan, and then Nice.

Jollies, we used to call them!

Later, GrocerJack