I would just like to follow up on a comment posted by a loyal reader last week about desks:
"Anonymous @ 11:52. 'ANOTHER day of tea,cake and online shopping'. I have no idea where you got the information that staff on phones could ever do any of those things except on their lunch breaks, but it couldn't be more wrong: Even when computers and everything is off, we are not even allowed to give our desk drawers a long over due tidy out. The managers forbid it, whilst running around like headless chickens trying to find some unnecessary training or creep checking of work to occupy our time."Please can someone explain to me why members of staff are not allowed to tidy their desk drawers?
That makes no sense to me at all!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Well I remember when the dreaded "LEAN" first came in and the people floor-walking in one of the the offices where it was introduced asked someone who had a banana on their desk, "Is that an active banana?". If not (ie ready to eat now), it must be out of sight!
ReplyDeleteNo I didn't make it up - I couldn't!
Incidentally I recently noticed that one of the main proponents of LEAN (introduced into Portsmouth in the "New Model Office") has been seconded to the New Zealand Government to over-see LEAN introduction there. That'll be another huge failure too.
I suggest Ken Frost opens up a New Zealand HMRC is Shite page and links it to this one, ready to compare!
I genuinely fear for the poor staff in NZ who may have to endure this insidious process.
ReplyDeleteIt is a form of industrial brainwashing. LEAN (or as I knew it "Pacesetter") is so spectacularly totalitarian and so spectacularly crap.
Designed to eradicate freedom of thought and action, I liken it to the Ori in Stargate Atlantis - anyone remember the programmed zealots who came to worlds offering enlightenment, then, if you didn't like the enlightenment, you were subjected to extreme mental stress and torture (or death) until you capitulated.
i have so many memories of LEAN/Pacesetter I could write an.....what's the opposite of "epic"?
One memory stands out of a whiteboard event (how many £millions did just the boards cost?), held in a tiny room where the attending staff overflowed and snaked along the side of the office wall (30 or more outside the room), unable to see or hear anything. FW.
Where I was, we managed to dodge it for a spell, and continue effectively. When it finally pervaded - like a disease - efficiency and outputs tailed off in real terms, but it was made to look like it worked by manipulation of the stats combined with smoke and mirrors.
I am utterly convinced that the LEAN/Pacesetter processes are seriously harmful to staff well being (at least any staff left with any intelligence and integrity).
I know how I feel even years after exposure to this mind numbing dross.
My advice as a survivor - compartmentalise. Put the real world, progress and sanity into one side of your brain, then put LEAN etc into a sealed compartment only to be accessed when unavoidable.
Not only is LEAN a crime against humanity, it is a major barrier to efficiency and progress. If only it were possible to establish that link legally, and sue HMRC for criminal negligence.....?
Psychopathic evangelical adherence to BS crap designed for Japanese car manufacturing environments (whichj have totally failed Toyota - see numerous worldwide recalls, mostly for safety related issues).
DeleteFire escapes and fire escape lanes blocked by white boards so dangerous that the sticking out support legs had to have hazard tape on, writing with colours that could not be read from any didtance over a couple of feet. An intro to the B.S. in an L shaped office so crowded that over half couldnt see properly. The expensive 4 sided "Dalek" covered in useless stats and other crap that was wheeled around the offices to promulgate "success".
A management ethos that cannot solve simple problems and issues without the need for a zombie like problem solving process. All explained in 17 pages of geekspeak Japanes ideology.
The lunatics are running the whole of the public sector and much of the private. Add in the hocus pocus of Common Purpose and WYSIWYG.
Systems down again from 12PM...what a crap I.T system !!!
ReplyDeleteAnd still out. Thank goodness the IT wallers can look at their awards whilst their minion try to fix the unholy fuck up that is HMRC's IT system.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be time to dish out the gongs to Senior Management again soon.
DeleteIt'll be interesting if certain individuals who were engaged in attempts to cover-up bullying & abuse get such awards.
So who would recommend HMRC as place to work? If so why and if not why not?
ReplyDelete