A wise man once said something to the effect that if you wish to judge a society, you should look at how it treats its old, poor and defenseless.
I think we could safely say that a good place not to fall into any of those categories is Haringey. This is the North London Borough where every few years babies get tortured to death under the unseeing eyes of those paid to make sure such things don’t happen.
I do not blame those on the front line, so to speak. If they do a bad job it is because they are badly trained and managed. But I saw something so bizarre today that convinces me that it starts even before that – with how the council recruits people.
Here are selected extracts from a job ad which make me think everyone running things in Haringey is living in some insane parallel universe; life as imagined by Dali or perhaps Hieronymus Bosch.
Heading: URBAN ENVIRONMENT
Car Park and Street Compliance Manager
What?????
“The Parking Service is looking for a Street Compliance Manager who will be able to manage the maintenance of signs, lines and street furniture relating to parking restrictions.”
Street furniture????
Here’s a bit more.
“You will be actively working as part of the Parking Operations Division promoting teamwork and encouraging a joined-up approach to responding to street compliance issues.”
Now seriously, folks, did a sane person write that utter shit? Could it even be conceivable?
It goes on like that for a bit, with some more drivel about teams with a hilarious bit about “working in a pressurised office environment” which I assume means with a bunch of similarly demented form-fillers, then at the end it says “Haringey Council wants its workforce to reflect the diverse community it serves.”
Er, we all know what that means.
How the hell can you hope to get people doing a proper job if everyone talks this incomprehensible moonshine? Madness.
Instead of looking after people the poor sods who apply for these jobs have to learn to talk this gobbledygook and pretend to believe in it, too, before they can hope to climb up the corkscrew ladder of opportunity at Haringey.
And we’re paying for all this.
Words fail me.
“You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
We have plunged down that hole and can't find the fucking bottom.
Keep up the rants D – there are a few of us who care!
Well said – the underlying issue is that the hiring process is run by people who were too lazy/dumb to do any other job in the first place (yes, I'm unashamedly bashing HR as a practice – it presents itself as an easy target)
What?? The Great Bird at a loss for words? Don't believe it.
As usual, you've hit the nail on the head. The wording on this document is hilarious! Some clever person could make a very funny video with this as the script, don't you think?
The link for the job is http://jobs.haringey.gov.uk/Jobs.aspx?snextweeks=-1&Ssimple=street+compliance&SSectors=-1&SSalary=-1&STerm=-1&Sdepartment_id=-1&SLocations=-1&SSchools=-1&SSubjects=-1&o=
I suggest that we all try to think of the most stupid diverse backgrounds that we can and apply for this job. The first person to be selected for an interview with the stupidest CV wins a lunch with Drayton.
No one apply claiming to have been a street furniture manager in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, currently taking evening classes in welsh and with only a short criminal record. I’m taking that one.
Fascinating.
Also, thank you for mentioning Hieronymus Bosch. Hadn't heard of him before.
Isn't the problem deeper than this? Although councils are the worst at promoting this kind of useless job description, it happens across all business's and organisations. And I don't think it's all their fault either. It's because people want to be more than a dustman – so calling them a “Recycling Manager” or whatever makes them feel more important.
And we all know it happens in our own industry. No longer are you an account handler, you're definitely an account manager, and if you're lucky your a SAM or a SAD or GAD or a TWAT. Everyone wants to be a manager or director (i'm sure i've seen something about this before – maybe it was one of our blogs Drayton), so the answer seems to be change the job titles to massage peoples ego's.
And it's circular. I can't allow myself just to be a marketing manager, I have to make myself head of marketing or marketing director designate or something, because when I go for my next job i'll be competing against the person who's last job was “Senior Global Group Marketing Director” at the local butcher.
Isn't the problem deeper than this? Although councils are the worst at promoting this kind of useless job description, it happens across all business's and organisations. And I don't think it's all their fault either. It's because people want to be more than a dustman – so calling them a “Recycling Manager” or whatever makes them feel more important.
And we all know it happens in our own industry. No longer are you an account handler, you're definitely an account manager, and if you're lucky your a SAM or a SAD or GAD or a TWAT. Everyone wants to be a manager or director (i'm sure i've seen something about this before – maybe it was one of your blogs Drayton), so the answer seems to be change the job titles to massage peoples ego's.
And when it starts, everyone has to join in. I can't allow myself just to be a marketing manager, I have to make myself head of marketing or marketing director designate or something, because when I go for my next job i'll be competing against the person who's last job was “Senior Global Group Marketing Director” at the local butcher.
sorry. havent got the hang of this blog comment thing. Now i know why i'm not a marketing director…
sorry. havent got the hang of this blog comment thing. Now i know why i'm not a marketing director…
‘Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., “downsizing” for layoffs, “servicing the target” for bombing[1]), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning (for example, naming a state of war “peace”). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language.’
(wikipedia)
The Fabian Society has preached “Gradualism” since 1884. George Orwell reminded us of that fact in ‘1984.’ In 1994 Tony Blair and ‘New Labour’ ( ‘New’ because, under Blair, the Labour Party dropped Clause1V: Nationalisation) were an example of the gradual change toward the Big Brother Socialist State: privatise the profit and socialise the losses.
In 2006 Tony Blair presided over a ceremony to install the restored ‘Fabian Window’ in the Shaw Library of the L.S.E. – emphasising New Labour’s intellectual debt to the Fabian Society.
‘On the widow are images of a ‘wolf in sheeps clothing’ and men forging the world with hammer’s on an anvil and the caption reads “Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.”
While we bash the sheep this wolf is getting too fat to fail!