“Can you explain why you haven’t put [the data] I haven’t given you yet on the updated webpage?”
Ummm, because Matt Smith is using the time machine just now?
Ummm, because you’re wearing that stupid helmet of Erik’s so I can’t go all Professor X on you?
Ummm, because you’ve had emailing me privileges revoked until you can make sense?
I got an email from my Manager today – as ever, just as I was packing up to head out the door – asking if I could run some historical statistical reports and provide some analysis to go along with it as to the whys? hows? and reallys?! No problem, I think, it’s not my everyday job but it’s not outside the realms of my knowledge. There was only one thing bugging me about it: the size of the scrollbar slider – it was tiny; the kind of tiny you only get in a really long document. Curiosity got the better of me and I scrolled down.
The email chain started with the institution’s CFO asking my Director for the data by Monday; the Director then passed it to my Manager – to be done by Friday; my Manager passes to me to be done by Thursday. I could easily then pass it down to one of my own team to do for Wednesday but that would be unreasonable and erring on the side of batshit crazy.
I responded to my Manager asking if instead of me having to drop everything and have my team pick up the slack would it be possible for me just to send it to the CFO for the Monday he’s requested? After all, both my Manager and Direct had explicitly said in the email chain that they didn’t even need to see it and doing a little each day would ease the burden I’d have to place on my – already overworked – team.
I was told no.
Why? Because the new Director was asked to do it and he doesn’t want to be seen passing it on. From what I see can only this can only be for one of three reasons:
(1) It’s sensitive data which only those high up can be trusted with (it’s not)
(2) He doesn’t want to delegate (although that’s the sign of a bad manager)
(3) It’s work that he should be able to do but can’t
Reason (3) seems the most likely after all this is only his second week in the job, he might not have been brought up to speed with the institutions bespoke database; but this Director – he was my Manager-equivalent at my last job – doesn’t know a thing about spreadsheets, pivot tables might as well be marshmallows for all the useful information he can get out of them. In the olden days when we last worked together he passed off a few of my ideas and projects as his in – at that time citing the reason being that because they were new ideas which needed to be approved by his higher-ups, they wouldn’t listen to little ol’ me. [Full disclosure: these previous ideas were creative pro-active projects and not responses to requests from on high. Does that make a difference? It may well do.]
Of course I will do the data analysis and I will do it well. My Manager will send me a one word thank you email; my Director won’t acknowledge my part in it and the CFO will carry on not even knowing I exist.
In the bigger scheme of things, this is a perfect example of how the public sector is bloated with top-heavy management structures [which I have no doubt cost the honest (and not so honest) British taxpayer a a pretty penny or six]. And would us public sector workers ever complain about it? Of course not, we’re all just content to know that we have something resembling the notion of job security in this economic disaster zone.
So here I was, looking forward to having a few days off over Easter to lounging about my multi-coloured flat, play some super Mario Galaxy 2 and think about what herbs and veggies I’d grown on my windowsills this summer when bang! The landlord calls: he’s selling my home and I need to get out pretty much as soon as (for various reasons I don’t believe this is a quickly acted upon plan, I think it’s been brewing for a while).
So now I have to spend my “relaxing” days hunting for a new home, saving money to pay for the inevitable costs associated with moving (even if it is just around the corner (hopefully literally around the corner)) and hoping that I’ve been nice enough to people that they won’t think it strange that I’m asking for help moving again.
Still, I might get somewhere less stair-heavy and more monochrome.
It’s the very nature of inflation that prices rise; over time we have to pay more for things. This is not a new concept, it’s been happening for years. I thought – apparently somewhat foolishly – that we all knew about inflation, but apparently this is a dirty, foreign alien concept to bus passengers. Continue reading
If you’ve paid any attention to anything in the news recently that doesn’t include rioting or bombing the bejeezus* out of anyone who riots a bit too much, you’ll have noticed that the UK Higher Education Sector has been royally screwed over by those elected to hold the purse strings.
(*Although it some cases I’m sure it’s their very lack of bejeezus which is stoking the invasion-happy international armies.) Continue reading
The Boyf origami-ed the tree.
My decent camera is battery-dead. (phone camera is a little pixelly. Sorry)
I’m considering defecting.
With November very much nigh, the annual torment / glee / disaster / panic / joy that is NaNoWriMo is upon us once again. I am, yet again, taking part. This will be year five, my first year in Glasgow and it was – initially – a chance to meet some more people in this sprawling – yet insular – city. Continue reading
Banned Books Week 2010 has come to an end, a week where people all over the internet have been up in (virtual) arms about filth we shouldn’t let corrupt innocent little children / the fictionalisation of things which happen every single day* (*delete according to personal views). Continue reading
Ooh eeh ooh, I wanna be like you-ee-oo…
…Or rather I did, once upon a time, but upon recent contemplation I’ve had second thoughts. Continue reading
I found a website.
I used it to analyse a few things I’ve written, both factual and fiction. Apparently my writing is a cross between Dan Brown and H.P. Lovecraft.
The strangest thing, however, it it was my factual writing which gave me the H.P. Lovecraft comparison.
..and reports are coming in that Cthulhu has been spotted in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street looking for the souls of innocents to fill his belly. Eyewitnesses say that he’s looking hungry and disappointed at the lack of suitable nourishment.
