Originally Posted by Domino

I worked for an American based company, in sales we had to spend hours each day filling in an NCR form showing our activity, companies visited, outcome of visit etc etc. One Monday I was in the office and saw the department secretary opening the weekly reports from my colleagues. She just put a tick against the names of those who had sent in reports, noted the number of calls for the week and filed them in a large folder - last week's had already been disposed of.
No one read them, it was all a "numbers" exercise, proving you were doing your paperwork.

Team days are a waste of time. How can anyone expect adults putting up a childs tent with a piece missing to build a team.!! Especially when they never work together and have travelled from the farthest part of the country just to play games.
How can even a team that do work in the same office playing blind mans bluff "gell" into a "team" when they have no reason to even speak to each other after work has finished.?
Teamwork comes about by identical payscales for every worker, all being able to take over for a colleague in an emergency, all workers actually doing the job properly not missing bits out "cos I can't be bothered and it don't matter anyway".
Ask any of Britains Armed Forces about teamwork and shudder.

Pay disparity is one thing managers seem to revel in, quoting "regional differences" when discussing same job description in 2 buildings 80miles apart.
One company paid the same hourly rate for a girl on reception at head office as was being paid to the site manager of a building worth over £10million, responsible for all cleaning, maintenance and H&S.
One HR Director gave in to sales demands when including their commission and bonuses into the calculation of Performance Related Pay - reducing the amount paid to the rest of the staff by over 15%

When lowly staff members make cost saving suggestions they are informed they "don't see the bigger picture".

It can be great working for some companies.................

Originally Posted by Beaverstate

Government employees are the same worldwide. Their own interests come first, and second. If anything else is left.... They also have the politicians under the same system as they. Where I am, I understand even the overseers are covered by the same system. That includes the final deciders, the judges, also covered. No case has ever been decided against the PERS. Public Employees Retirement System. The tremendous amount of debt is written in for years to come. I understand" Government servants" receiving retirement benefits. However they are quite unbelievable and utterly unsustainable here and I suspect most other places in the western world. Please excuse my frustrated rant.

Originally Posted by rugbymatt

Not sure if any of you saw the recent Portillo program that tried to get to the bottom of the whole Greece vs Germany tension and the Euro crisis, it was really fascinating. Not one person, politician or person on the street in any country either Greece or Germany wanted to see the end of the Euro, not even the absolutely broke Greek family he stayed with who had all been forced to move into one home, more than 3 generations and lots of bodies in a tiny little home. That aside it was interesting to hear what the politicians were saying about the whole crisis and how to get out of it and time and time again it came down to a small collection of issues, one of which was the whole export market, especially China. It was fascinating to hear people talk about austerity and how it was stifling growth but then when pressed none would agree that a return to unchecked spending could help. The issue of defaulting came up and it was widely agreed that there was absolutely no way that Greece would default, that it was just used to win an election, which obviously didn't happen, and it went into some of the history behind the Maastricht treaty and how none of the countries who ever signed it ever had an intention of honouring it, especially in places like controlling spending and centralising tax issues.
Its a pity Portillo isn't in power any more, his insight and intelligence is sorely missed.

Originally Posted by Lynn R

This is a marvellous illustration of the type of stuff I was talking about - and all of it taking place in the private sector. That's where all of it was imported into the public sector from - and all of it expensive, useless rubbish that takes public sector workers away from performing their primary purpose.

I completely agree with you about the "team work" thing. I also could never see the point of organisation wide 'away days' being billed as a good thing because "it's good to put a face to a name". Working in Manchester, personally I couldn't have cared less if every member of staff in our London or Glasgow offices had been a morbidly obese, snaggle toothed old crone as long as they did the job they were employed to do and did it well.

Originally Posted by rugbymatt

Not sure if any of you saw the recent Portillo program that tried to get to the bottom of the whole Greece vs Germany tension and the Euro crisis, it was really fascinating. Not one person, politician or person on the street in any country either Greece or Germany wanted to see the end of the Euro, not even the absolutely broke Greek family he stayed with who had all been forced to move into one home, more than 3 generations and lots of bodies in a tiny little home. That aside it was interesting to hear what the politicians were saying about the whole crisis and how to get out of it and time and time again it came down to a small collection of issues, one of which was the whole export market, especially China. It was fascinating to hear people talk about austerity and how it was stifling growth but then when pressed none would agree that a return to unchecked spending could help. The issue of defaulting came up and it was widely agreed that there was absolutely no way that Greece would default, that it was just used to win an election, which obviously didn't happen, and it went into some of the history behind the Maastricht treaty and how none of the countries who ever signed it ever had an intention of honouring it, especially in places like controlling spending and centralising tax issues.
Its a pity Portillo isn't in power any more, his insight and intelligence is sorely missed.

Originally Posted by missile

It is a bit like not being able to pay the minimum balance on your credit card.

Originally Posted by Domino

I think with the series of blunders recently he would be of great use, he lost his seat to a dickhead who didnt stay too long

But some of his words must come from writers who are trying to meet the objectives of the programme, playing up playing down Europe, Euro etc.
Even when he did the excellent Bradshaw series of programmes he had scriptwriters.

Originally Posted by HBG

The famous blame game is difficult to avoid. One commentator mentioned the police demonstration yesterday, concluding that they are lucky to retire after 30 years. On the surface, that's a righteous criticism, but after going to work in an anti-stab vest for 30 years, wouldn't they get worn out earlier than other workers?

Our soldiers take similar early retirement, I would imagine they also get worn out quicker after seeing close friends die in some godforsaken desert and others back in civvy street hobbling about with false limbs.

And prison officers? Everybody hates them - what an easy job they've got just turning keys on their fellow citizens. But what fellow citizens have to face murderous psychopaths on a daily basis?

And why should firemen retire early? Christ, all they do is turn a hose on and spray a fire somewhere. OK, a few of them might die when they try and rescue people from burning buildings, but that's just bad luck, isn't it?

Our public sector is bloated, but we need to be careful in unbloating it.

Originally Posted by Lynn R

The truly tragic case of the five children who died in a house fire in Derby today illustrates why members of the emergency services should be valued and rewarded for what they do - in what job in the private sector would people be expected/prepared to put their lives on the line for others as they do?

Originally Posted by HBG

Yet commentators still berate the public services for being able to retire earlier.

Do they really believe that a 65-year old soldier would be of any use in a fire fight in the desert? Or a 65-year old fireman climbing a ladder to rescue people?

I've got visions of a 65-year old copper limping down the street with a walking stick when a yob pulls a knife on him. I suppose he could hit him with his walking stick. I'm being distracted, maybe he's got a rhythm stick.

Hit me, hit me . . . .

Originally Posted by johnnyone

Fireman can drive a fire engine at 65 , go round schools teaching safety methods etc.
Similar jobs are available to older police officers.