Not surprisingly, given the recent "kerfuffle" at the HMRC, morale amongst the hapless staff of this much maligned organisation is at an all time low.
Seemingly the employees have requested punchbags, squeeze balls and aromatherapy in order to relieve the stress that they feel.
What about the tax payers who have to deal with HMRC?
These demands had been posted on an HMRC staff discussion website (www.disgruntled-lemmings.com) which has been taken offline.
HMRC have stated that the website is not one of theirs.
Here is what the site looked like in July 2007 Disgruntled Lemmings.
Those of you who are keen to search a bit more on Google etc for caches may be pleased to know that HMRC staff are normal human beings, just like ourselves.
I was heartened to read the profile of one tax credits adviser in Newcastle, who lists among her interests "drugs".
Another member of HMRC lists his interests as "fucking up binis" (I believe that they emanate from Africa).
How very "reassuring" that HMRC staff have such eclectic hobbies, and are so cavalier with their personal information.
Fortunately they would never be so indiscreet with the personal information of their customers....oh, hang on a minute...
Now here's an interesting one. Last Monday week HMRC sent the Rummage Squad into the Newcastle Child Benefit Office- these are the guys who search ships for drugs, arms ammunition and other serious contraband (along with a sniffer dog I gather) to search for the missing discs i.e. one last chance before Captain Darling would have to make it public
ReplyDeleteOn arriving and ready to serach they were told under no circumstances to search lockers or office desk drawers since that would be infringing the human rights of the members of staff
"What about the tax payers who have to deal with HMRC?"
ReplyDeleteI have it on good authority that they've been asking for STEN guns and lots of ammo.:)
Robert the Biker
I used to be a member of that website, it was in fact me who wrote about the punch bags and the stress balls.. it was not a serious demand, it was a spoof business proposal, done in the style of the real HMRC staff suggestion system. That site was just people having a laugh.. wasn't meant to be taken seriously, can't help smiling that it's being discussed in the press!
ReplyDeleteI think "hapless staff" is a bit harsh. We're discouraged from individual thought and pushed towards being 'standard', and being positive towards things that we may hate (like how we're having to conduct our business now) otherwise we fail our end-of-year reviews and don't get our less than inflationary pay rise... great conditions, I wonder how things go wrong? And it's no fun having to try explain to someone (I'm not calling you guys "customers", you have no choice but to deal with us!!) that "Yes, we've bollocksed up again...", and suffer the abuse that sometimes follows, when really we all wanna do is a good job but certain factors prevent this.
ReplyDeleteWe're not after sympathy or anything, but would be nice if people lay off us staff and direct their disgust towards the top of the tree, we're not happy about how things are, losing data, etc, makes us look bad and we're as human as you all are really...
...and we have to pay those damn taxes too!!
http://hmrcisshite.blogspot.com/2007/11/disgruntled-lemmings.html#c5774559541905414467
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by Amy.
Feel free to comment or write whenever you want to:)
Ken
Today the internal internet at HMRC had a message from the acting chairmanasking staff to look in their drawers for the discs. However, staff were told not to search until they received instructions fom managers on how it should be done.Another example of HMRC treating staff like trained chimps.If you treat people like they have no brain thats how they will behave for you. If those discs ever turn up nobody will admit to finding them. They will just destroy them, the consequences of getting involved with internal governance are too great.
ReplyDeleteWe All Know Those Discs Aren't Going To Turn up, We Can Search Our Drawers And Lockers, They Can Search Every building, The 20K Reward, And Promise Of No Criminal Or Employment diciplinaries Won't Even Bring Them To Light, The Chances Are They Weren't Even Copied In The First Place And It's Gone Too Far For The Staff Member Involved To Admit It.
ReplyDelete