Fun and games at the lunatic asylum

• The branch where I work is largely staffed by cripples and misfits*
  
• The prevailing culture is one of secrecy and fear
  
• The majority of employees switch off the brain when clocking in
  
• The larger proportion of the remainder don't have a brain
  
• The most practiced on-the-job activity is blame re-allocation
  
• Most of the senior management are perfect examples of the Peter Principle**
  
• The senior management 'team' tend to behave like a sack full of vipers when under stress
  
• I hate my job
  
• I despise my employer
  
• I cannot stay in this job for fear of being infected by this culture or adapting to it
  
• I will be spending more time on the internet in the near future (job hunting)

Why the above?

A couple of hours ago I was ranting and raging and laughing and tearing the whole amateur shower to shreds. An hour earlier I'd been sitting at my desk with my head in my hands feeling nauseus and incapable of dealing with any of my colleagues with any degree of civility.

What brought this about?

For readers outside Europe much of the following will possibly seem completely made up, on the grounds that it couldn't possibly happen. But it did.

I dropped the offspring off at the school gate for the first day of the new term. At the gate I had a brief conversation with one of the staffers. She passed on to me details of a conversation she'd had with another employee who had been told she'd be paid only straight rate for working Easter Monday as requested though it isn't one of her contracted hours ie, she isn't contracted to work any hours on Monday (except she is because her contract of employment includes a clause permitting 'us' to co-opt her for Public Holidays).

Since she would have been working alongside staff of equal experience who are being paid double pay becuase Monday is their contracted hour I found this a little difficult to believe.

I decided to investigate.

I got into the office and before doing anything else I had a conversation with a peer of mine who has more years under her belt and she, it emerged, hadn't the foggiest idea what the relevant policy says or rules are, or any idea how to go about finding out. So I put in a call to our payroll department.

I asked the woman I found myself dealing with (and damn it I didn't get her name or I'd be inclined to publish it here) to send me a copy of my, her, our employer's policy with respect to rates of pay on Public/Bank Holidays after identifying myself. She offered to post it to me at home. Don't bother, I told her, could you just fax it to me here at work? She agreed to look into getting me a copy. Fine.

About an hour later, no fax. About two hours later, no fax. Lunch time no fax. I went home briefly, to change into another pair of shoes because the pair I'd gone to work in wore beginning to rub for some reason. Back from work and still no fax.

A little while later a call from the General Manager.

"I understand you called Payroll asking for some information."

"Yes"

"Well you need to go through me or 'Deputy General Manager X' if you have questions concerning personnel or pay. What do you want to know? I'll can answer your questions."

"I want to read the policy."

"Well there's the contract [blah, blah], and the National Agreement; blah, blah..."

"I would like to read the policy."

" Someone working Good Friday; blah, blah, blah..."

"I'm not specifically interested in Good Friday."

"I know that there were rumours going around that people would be paid for Good Friday whether they worked it even if they were not contracted to work Fridays. [nb I worked Friday which is outside my normal contracted working week.]"

"I wish to know what the policy says, and this isn't about Good Friday."

"Well I think; blah blah blah" [Ah ha, he thinks!]

"I would like to read the policy."

"We have a copy here on file and a copy should be on the notice board."

"It should be on which notice board?"

"It should be on the notice board in the staff room."

"So I can go into the staff room and read it there?"

"It should be there ... wait a moment and I'll get Deputy GM X to check."

" So if someone asks me I can refer them to the notice board?"

"You should be able to, yes"

"But I can't have a copy of the policy?"

"There should be a copy on the staff notice board upstairs in the staff room."

"Fine. Thanks"

The little fucker is still in one piece tonight solely because our paths did not cross between the end of this conversation and me leaving work absolutely on the dot at 5pm.

Later though Deputy General Manager X and I did meet up, out in public which was fortunate for both our sakes. Her drivel isn't worth repeating at any length.

I did finally admit though (and I regret this) that I'd been prompted to investigate by conversations with a couple of people. Of course her little ears pricked up - must be a reflex reaction given how under-powered she is in the grey matter department. It must be all the hairspray.

Her explaination for the kerfuffle was slightly at odds with that I'd been given earlier - according to her 'head office don't like to have people calling them' or words to that effect.

Fear and secrecy.

* Re cripples and misfits, which some readers might find offensive:

Part of our work force is students filling time between college terms or between school and college or between college and that first proper job. Most of the rest are people who honestly couldn't get a job elsewhere or if they could, couldn't hold it. Every single day I juggle other people's reschduling due to medical needs of one kind or another.

Diabetes, 'women's problems, a woman with a bag who has to have a break meticulously at fixed intervals, arthritis cases, weak bladders, bad backs, tendonitis, angina and so forth. These people are not to blame for their illnesses, nor should they be excluded from the workforce. But it is an inescapable fact that these chronic problems are a reality placing significant limitations on the flexibility we might otherwise have in our workforce and require constant consideration.

We also got a small number of social misfits, harmless but deeply eccentric, lovable but very nearly only employable by an undemanding organisation such as ours.

** The Peter Principle for the uninitiated (or forgetful):

The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent.

At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position. The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they are expected to do.

[Deputy General Managers Y & Z were promoted from behind the retail counter while Deputy General Manager X is a hairdresser both by training and by instinct.]