» Bastard Colleagues

This one's a God-Botherer too.
Being the middle-aged sad ole git I am, I've worked for a fair while with a wide variety of organisations from small private companies, through public and private utilities to central government. While public and private sectors gob on about how they are so different from each other, there are one or two similarities, such as;

1. "Nobs of a feather suck together" - if you find one colleague or manager who's a complete cnut and still alive, it's frequently because they aren't alone. Whole departments and entire companies can exist using nothing but twatty arrogance until they have to do something unnatural like actually think. This crisis is usually due to the outside world breaking in on their dreams.

2. "Teams of nothing but centre forwards" - "teams" are everywhere, but *teamwork* doesn't really exist any more as a working
environment in most jobs. Many of the people who are in "teams" still have their own targets to meet and their own ideas on how they're going to get promotion, more dosh etc. I've had to teach the alien concept of co-operation too many times in the last few years, but it paid off big when it sunk in - which wasn't often.

3. "Managers - Hell on earth in a suit" - in umpteen years of having to report to managers, the trend seems to be that half of them don't seem to want to be there doing the job themselves (they were happier in the previous non-managerial job they had), so take it out on others. Most of the rest are basically bullshitting it and trying to give out a confident aura or are hooked on the buzz of making other peoples lives shit. I've only met one or two managers who actually could do the job *and* keep the staff on side - ironically, one had been on an extensive program of proper management training (not buzzword-filled seminars), and the other had no formal qualifications in management at all. Perhaps it's down to picking the right people to start with.

Which leads me on to;
3a."Of course I can manage! I've got a degree!" - er, it doesn't always follow. In fact, it very rarely ambles anywhere near.

But you don't want the generalisation do you! OK, here's a specific example.

My most recent ex-manager, head of technical stuff somewhere in the 20th. century. 100 percent number 3, with a delightfully arrogant side order of 3a. He'd taken over from someone who enjoyed running his department like a medaeval lord, so he had a lot of diplomacy to do with all the various user groups, other managers, directors etc.

A few months later I turned up and got on with the diplomacy myself. It was that or get used to the stony silences, death threats and nooses through the internal mail (last bits may be docu-drama).

What made it a real laugh was that I had to do it behind his back, or I would get hauled in to his office for a reprimand. The offence? "Being too autonomous". Huh? You mean, not being a mini-you? I knew I was going in the right direction when the IT support guys actually started to work with me instead of just snarl at me, and the director of marketing whispered to me "what's it like to be the only one that people want to talk to?".

Oh, the fun we had! For example, I spent ages convincing him that even if you sniffed an email off the internal network, you couldn't tell who it had been BCC'ed to (politicking twat, in an admittedly politics-ridden place). Or that a hands-free desk phone didn't mean that you *had* to make all your calls by shouting at it Dom Joly-stylee (in an open-plan office, natch). Whaddock Hunt.

He used to make journeys up country from time to time, and never check how much fuel the car had before getting on the motorway. At least it kept him away from the rest of us for longer. His company car was forever getting smacked in the rear or side. I think he had the "Jesus is my airbag" insurance. Or perhaps the other parties knew him.

In the end I fucked off - and he told me had no idea why I was going. There aren't enough swearwords or breath in my body to do justice to what he deserves.

Hey B3ta - thanks for the self-help QOTW!
(Fri 25th Jan 2008, 16:56, More)

» Amazing displays of ignorance

What do you say when
someone reckons that a kid threatened with a knife at school should be allowed by the staff to carry one themselves for their own protection?

Also, that torture is perfectly justified when interrogating possible terrorists ("so, they were *all* confessed terrorists then?" "Yep.")?

I'm thinking of someone who, in his early twenties, has only just learnt how to use a can opener. "Just", as in "they can just about use it", as well as "very recently".

"but it doesn't work! The lid dropped into the soup! Surely that's not meant to happen! It must be broken."
Somethings broken all right.
(Fri 19th Mar 2010, 15:19, More)

» Good Advice

Cure for Paranoia
Here's some advice I got from a long-gone manager who used his "made in Yorkshire" bullshit shield to great effect -
"Never consider someone's actions as malicious if incompetence can explain it just as easily."
Works on governments as well as individuals.
(Thu 20th May 2010, 18:38, More)

» Accidental innuendo

I Done A Scary
Ages back, I got sent to Glasgow by the boss to sort out some network nastiness at a client's office. Having hopped off the plane, I got myself a cab and off we went.
I'd had a reminder from the boss to "make sure you get receipts for all your costs, or I'm not paying them". Bit stingy, but fair enough.
As the taxi drew up at the appointed place, my mind was playing the sample "get receipt - get receipt...".
The cabbie told me how much it was.
I replied "Could you do something on a piece of paper?"
I was lucky not to get a fish-and-chip-wrapper version of one of Scaryduck's "hot bags".
Still cringing now!
(Mon 16th Jun 2008, 13:39, More)

» This book changed my life

Kids Books
I've always thought that many of the best books out there are (supposedly) children's books. I've still got my faves from my early years. My top book that also introduced me to the magic/fantasy genre was Alan Garner's "Weirdstone of Brisingamen". Written in the early 60s, it manages to bridge the real world and the imaginary, allowing all sorts to flow between the two.
I first met it in the 70s when I was about 11-12 and it alternately amazed me and scared me shitless - the escape through the cave system in particular. I later picked up the Tolkien hobbit (yeah, weak), but this book is special to me.
I got the chance to visit the place in Cheshire at the centre of it all about 10 years ago, and found it to be the epicentre of the "Footballers' Wives" culture - Alderley Edge. Bollocks. I hoped for a traditional country town and got the only branch of Gucci I've ever seen in real life, plus specialist shops for the super-rich. It was worth it, however, for the freaking out I got when I found that the cave system actually exisited.
Brrr....
If anyone's interested, Alan Garner's other book "The Owl Service" is bloody good too.
(Thu 15th May 2008, 17:11, More)