C'est l'heure de dire adieu

Last week I was thinking about all the nice things about my job that I will miss. I have not had to wait long for a few things to happen to p*ss me off and make me long for the French fields!

A new government tends to galvanise  inactive civil servants into a spurt of action (in fear of their jobs and pensions no doubt!) I remember it when New Labour came into to power and it is no different with the ConDems. A young girl came from the Department of Health to tell us about how things will change. (I know I am too old when I refer to them all as 'young'). Apparently we are going to see fewer acute hospital beds (no change there, every government has tried to do this but no one has worked out yet that the only people misfortunate enough to stay in hospital are those who can't be anywhere else as they are too ill). We are also going to see more services provided closer to home. (Been tried before and in principal everyone agrees with this except services closer to home are more expensive than centralised services). Students are to be told (by whom? the government? ) that they must challenge practises they see that they think are wrong. "Well look what happened to me when I did that" piped up one student. Of course they should challenge but my experience of that is that it makes them unpopular and then they fail their placements. OK they should do it tactfully but they are STUDENTS and, as the word implies, they are still learning. The final one is this new thing that they are going to focus on called re-enablement; except that it is not new but another word for rehabilitation, which we have been doing since the end of the first world war!

Hublet

I managed to avoid going to a staff meeting yesterday which was just as well as in the mood I am in at the moment I think I would have found it hard to make any constructive comments. One of the things being presented was the new research strategy, which to me just looked like a cheap re-launch of the old strategy in that there are four groups and we have to decide which one we want to align ourselves with. Today those of us that weren't there received this email.

If you were at the School Full Staff meeting yesterday afternoon, thank you for all your post-its indicating which Research Groupings and/or Research Hublets you are interested in. I have transferred the data onto the attached spreadsheet which shows all groups and hublets and your preference. Feel free to add your name to other groups and hublets and let me know.

Now this confused me as I have never heard of a hublet and it seems neither has the dictionary. Could it be a made-up word? We are running a competition to see who can come up with the best definition of a hublet and one of my colleagues made one from a pom pom.

Back to life, back to reality

Only back at work for three days and already I am p*ssed off!. There are a couple of entries on the Health and Safety man blog for those interested. If you would like to access the blog let me know.

Shhh.. secret squirrel

All workplaces have a health and safety man equivalent. In Ian's place she is called 'head of unimportant things' and so to compensate likes to make sure that everyone realises exactly how important she is. Ian is not considered a proper worker as he is that breed known as a 'temp' or a 'contractor'. As this breed has grown considerably, a few weeks ago they were moved to a brand new office with new desks. Non proper workers don't get the same automatic privileges and rights as proper workers, such as basic equipment, access to all the rooms, subsidised lunch and access to international phone lines. That is fine except that Ian needs to be able to make international calls to do his job and in his old desk this had been negotiated. So..you would think it would just be transferred to his new desk wouldn't you? Well, no, a new desk apparently means the whole thing has to be requested and authorised again! And.. this service and any communications about are so secretive and important that even mentioning it to anyone or, heaven forbid showing anyone else any correspondence about it is likely to be punishable by death! So..be warned!

This message contains information which may be confidential. It is intended for the addressee(s) only. Unless you are a named addressee (or authorised by an addressee who received this message), access to this e-mail, or any disclosure or copying of its contents, or any action taken (or not taken) in reliance on it is unauthorised and may be unlawful. If you have received this e-mail in error, please inform the sender immediately.

The dangers of getting involved at work

Today has been irritating! The problem is that up until the last week or so my heart was still in France but then it slowly got tugged back to work and I found myself more and more entwined. The problem with that is that the more that I get involved the more irritated I get and I had finally had enough today when I learned (through the circles of gossip) that the boss is off on 4 weeks holiday from Monday. Not that I begrudge her that but as I have to give weeks of notice, get it approved, negotiate it with my team and arrange cover for my work when I go away it did feel very much like there was one rule for us and one for the boss. Anyway I made my feelings clear which also didn't go down too well! The good news is it will not take long for me disentangle myself from work the week after next when we head over to France again! My challenge is to stay disentangled for as long as possible when I get back. It would be good to make it as far as Christmas.

Speed dating

Brief Encounters That Last (Research Networking/ "Speed Dating" Event)
Middle Street, Joan Bakewell Theatre24th July 2pm
Final places remaining - Deadline for applications - Friday 6th July 2008

This message (with the accompanying picture) was circulated at work recently. We have now moved on from the sandpit to the latest trend in management speak and that is 'speed dating'!

According to wikipedia

speed dating is a formalized matchmaking process or dating system whose purpose is to encourage people to meet a large number of new people

and it goes something like this:

Men and women are rotated to meet each other over a series of short "dates", usually lasting from 3 to 8 minutes depending on the organization running the event. At the end of each interval, the organizer rings a bell or clinks a glass to signal the participants to move on to the next date.

Based on this principal a special event has been organised to enable people from across the university to introduce themselves to each other and decide if they like each other enough to work togther. If it is anything like the real thing then I am very glad that I am busy doing something else on that day! I think the people in the research development unit have been watching too much Sex and the City!

What's in a name 2

One of the slightly irritating things about emails is the jingoistic signature lines that employers add at the end of every message sent from their server. One of my students works for a local NHS trust. On the bottom of all her emails she is forced to put this little line: Help us to be the best we can be ...A rather strange comment and does not fill me with confidence at the level of care I might expect! It is like the one we all had to use about 10 years ago Working towards equal opportunities which basically meant we can continue to employ you without offering you a full time contract, insist that you sign away your rights to redundancy although you must give us two months notice if you want to leave!

Also, when I used to get letters or emails from various parts of the NHS I could tell where they came from by the name of the Trust or organisation. Therefore, people working and providing a service in Enfield would work for Enfield Trust and if you worked in a hospital the chances are the location would be in the title. Now things are not so straightforward!
Try to work out where these are!
2gether NHS Foundation Trust (by far the most irritating)
5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust
Calderstones NHS Trust

The 5 Boroughs Trust is committed to helping staff acheive a work-life balance and spends money publishing a newsletter called the juggler where you can read about managing your stress and making a will (at a 10% discount). I hope the two events are not connected!

The decision tree

I have been driven to distraction by the way decisions seem to be made at work! This seems to be the format.

The vice -commander gets told what the budget is for next year. Somehow it is always less than it should be but the commander-in-chief always manages to convince the vice-commander that it is the same as last year even though it is less.

Vice-commander writes down lots of figures and numbers on a scrap of paper and then looses it. Vice commander then calls a 10 minute meeting with her wing commanders and asks them what they think. Wing commanders ask for the budget to be explained and for some detail about what the options are but by this time the 10 minutes is up and everyone is on holiday the following week.

Vice-commander decides to meet with each one of the troops individually to ask them what they would like to do next year. She is often surprised and taken a back when what they want to do is not what she wants them to do.

Vice-commander ignores the problem for 2 weeks and in the meantime the troops get restless and unsettled and mutter amongst themselves. Requests are made for clarity.

Vice-commander calls another urgent meeting with the wing commanders but they are all away.

Vice-commander meets again with a few individual troop members that happen to be in the corridor.

Troops get even more unsettled. Vice-commander is away on a course so the troops decide to sort it out without her and make a decision.

This means that the troops can then get on with the strategic planning for next year.

Order is restored.

Making dreams a reality!

This morning did not start well. I was cycling to work; a little later than I had hoped and a little flustered as I had to do a lecture at 9.30. As I got to the steep hill through the golf course I was overtaken by a large black gas-guzzling 4 wheel drive with blacked out windows. On the side of the van was a logo for the company called dreamcatcher and over the doors was a list of all the services they provided. I was taken by surprise when I saw that they offered life-coaching, occupational therapy and to 'make your dreams come true'. Now I have great belief in my profession and the positive contribution it can make to people's health but I am old enough and grown up enough to realise that nothing is as simple as 'making your dreams come true' and even if they do come true they turn out not to be the dreams you though they were (so I would never pay anyone any money who claimed to do this!) Anyway, maybe I was a bit grumpy but the van really annoyed me and I cycled up the hill muttering to myself about 'life-coaching..they just want to get over it and get on with it!' My annoyance was made worse by the fact that when I got to work the dreamcatcher van was in the car park and I realised that they were lecturing to another group of students. Imagine my fury then when I discovered that there had been a mix up with the room bookings and they were in the room I was meant to be in. This news was tactfully broken to me by the person who had organised the talk who came to tell me while I was half dressed, trying to pull my tight trousers over my sweaty ar*e as quickly as possible in order to get upstairs and start my lecture! I ended up finding another room and it all worked out okay but the dreamcatchers certainly did not make my dreams of a nice stress-free lecture come true!

I came into my profession to help those in genuine need of my skills; those at the lowest point in their lives, those who can't imagine any sort of future or those whose futures will be very limited. Inevitably people in that position have no money and rely on what the state can provide and for years I was privileged to be able to provide part that service to the best of my ability. Now it seems that this type of care is being increasingly marginalised, limited, difficult to access or just not there and is being replaced by occupational therapists working as 'dreamcatchers', from the back of van, offering an expensive service to people who don't really need it but have the money to pay. It sums up, in a nutshell, the reason why I am going to become a llama farmer!

Five candidates

There were 5 candidates for the important job of leader supreme of our little enclave. The job is primarily a managerial one; obeying high command and leading the troops into battle. ‘The troops’ were looking for an inspirational leader that would raise their banner and lead them forth into new and unconquered territories. The 5 candidates were asked to present their manifestos to the troops and the troops were asked to write copious ‘feedback’. This feedback was collated and given to high command after they had made their initial decision about the 5 candidates. After listening to 5 speeches the troops had a headache!

Candidate 1-told the troops how wonderful they were and how she wasn’t going to do anything without asking them. Candidate 1 presented high command’s policy as her own and was seen as a ‘safe bet’. The troops yawned and were uninspired.

Candidate 2- presented lots of ideas and lots of information on pretty pictures. She mentioned lots of names of important people that she met last week. The troops would have been inspired if they had been able to follow what she was saying.

Candidate 3 – had mastered the technological aspects of PowerPoint in an almost scary way and blinded the troops with techno power which for a while fooled the troops into thinking that there was some content. Candidate 3 did a great presentation for a job that wasn’t the one he was applying for.

Candidate 4- came across as a nice man. His presentation was entertaining and the troops liked him. His speech was full of clichés and sound-bites but candidate 4 was able to inspire some of the troops with his rhetoric.

Candidate 5 – wasn’t able to look at the troops as she addressed them which scared them. She mentioned some inspiring things but there was ‘something of the night’ about her so even though the troops thought she was a good leader no one wanted her to lead them.

High command gave the job to candidate1. The troops were depressed and wondered whether the headache was worth it!

Team building!

After the all-day staff meeting a couple of weeks ago it seems that the 'management team' (and I put that in quotes because I have never seen any evidence of management in the 5 years that I have been there) decided that we needed some team building activities! We all got an email last week asking us if we were interested in taking part in a school choir or Tai Chi on the lawn! Now, don't get me wrong; I appreciate the thought and I appreciate the fact that someone is thinking about my well-being, albeit in a somewhat misguided way. However, these would not be my choice of activities! I can appreciate the therapeutic potential of singing and in deed was a member of a very successful community choir for 10 years when I lived in London. I am also aware of the tremendous hard work non-singers need to put in, in order for it not to sound like a bunch of cats wailing and I eventually 'retired' from my singing career when I realised that the kind of hard work I needed to put in would preclude having a full time job! Now Tai Chi might be nice in the mornings. I tried a course a few years ago and it takes about 6 months of regular attendance to master the moves in a way that makes it look a little effortless but never- the-less if we could all get to that point it might be good for us! But on the lawn..first thing in the morning! Today it is April and I am looking out of my window at 6 inches of snow!

I have not expressed an interest!

The unconcious agenda

We have a meeting coming up next Monday. The meeting will last most of the day and everyone who works in the department is expected to attend. Lunch is provided but this is not really an incentive and I have tried to come up with a reason as to why I can't go without any luck so it looks like I will have to sit through it. To put the meeting in context, I work for a fairly large department within a University. The head of department left last week and the advertisement for her replacement went out on the day she left. The department is currently under 'temporary' leadership and while we await a permanent appointment, the many conflicting agendas and politics within the department have been left to roam wild! Freud's theory of the unconscious mind argued that most of what motivates us is the result of hidden and unconscious desires. He also argued that we unconsciously strive to protect our egos from damage and use a variety of defense mechanisms to protect ourselves. Thus without consciously meaning to, we might 'forget' to do things that are psychologically difficult. Others have argued that these psychological theories can also be applied within organisations. So, have a look at the agenda below and see if you can work out what topic is the one that those organising the meeting want to talk about the least and is the most important!

9-45am Introduction and review of progress
10am Curriculum
10-45am COFFEE
11am Economic and social engagement
12 noon Staff and Student experience -
12-45pm LUNCH
2pm Research
3pm TEA
3-15pm Physical environment
Management and relationships

(Not only does it come at the end of the day (almost as an afterthought); there is no time allocated to talk about it!) On second thoughts the day might be more entertaining than I thought!

I have just been reading about the psychology of leadership. One of my colleagues complained that none of the 'leaders' in our organisation were capable of making a decision about anything and likened it to 'leadership by marshmallow'!

More nonsense from work!

People have been hitting the bottle at work I think. This email was forwarded to me but was originally sent to all university staff. The University has to submit the results of five years of its best research to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). If the University is judged to do well then it will get enough money to continue next year and if it doesn't then departments will close and jobs will be lost! Quite important then..and you would think the transporting of all this information would have been carefully planned down to last detail. Take a look at this! (The opening comment is from my colleague)

Christ! What an opportunity! Call Ruth Kelly immediately!!!!

Dr. Melvin Fracas
Senior Lecturer In Psychology ______________________________________________
From: Melthick Julie Sent: 20 December 2007 10:09 To: uni info
Subject: Wanted - person with van to drive to Bristol on 16th Jan

Does anyone have (or know anyone who has) a transit van or equivalent and would be prepared to drive it down to Bristol and back on Wednesday 16th January? We need to transport the University's boxes of RAE evidence down to the RAE Depot that day and need someone with a van who could help us.
If you can help please reply to this email or phone me on xxxx
Thanks, Julie

Julie Melthick Academic Research Officer Registry

I replied saying that it would depend how much they were willing to pay as I knew someone (ie. me in Ian's van on a days annual leave) but it wouldn't be for free! I have not heard back!

The Spirit of Christmas

I guess some people don't have much of it! This was an email sent yesterday from the Head of School! Note the pleasant Christmas greetings!

From: Prune Gillian
Sent: 18 December 2007 15:13
To: h health professions staff
Subject: RE: Christmas closure

To add to the information given by Jane, to the best of my knowledge, the University is open until 4.00pm on Friday 21st December. I gather some people were saying that they would stop work at mid day on Friday because this is what we normally do on the last day before Christmas. This is incorrect and instead of asking you to work until lunch time on Monday 24th, the University is giving you the whole of Christmas Eve off, but it is not giving you half of Friday as well. If you want to take Friday pm as annual leave, please feel free to do so, but ensure this is recorded.

Gillian