Had the most demoralising meeting this week, and I was late because the trains are cancelled and the country’s fucked. As I arrived, opened the door into a small light filled room, so not claustrophobic, and had to sit behind my new glorious leader as he ran through the results of the new monthly questionnaire. The questionaoirre bought out because we said we feel detached from the rest of the company and we need the “Human Touch”, or at least some empathy from a human or even humans. So this new survey was commissioned every month and once you’ve vented your spleen for 30 minutes an AI component to the programme say,

“Oh thats Nice, would you like to rephrase that Dave?” Honestly its enough to drive you to drink, the request to be listened to and management get a robot ear to do the listening while they all daisy chain eachother around the Head Office, while we are left out in the cold, detached and pissed off. This new manager is a cock, that much is obvious, but when asked what success means for us and I blurted out “Money” having spent the last 10 years receiving pay cut after pay cut, and his answer was to say that maybe I should look for alternate drugs, maybe I should move to HQ, become a manager and give up what i’m really good at to take on something which could be generalised as middle management in any company in and country in the world. Just shit. Thats not progression, but…

“When the question on the survey asks, ‘Are there channels to progress within the company’ where I have clearly showed that there are, then maybe you should read the question properly and then answer that question instead of whatever you want to answer”

Thats my new boss, and when he says to us that once we’ve reached the top of our understanding and skill within our particular globally unique skillset, then that’s as far as we can go, there’s no money for a job well done, a tricky job well done and yet theres money enough for some jumped up blazer man to put us in our place and drag us down, i’m rapidly losing the stamina for this caper, which is a shame because I enjoy the job. 23 years and some cunt comes and tells us to our face that we can only reach so far, despite not making widgets.

He left before lunch after totally debasing our activites and then we were faced with someone else who gave the impression of not knowing what he was talking about yet his flow chart of where he sits in the grand scheme of things would suggest otherwise. After weekly teams meeting when they never mention our side of the business which constitutes about 20% of the workforce, which seems to be a sizeable amount, I’m pretty sure its 1/5, which is a lot, so after the train cancellation, after the delay, after bursting for a piss on the train with a locked toilet, I found it very hard to keep my mouth shut. I suggested having a weekly teams meeting for our 1/5 of the business and not talking about any of the other groups, starting off with a 30 minute dj set performed by yours truly. To which the only slightly convincing senior manager made some flippant comment about maybe I should chair the meetings too. They don’t get it, i’m not a grouch all the time but the patronising and belittling of us gets pretty tiring these days. I’m at a crossroads, I’m 50, the company is run by donkeys, and i’m starting to think I may regret staying in this shower until the water’s totally cold and I retire, I don’t think they even give us a parting gift these days.

And that my friends is how a Government treats its staff.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT THEN FUCK OFF 

Which is nice, having said that it gives me a chance to concentrate on not giving a shit and trying to go less and less further to help out.