I've just had a bit of a chat with someone with several pips on their shoulders covering a couple of matters and raised some concerns over things that we do. I have been semi-reassured over a few issues concerning the increasing need for statistical as well as other sorts of information and the apparently ridiculous things we get set to do, as well as being told how to do them. I found out that during the myriad of meetings the management attend, all sorts of things are brought forward as suggestions which they then have to go away to research. The good ones they try to put meat on the bones, as it were, whilst the bad ones they try to make seem unworkable or appear stupid. The trouble is, not all are raised by the S.M.T with a good deal being brokered by the Chief Officers at the behest of Government, namely faceless nameless burocrats who have no idea of what we do and how we do it.
It appears that this is like me trying to advise someone on open heart surgery, which I know nothing about. I am not remotely qualified and nobody would dream of listening to me, if they are in their right mind.
Most seems to be connected to one budget or another and financial directives drive almost all of what we do.
If it can save money it will work, or we will find a way of making it appear to work. Then we will somehow claim it is more efficient and as a result must be far better than before.
Itis not my performance that will be judged upon this it will be someone else who will have hit a target and probably get a reward of some sort for their effort. If the targets are not hit then who bears the responsibility for the failure ?
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3 comments:
Are you saying that senior officers spew bullshit when at meetings?
By the way I have added you to my sidebar, well I will in a minute.
;-)
Any chance you can get rid of that letter recognition thing that I always seem to get wrong. I think it just plays games with me.
PCSW.Ridded, gone into the ether.
I don't know exactly what they discuss but some of it is of no direct concern to what we do but seems to affect so us much. The problem is that the drives behind operational and admin-management roles are so fundamentally different. To link them is folly, especially as almost all of us are capable of working out what needs doing and where it needs doing.
A few years ago I saw a flow chart on the wall that gave the meetings attended by management, daily, weekly and monthly. It didn't stay long and was probably an attempt to justify what they do and their perspection of how important their role is.It seems there is an awful lot to discuss or to be updated by the army of people who seem to be supplying the info at the meetings. Their is a machine directing various statistics that are discussed and digested at these meetings. Bullshit to some, essential to others. I suppose essential bullshit just about covers it.
I remember what I was told very early on. The most important person is the person on the streets doing earlies, lates & nights. In all fairness it was pretty much like that with a few exeptions. I cannot ever begin to say that is the case now.
To paraphrase Einstein :
Not everything that can be counted counts. And not everything that counts can be counted.
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