The Judge RANTS!
Date: 04/02/05
Some Appreciation!
In the late spring of last year, one of my colleagues marked her
25th year working for the organisation.
It has long been customary for the senior management to mark such
milestones by sending a message of thanks to the individual concerned.
She received it a few days ago - only about eight months late.
On the top of the sheet of paper was written:
Cerfiticate Of Appreciation
Yes, that's right: Cerfiticate.
I mean, bugger me down dead but is this the best we can
expect? We are, after all, talking about one of the biggest departments
of the whole UK civil service here. And one, moreover, which is
currently going through a colonic spasm of insistence that letters from
staff to the 'customer' must be written in 'Plain English',
irrespective of how badly they may read as a consequence.
So how have we got to the pass whereby the department seems to be
led by people so functionally illiterate that they can let an
abomination such as this happen? All they would have needed was two
seconds with a spell-checker (or even with someone who was properly
educated, or who thinks that correct spelling matters).
But I'm afraid that such disregard for getting it right in these
circumstances walks hand-in-hand with an equally cavalier attitude
towards the feelings and morale of the staff in times of immense
uncertainty for us (see here for what I'm talking
about).
********
PS: The rot seems to start from the very top. I've
just seen a press briefing about the 'modernisation' (i.e. cutting
& privatising) of the department. One of the 'questions' which the
top bods might be asked by journalists is, apparently,
"Doesn't this prove you except the department is
inefficient?"
I hope that this is an acception to the rule...
