I have to say it is a bit rotten of the County Council to accuse Mogg of making it hard for them to recruit staff, even claiming that candidates for senior posts have withdrawn their applications because of him.
You see, this sounds suspiciously like the makings of a splendid excuse for having incompetent staff, and I think it is unfair on the two latest senior appointees, both of whom seem to be doing a very good job in difficult circumstances.
Between them they have whipped the legal system into line, and brought the BBC firmly on board. This puts ITV on the back foot with their focus on sleazy CEOs and dodgy tactics.
How's that for a triumph of Excellence over expectation?
Saturday 29 November 2008
Tuesday 25 November 2008
Cyber-bullying (2) - keep it real!
Just in case anyone is wondering what all the fuss was about - here is previously unseen footage of the Mogg's repeated vicious and unprovoked attacks on South West One.
Wicked(:-)) pussy! Poor innocent, defenceless baby!
Wicked(:-)) pussy! Poor innocent, defenceless baby!
Monday 24 November 2008
Cyber-bullying – an outsider’s view
Weird or what? No sooner have we crawled out from under the shield of National Anti-Bullying Week than one of the Somerbloggers comes under the cosh from the County Council and the BBC!
He was an obvious target, I suppose, on account of using his real name. But is ILG (aka “Mogg”) really behind all those blogs and videos? He is certainly not one of the regulars down at the Dog n’ Duck. In fact the landlord is adamant that he has never set foot in the place, saying, “We doesn’t allow Politicians in ‘ere, and you lot would be as well as to remember that!”
Talking of Politicians, one of the Councillors said on TV yesterday that “we only have one detractor”. Hah! Reminds me of when they thought that everything must be OK ‘cos they’d only had three complaints in a year! (We may examine that in more detail at some point.)
Anyway, we outsiders reckon that, as usual, it is all down to Excellence and to Jonesy’s War on Organisational Terror. What we see happening is this:
(1) Potential Organisational Terrorists are pressurised by this chap called Their Conscience “… to divulge Council information to others …”
(2) Now, ideally they would like to divulge it to someone like their Councillor, the Audit Commission, the Union, the Police or whatever.
(3) However, advice from colleagues and independents such as the Dog n’ Duck is simple: don’t do it! It is a waste of time and will be bad for your health, and that of your family.
(4) Anyone foolish enough to discuss their troubled conscience with “a senior manager” will find this message quickly reinforced. Possibly with a P45.
(5) Meanwhile, everyone in County Hall knows about ILG and Mogg. You mention either of them to inmates and the response is either a smile or a frown or blathering hysteria, never a blank look.
(6) Therefore the POT reaches a compromise with that Conscience bloke.
(7) This involves leaking the information to Mogg.
(8) He then ducks, closes his eyes, and stick his fingers in his ears.
You see, for Organisational Terrorists, leaking to Mogg is the Nuclear Option. It should be a last resort, but the exigencies of Excellence mean that for many it is their only resort.
He was an obvious target, I suppose, on account of using his real name. But is ILG (aka “Mogg”) really behind all those blogs and videos? He is certainly not one of the regulars down at the Dog n’ Duck. In fact the landlord is adamant that he has never set foot in the place, saying, “We doesn’t allow Politicians in ‘ere, and you lot would be as well as to remember that!”
Talking of Politicians, one of the Councillors said on TV yesterday that “we only have one detractor”. Hah! Reminds me of when they thought that everything must be OK ‘cos they’d only had three complaints in a year! (We may examine that in more detail at some point.)
Anyway, we outsiders reckon that, as usual, it is all down to Excellence and to Jonesy’s War on Organisational Terror. What we see happening is this:
(1) Potential Organisational Terrorists are pressurised by this chap called Their Conscience “… to divulge Council information to others …”
(2) Now, ideally they would like to divulge it to someone like their Councillor, the Audit Commission, the Union, the Police or whatever.
(3) However, advice from colleagues and independents such as the Dog n’ Duck is simple: don’t do it! It is a waste of time and will be bad for your health, and that of your family.
(4) Anyone foolish enough to discuss their troubled conscience with “a senior manager” will find this message quickly reinforced. Possibly with a P45.
(5) Meanwhile, everyone in County Hall knows about ILG and Mogg. You mention either of them to inmates and the response is either a smile or a frown or blathering hysteria, never a blank look.
(6) Therefore the POT reaches a compromise with that Conscience bloke.
(7) This involves leaking the information to Mogg.
(8) He then ducks, closes his eyes, and stick his fingers in his ears.
You see, for Organisational Terrorists, leaking to Mogg is the Nuclear Option. It should be a last resort, but the exigencies of Excellence mean that for many it is their only resort.
Friday 21 November 2008
National Anti-Bullying Week (day 5) - precautions
OK, so you can’t be cured, and you are fully informed. If Organisational Terrorism was easy, no-one would do it, would they? Therefore, the final message of the week is – take sensible precautions.
Pay close attention. Today’s offering from the Dog n’ Duck is longer than usual, but it could literally save your life.
You must invest in essential basic kit. Around £30 will get you a decent MP3 recorder. To put it into perspective, that is not much more than SCC spent on investment advice before slinging £25,000,000 of our money into the North Atlantic.
These devices have powerful microphones that can record anything from intimate conversations to multiple participant meetings in rooms the size of Roger’s office. The microphones are about the size of a pin head, and the whole gadget looks (and works) like one of those memory sticks that office people wear around their necks these days. (Hey – maybe they are all Potential Organisational Terrorists!)
Dangling from your neck like an “ordinary” memory stick is the ideal place for such a device. But if you’re worried (or if you have a stick that flashes to warn everyone that they are recording) then the top pocket of a jacket works perfectly well. They record through cloth, no problem. It helps to keep it high enough to be above any tables or other physical obstructions, but even that is not essential….
…. because, and this is the really clever bit, you can download, free from the web, simple software that magically transforms your recordings. For those of us who learned our spy craft during the Cod War this is truly astonishing. In the old days you ended up with a tape of mush and crackle, with your own voice booming and everyone else’s just a murmur. You had to take this to the Anoraks down in the basement, and they would curse and mutter and spend all night wearing headphones and twiddling knobs to get you an incomplete and often useless transcript.
Nowadays all you do is open the digital recording in your chosen software, and click the button that says something like “clean up sound”. All the mush disappears and the incriminating words from the other side of the room come through loud and clear – you can even recognise whose voices are speaking!
Down at the Dog n’ Duck we have tested this technology extensively. We can assure you that it works and that it is easy to use. We recommend it unreservedly to anyone who works for an Excellent organisation.
Dog n’ Duck HOT TIP! Always use uncompressed formats (e.g. .WAV) for your initial recording. The files are bigger but they are much easier to clean up.
It is particularly useful to have a recording of all those meetings that never took place. That way if you are accused of having dreams, hallucinations or delusions, or even of making things up - you can simply play the recording back to yourself. This is helpful when you have to prove that you are in fact sane, and that the organisation’s groupies are suffering from collective amnesia (a common side effect of Excellence).
Official Dog n’ Duck Legal Advice! – join the Union, that way you might get help if Excellence dictates that you are an Organisational Terrorist and that you must be got rid of.
However, we recognise that some people are too important (or too scaredy-cats!) to join the Union, and so for them …
Dog n’ Duck HOT TIP! You can get personal legal cover with your house insurance, it costs peanuts but can literally save your life.
Employment Lawyers in Somerset are currently charging OTs £235 per hour … plus VAT - which the Excellent organisation can recover, but you can’t (see why we are so anxious to guide people away from Organisational Terrorism? The dice are loaded against you in every little way imaginable.)
So you rack up costs at £2,071 per day while struggling to get out of the slurry pit. Meanwhile the Excellent organisation, which recently admitted that it was sitting on £1,000,000,000 of our money, racks up costs at only £1,762 per day (less any discounts they get as a result of their Excellent Procurement Strategy). Who is going to run out of money first?
Even if you are not remotely interested in perpetrating an Act of Organisational Terror, and are not even on the County Hall POT register, it is wise to take these basic precautions.
And all because, to quote the core message of National Anti-Bullying Week, you never know when you too may be branded an Organisational Terrorist.
Pay close attention. Today’s offering from the Dog n’ Duck is longer than usual, but it could literally save your life.
You must invest in essential basic kit. Around £30 will get you a decent MP3 recorder. To put it into perspective, that is not much more than SCC spent on investment advice before slinging £25,000,000 of our money into the North Atlantic.
These devices have powerful microphones that can record anything from intimate conversations to multiple participant meetings in rooms the size of Roger’s office. The microphones are about the size of a pin head, and the whole gadget looks (and works) like one of those memory sticks that office people wear around their necks these days. (Hey – maybe they are all Potential Organisational Terrorists!)
Dangling from your neck like an “ordinary” memory stick is the ideal place for such a device. But if you’re worried (or if you have a stick that flashes to warn everyone that they are recording) then the top pocket of a jacket works perfectly well. They record through cloth, no problem. It helps to keep it high enough to be above any tables or other physical obstructions, but even that is not essential….
…. because, and this is the really clever bit, you can download, free from the web, simple software that magically transforms your recordings. For those of us who learned our spy craft during the Cod War this is truly astonishing. In the old days you ended up with a tape of mush and crackle, with your own voice booming and everyone else’s just a murmur. You had to take this to the Anoraks down in the basement, and they would curse and mutter and spend all night wearing headphones and twiddling knobs to get you an incomplete and often useless transcript.
Nowadays all you do is open the digital recording in your chosen software, and click the button that says something like “clean up sound”. All the mush disappears and the incriminating words from the other side of the room come through loud and clear – you can even recognise whose voices are speaking!
Down at the Dog n’ Duck we have tested this technology extensively. We can assure you that it works and that it is easy to use. We recommend it unreservedly to anyone who works for an Excellent organisation.
Dog n’ Duck HOT TIP! Always use uncompressed formats (e.g. .WAV) for your initial recording. The files are bigger but they are much easier to clean up.
It is particularly useful to have a recording of all those meetings that never took place. That way if you are accused of having dreams, hallucinations or delusions, or even of making things up - you can simply play the recording back to yourself. This is helpful when you have to prove that you are in fact sane, and that the organisation’s groupies are suffering from collective amnesia (a common side effect of Excellence).
Official Dog n’ Duck Legal Advice! – join the Union, that way you might get help if Excellence dictates that you are an Organisational Terrorist and that you must be got rid of.
However, we recognise that some people are too important (or too scaredy-cats!) to join the Union, and so for them …
Dog n’ Duck HOT TIP! You can get personal legal cover with your house insurance, it costs peanuts but can literally save your life.
Employment Lawyers in Somerset are currently charging OTs £235 per hour … plus VAT - which the Excellent organisation can recover, but you can’t (see why we are so anxious to guide people away from Organisational Terrorism? The dice are loaded against you in every little way imaginable.)
So you rack up costs at £2,071 per day while struggling to get out of the slurry pit. Meanwhile the Excellent organisation, which recently admitted that it was sitting on £1,000,000,000 of our money, racks up costs at only £1,762 per day (less any discounts they get as a result of their Excellent Procurement Strategy). Who is going to run out of money first?
Even if you are not remotely interested in perpetrating an Act of Organisational Terror, and are not even on the County Hall POT register, it is wise to take these basic precautions.
And all because, to quote the core message of National Anti-Bullying Week, you never know when you too may be branded an Organisational Terrorist.
Thursday 20 November 2008
National Anti-Bullying Week (day 4) - information
If you are unable to curb your Terrorist leanings, then you should at least ensure that you are well informed. We have a couple of Former Organisational Terrorists down at the Dog n’ Duck, who are prepared to offer advice free of charge.
It is like counselling – the FOTs ask you all sorts of questions and leave you to draw your own conclusions (yeah right, what kind of “advice” is that? … well, if you are a Potential Organisational Terrorist it’s the best you’re gonna get!).
Anyway, the questions go like this:
(1) Do you want all the rooms at County Hall to fall silent as soon as you walk in?
(2) Do you want half the HR department to suddenly be tasked with a detailed review of your performance?
(3) Do you want to be reported to the Standards Board?
(4) Do you want a Business Re-engineering Consultant to be paid £10,000 for an essay on why the Public Sector Transformation Agenda requires that your job should be given a new title and then given to someone else (who is not on the POT register)?
(5) Do you want your colleagues to be informed, in a solemn voice and with much pursing of lips, that you are being offered “extra training”?
(6) Do you want to put your family through a nightmare likely to result in insanity or poverty affecting current and future generations?
Obviously, for most people the answer to this sort of question is “no”.
That means that most POTs realise that the only sensible course of action is to sit down, shut up, and write out 100 times: “140+17=200, or 210, or 140,000, or whatever Jonesy says it is”.
Because, as a former (District) Councillor told us, “… County Councillors have to be very brave to stick their heads above the parapet in Taunton.”
UNISON sources confirm that the same applies to members of staff (universally referred to as “officers”, even the ones who would barely qualify as “other ranks”!)
But sadly, there will always be some who are too brave, or just too stupid to understand the consequences of failing to control their urges. There is even a charity that has been set up for these very people. It is called Public Concern at Work.
Dog n’ Duck veterans, however, would strongly advise you to have nothing whatsoever to do with this outfit! Experience has shown that they actively encourage you to Terrorise your Organisation, and seek to radicalise you with promises of support and assurances about legal protection. However, once you have actually committed an Outrage, they reckon that their work is done. Then they leave you well and truly in the slurry pit, because the reality is: no-one really gives a shit.
Apart from the cattle of course - otherwise there wouldn’t be a slurry pit.
It is like counselling – the FOTs ask you all sorts of questions and leave you to draw your own conclusions (yeah right, what kind of “advice” is that? … well, if you are a Potential Organisational Terrorist it’s the best you’re gonna get!).
Anyway, the questions go like this:
(1) Do you want all the rooms at County Hall to fall silent as soon as you walk in?
(2) Do you want half the HR department to suddenly be tasked with a detailed review of your performance?
(3) Do you want to be reported to the Standards Board?
(4) Do you want a Business Re-engineering Consultant to be paid £10,000 for an essay on why the Public Sector Transformation Agenda requires that your job should be given a new title and then given to someone else (who is not on the POT register)?
(5) Do you want your colleagues to be informed, in a solemn voice and with much pursing of lips, that you are being offered “extra training”?
(6) Do you want to put your family through a nightmare likely to result in insanity or poverty affecting current and future generations?
Obviously, for most people the answer to this sort of question is “no”.
That means that most POTs realise that the only sensible course of action is to sit down, shut up, and write out 100 times: “140+17=200, or 210, or 140,000, or whatever Jonesy says it is”.
Because, as a former (District) Councillor told us, “… County Councillors have to be very brave to stick their heads above the parapet in Taunton.”
UNISON sources confirm that the same applies to members of staff (universally referred to as “officers”, even the ones who would barely qualify as “other ranks”!)
But sadly, there will always be some who are too brave, or just too stupid to understand the consequences of failing to control their urges. There is even a charity that has been set up for these very people. It is called Public Concern at Work.
Dog n’ Duck veterans, however, would strongly advise you to have nothing whatsoever to do with this outfit! Experience has shown that they actively encourage you to Terrorise your Organisation, and seek to radicalise you with promises of support and assurances about legal protection. However, once you have actually committed an Outrage, they reckon that their work is done. Then they leave you well and truly in the slurry pit, because the reality is: no-one really gives a shit.
Apart from the cattle of course - otherwise there wouldn’t be a slurry pit.
Wednesday 19 November 2008
National Anti-Bullying Week (day 3) - remedies
So what do you do on discovering that you are a POT? DO NOT DESPAIR!
There are a number of possible cures available, most of which involve joining a satanic cult (which is not as bad as it sounds, and could be quite fun really!). Ordinary witchcraft (wicca) & VooDoo have also been known to help. The HR Department at County Hall will be pleased to advise, not least because it will give them a chance to make sure you are on the POT register.
However, at the end of the day, Organisational Terrorism is like sex. If all else fails you should at least be well informed (Thursday) and take sensible precautions (Friday).
There are a number of possible cures available, most of which involve joining a satanic cult (which is not as bad as it sounds, and could be quite fun really!). Ordinary witchcraft (wicca) & VooDoo have also been known to help. The HR Department at County Hall will be pleased to advise, not least because it will give them a chance to make sure you are on the POT register.
However, at the end of the day, Organisational Terrorism is like sex. If all else fails you should at least be well informed (Thursday) and take sensible precautions (Friday).
Monday 17 November 2008
National Anti-Bullying Week (day 2) - diagnosis
This is a serious week, for a serious subject (Organisational Terror, in case you've forgotten). No jokes.
So today, the regulars down at the Dog n' Duck would like to invite you all to examine the inner workings of your mind, to see whether you too are a Potential Organisational Terrorist.
Statistics have shown that POTs are most likely to be:
(1) recent recruits (watch out for Simon & Meic);
(2) newly elected (check out "question 3");
(3) refugees from the private sector (Yikes! That's the whole of IBM); and
(4) used to working in smaller organisations (Phew. IBM ruled out, our £400 million is safe).
As with drugs, young minds are most vulnerable. This is because they suffer from something called "idealism", also known as illusions. Fortunately Somerset County Council has an award-winning inducktrination program that has a proven track record of turning illusions into delusions.
That program uses the techniques of NLP ("Neuro Linguistic Programming" for those of you who are still not familiar with the inner workings of Excellence) to identify an individual's susceptibility to POTism.
What happens is this. To prepare for your journey, you do all that deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, envisioning, and self-realisation stuff. Then you allow your mind to range freely over the Strategic Excellence Agenda and Service Delivery Branding Options and all the rest of it.
At this point, if your mind cannot be cleared of doubts and insists on returning to practicalities, and vernacular expressions such as "that ain't right!", then not only are you an ignorant yokel, but you have a problem.
Sorry, I meant "we" have a problem.
"Our" problem is that you are a Terrorist Outrage waiting to happen. There are two options. Either you can get rid of yourself, or you can read the advice being posted later this week.
So today, the regulars down at the Dog n' Duck would like to invite you all to examine the inner workings of your mind, to see whether you too are a Potential Organisational Terrorist.
Statistics have shown that POTs are most likely to be:
(1) recent recruits (watch out for Simon & Meic);
(2) newly elected (check out "question 3");
(3) refugees from the private sector (Yikes! That's the whole of IBM); and
(4) used to working in smaller organisations (Phew. IBM ruled out, our £400 million is safe).
As with drugs, young minds are most vulnerable. This is because they suffer from something called "idealism", also known as illusions. Fortunately Somerset County Council has an award-winning inducktrination program that has a proven track record of turning illusions into delusions.
That program uses the techniques of NLP ("Neuro Linguistic Programming" for those of you who are still not familiar with the inner workings of Excellence) to identify an individual's susceptibility to POTism.
What happens is this. To prepare for your journey, you do all that deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, envisioning, and self-realisation stuff. Then you allow your mind to range freely over the Strategic Excellence Agenda and Service Delivery Branding Options and all the rest of it.
At this point, if your mind cannot be cleared of doubts and insists on returning to practicalities, and vernacular expressions such as "that ain't right!", then not only are you an ignorant yokel, but you have a problem.
Sorry, I meant "we" have a problem.
"Our" problem is that you are a Terrorist Outrage waiting to happen. There are two options. Either you can get rid of yourself, or you can read the advice being posted later this week.
National Anti-Bullying Week(1) - context
For five whole days, Organisational Terrorists and those who dare to negotiate with them can breathe easy. Down at the Dog n' Duck we are confident that, between them, Simon & Meic will be able to restrain their superiors' natural urges to "gather evidence" and brandish the P45s. At least until Friday.
And how better to remind ourselves of the problem than in the words of Jonesy himself:
“… there are organizational “terrorists”. These persons may even be in the top team or at the most senior level of the local authority. It is important to get rid of these people …”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice 2007
Good Luck Chaps!
And how better to remind ourselves of the problem than in the words of Jonesy himself:
“… there are organizational “terrorists”. These persons may even be in the top team or at the most senior level of the local authority. It is important to get rid of these people …”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice 2007
Good Luck Chaps!
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