Fisher's Fables Read online

  I’m not taking the blame for this. “Danni, there’s no budget for advertising vacant posts.”

  “Of course there’s a budget. Everything has a budget.”

  “No, because all posts are frozen to save money there’s no need for a recruitment budget. That means we can only advertise on our website, which doesn’t cost us any money.”

  “So why haven’t you advertised on the website?”

  “The web master left two weeks ago and her post is frozen. Everyone else is too busy covering to put adverts out. It’s the same everywhere you go – too few people doing too much work. And the pressure to perform better keeps growing. Something’s got to give.”

  Danni stares at me for a moment and then nods. “You’re right. No one can be expected to perform under such pressure. Okay, to show you I’m not unsympathetic I’ll book you on a stress management course.”

  The prospect of three days away hugging trees fills me with dread, but it gives me an excuse for being behind on the day job, I guess. “Thank you, Danni.”

  “I’m here to help,” she says, closing the statistics folder. “Just make sure your work doesn’t suffer while you’re away.”

  Calling Out

  Christmas is a time for sharing, for goodwill, and for putting others first. And officers in the Public Protection Team put everyone else first for emergency call out over the festive period. Being ‘on call’ means no drinking, no going away and being ready for any emergency that happens. It also means extra cash for those who need money – mainly mothers, and parents with children at university.

  The deluge of emails is as unrelenting as the bitter chill outside. It seems that everyone is offering his or her call out to everyone else. This can only fail, which heralds the horse-trading. All kinds of offers and inducements appear as the officers most desperate to give away their call out emerge from the pack. It’s crazy as everyone knows Karen from Pollution Control will take every call out over the festive season and every weekend in January after that. For most of us, it’s guessing the level of the inducements she’s offered. This year it’s a frozen turkey (with giblets), an Amazon gift voucher, and most interesting of all, a BBC DVD box set of ‘A Life of Grime’, the series about the work of environmental health officers.

  “I misread the email,” she tells me later. “I love CSI and Miss Marple, you see. Still, my son, Nick, will need something to occupy him during the long evenings at university.”

  I’m not sure he spends his long evenings in front of the television – unless it’s in the Student Union bar. But I hope she remains this naive about her son’s nocturnal habits or many of us will never get rid of our call outs in the future. Only Danni seems unhappy with the way everything worked out.

  “Karen, you’ll be working without a break for the next four weeks. That’s not good for your mental and physical wellbeing. A tired mind is a careless mind.”

  This latest quote from Danni’s desk calendar nearly didn’t see the light of day as she misplaced it several weeks ago while working late. Ironically, she’d taken that day’s quote of ‘A tidy desk means a tidy mind’ to heart and cleared everything away, including the calendar.

  “At least I have a mind,” Karen whispers. “Did you manage to track down that book for Danni?”

  I shake my head. Despite repeated searches on Google and E Bay I couldn’t find ‘Inane Platitudes for Inept Managers.’ But life isn’t fair, is it? I would have to think of something else to buy for my Secret Santa contribution.

  “Kent, this is your first Christmas as a manager,” Danni remarks, unnerving me with a smile. “So, let’s make it memorable, shall we?”

  “You want me to buy the mince pies, right?”

  According to a recent email from the union rep, buying mince pies atoned for the failure of managers to thank their staff for good work during the year. The email from Human Resources claimed that buying mince pies made managers appear generous, caring and thoughtful.

  Danni shakes her head. “I want you to make organisation your top priority, Kent. Obviously, you need to produce a draft service plan first, and introduce the new performance monitoring scheme I devised for you.”

  Karen nudges me. “If you’d been more organised you’d have a present for Danni. And mince pies for us.”

  “I’ll start working on it right away,” I promise, knowing Danni will change my priorities as the days go by.

  “No, Kent, you’ll start by producing a PDP – the key to management success and growth.”

  “Will improving my organisation be the first item on my PDP?”

  She shrugs. “That depends whether you’re organised enough to realise your organisation needs improving. Most disorganised people I’ve met never find the time to work this out.”

  “What’s a PDP?” asks Karen. “Is it like PDQ?”

  I’m tempted to say, Pretty Damn Pointless, but I have a more cunning plan to scupper Danni’s wishes. “Could you print me off a copy of your Personal Development Plan?” I ask. “I’m sure I could learn from your example.”

  For a moment she freezes. Her eyes look from side to side as the furrows on her brow sink lower. Then she smiles. “I keep mine in here,” she says, tapping her forehead. “It’s constantly updated, which is why I never stand still. Remember, Kent, a moving target is harder to hit.”

  To demonstrate the point she scurries back to her office, leaving me with a tangle of priorities, and no secret Santa contribution. I correct this the next day, only to discover on Christmas Eve that Danni hasn’t bought anyone a present.

  “I find this secret Santa business grossly unfair,” she announces without remorse. “Why should people on the lowest grades feel obliged to buy someone they don’t really know a meaningless gift?”

  “It’s only a fiver,” Karen protests. “And if you can’t be bothered to buy a present then you shouldn’t accept the one someone bought for you.”

  “I agree,” says Danni, pulling the last package from under the tree. “Why don’t you have my present?”

  Karen doesn’t need telling twice. She rips off the wrapping paper and starts to snigger. “I really think you should have this,” she says, handing the package back to Danni.

  Danni holds up ‘Personal Development Planning for Dummies’, and says, “What an inspired choice, but I can’t possibly accept this.”

  “Why not?” I ask, afraid she’ll hand it to me. Now that would be ironic.

  “Because knowledge is the most precious commodity you can have. It’s far more valuable than a pay rise or week after week of call outs.” She raises her hands to placate the protests. “That’s why I’m giving this book to you all so you can use the templates to produce your own PDPs. And I’ll be happy to comment on them in the New Year.”

  The groans lead to glares as everyone slowly turns to face me. “You could have given us mince pies,” says Karen, hands on hips, “but instead we’ve got bloody homework. Well, you can take your call out back. I’ll need that weekend to write a PDP, won’t I?”

  Well Sick

  Two weeks into the New Year and the gym bulges with people eager to lose weight and improve their health. They come in all shapes, sizes and inappropriate clothing, but share one thing in common – in another six weeks they’ll be gone.

  “How many calories can you burn in five minutes?” The young woman on the adjacent treadmill adjusts her push up bra as she waits for my answer. Her skimpy top and shorts leave little to the imagination.

  “That depends,” I reply, momentarily distracted by her enormous false eyelashes. You could shelter from the rain beneath them. “Are you walking or running?”

  She looks at me as if I’m stupid. “Walking, of course! There’s no point running on a treadmill, is there? You can’t go anywhere.”

  I’m not going to argue with logic like that. And I’m not going to hang around while scantily clad women and muscle bound men text each other instead of using the equipment they’re sitting on. In another six weeks normality will return.

  Back at the office I sense normality walked out of the door the moment Danni arrived as our new manager. Her enthusiasm for new ideas is matched only by the mantras borrowed from her desk calendar. And the New Year means a new calendar. We can add this to the new coalition government, their new approach to public health and the NHS, and Danni’s unnerving ability to latch onto any new trend.

  “If we hadn’t embraced new ideas we would still be living in caves,” she likes to remind us. This overlooks the main advantage of the cave, in my opinion – you can’t get a mobile signal inside one.

  “Why have we all got a pack of nicotine patches?” Nigel asks me, blocking my path to my desk. “I know people give up smoking at this time of year, but none of us smoke.”

  I guess it’s something to do with public health coming to local authorities. “It’s an empathy thing,” I reply. “We wear patches for a week and then experience withdrawal symptoms when we stop.”

  Nigel chuckles to himself. “Cold turkey after the cold turkey!”

  “Yea, but they’re well expensive,” Kelly, our new admin support officer, remarks. She has a sheaf of papers in one hand and a smartphone in the other. “You have to stop smoking to afford them, right?”

  It’s an interesting concept. If the marketing people could only make nicotine patches as desirable as phones. “Maybe Apple could bring out the I-Patch,” I suggest. “In lots of cool colours.”

  “Yea! Or they could make it an App. That’d be well cool. Each time you want a smoke you stick your I-Pod against your arm.” Her brown eyes widen and her mouth falls open as an idea arrives. “You could use that sports holder thing you strap on your arm!”

  I have a feeling I’m going to like Kelly. Her enthusiasm is infe
ctious. And if she has a sports holder for her I-Pod that means she runs or uses the gym. I start to picture her in a push up bra and skimpy shorts.

  It’s not difficult as she dresses like a rugby club barmaid. Slim, with bleached blonde hair, cheeky brown eyes and flawless makeup, she likes bright red lipstick, which matches her shiny stilettos. The tight white blouse, open just enough to tantalise, shows off her figure, while the red skirt that finishes well above the knee, reveals her tanned legs.

  But she’s not the dumb blonde she likes to play – I’m certain of that.

  “You don’t need a holder for the patches,” Danni says, marching into the office and all over my fantasy. “They’re self-adhesive. So Kelly, have you any idea how many working days are lost each year through smoking?”

  “Working days?” Kelly looks thoughtful. “You’re not including holidays then?”

  This simple question seems to throw Danni. “What have holidays got to do with anything?”

  “You get more holiday than me,” Kelly replies.

  Danni still looks confused. “So?”

  “So, I work more days than you. So, if we both smoked you would lose less days than me, wouldn’t you?”

  I have to look away in case I burst into laughter. Kelly’s achieved the impossible – she’s rendered Danni speechless. Not so Nigel, who peers over his computer monitor. “We’re talking about the days lost through smoke breaks, aren’t we?”

  Kelly gasps. “People have smoke breaks that last all day? That’s well long.”

  I’m not sure I can survive much longer. My stomach is starting to ache from holding the laughter in. Nigel drops back into his chair, his grievance about the time smokers spend on breaks thwarted.

  “I’m talking about the days lost through ill health, and the misery smoking causes,” Danni says, trying to reassert herself. “That’s why you all have nicotine patches. We’re launching a new campaign to help smokers give up their foul and disgusting habit.”

  “By giving them free patches?”

  “Won’t that leave them more money to like spend on cigarettes?”

  Danni shakes her head. I’m sure she hadn’t anticipated such telling logic from admin. “I’ve given the matter a lot of thought over the Christmas break and the answer’s so simple I’m surprised no one’s come up with it before.”

  She settles on the edge of my desk and draws a breath. “It takes seconds to apply a nicotine patch in the morning. And it lasts all day. A smoke break, on the other hand, can last up to ten minutes. That means smokers can spend up to 100 minutes a day or more smoking.”

  “Exactly!” Nigel says. “It’s not fair on the rest of us.”

  Danni nods. “If they apply a nicotine patch instead they don’t need breaks, they don’t have to leave their desks and the council gets a huge return in productivity. It’s a win-win solution.”

  “I’m not sure HR will agree,” I comment. “What about human rights?”

  Danni’s back on her feet. “How is improving health against human rights? We’re not denying them nicotine, are we?”

  “What if they refuse the patches?”

  “We refuse to let them have smoke breaks as we have offered them a viable alternative with patches.”

  I can see the employment tribunal case taking shape, but it’s pointless to argue. “I hear what you’re saying, Danni, but why have you given us nicotine patches?”

  “If everyone persuades one smoker to quit we will make the single biggest contribution to public health this century,” she replies, turning towards her office. “And before you mention cost, thanks to my negotiating skills we got them at a significant discount.”

  I can’t believe she’s wasted all that money. “Someone saw her coming,” I remark when she’s out of earshot. “No smoker’s going to use these patches.”

  “I know I wouldn’t,” Kelly says, examining a pack. “They’re two years out of date. They could make you well ill.”

  I have a feeling Danni’s going to be well sick when she finds out.

  Unequal Opportunities

  Environmental Health Manager gets the thirty-third degree. Yes, the job advertisement for an environmental health officer has attracted applications from 33 graduates. They’re all enthusiastic, out of work, reasonably literate but completely unsuitable with their degrees in everything from philosophy to French. Ah well, c’est la vie!

  “You need a matrix,” Danni suggests, looking at the pile of application forms on the table. This is marginally more helpful than her previous suggestion to ‘select the most suitable candidate for the job’. I’d never have thought of that.

  “A matrix?”

  “Yes, a table.”

  “I know what a matrix is. Why do I need one?”

  “You enter all the candidates down the left hand column and then identify their key qualities across the page. The one with the most suitable qualities is the winner.”

  “So, I don’t need to bother interviewing anyone?”

  Danni eyes me with disdain. “It’s standard management practice, Kent. Why don’t you Google ‘Weighted Options’ and add it to your PDP?”

  My Personal Development Plan is a Pipe Dream Probably. I’m beginning to realise that management is more about completing spreadsheets than running a successful team. At least I have the compensation of working with Sarah from HR. She’s cut her hair short and it frames her lovely face, accentuating those big blue eyes. We’re sitting on the floor of her office, the job applications scattered before us, waiting to be sorted into meaningful piles.

  “Are you all right?” she asks, giving me a quizzical look.

  “Danni wants me to enter all the job applicants into a spreadsheet the size of Sussex and then pick the one with the most good qualities. It’s called Weighted Options.”

  “No, Weighted Options is where you rank the various headings in terms of significance. So, if you think innovation is a key quality you give it 10. Then you weight all the others and add up the numbers.”

  Sarah scores ten in every category. Downland’s Corporate Management Team, however, would argue for hours over how many points to give an option. Indecision would get at least ten points. Perhaps five. Maybe three. Who knows?

  “I vote we ignore the 33 graduates and select the five environmental health officers who applied for interview,” I suggest. “Add the three final year trainee EHOs to the short list and we’ll have more time for lunch.”

  Sarah sighs. “I hope you’re not suggesting that lunch is more important than selecting the best candidates?”

  “Lunch with you is more important. I gave it ten points.”

  “And this authority gives value for money ten points. That means, we have to consider qualified EHOs, trainee EHOs and those who could become Technical Officers. Are they not even cheaper to employ?”

  Technical Officer is a generic title for anyone who isn’t a qualified EHO. They often do the same work for less pay, and are proving popular in an era of austerity.

  “Okay, we check every application.”

  I’m sure people think they need to write a certain way for job applications. It’s no different from people who put on a false voice when answering the phone. Other applicants show an amazing talent for missing the point.

  “Look at this.” Sarah points to the section on experience. “Enthusiasm is far more desirable than experience,” she says reading aloud. “I can’t wait to tell them why they failed to get an interview.”

  “This one is good,” I say, picking on the philosophy graduate. ”What use is experience if you’re faced with something you haven’t experienced before?”

  “Wouldn’t that be a new experience?” asks Kelly, strolling in with two mugs of tea. “Which actually makes it an experience, right?”

  I nod, now tuned to Kelly’s logic.

  “But not relevant experience,” Sarah says.

  Kelly puts the tea down on the desk and joins us on the floor. “My Uncle Charlie cleans toilets, so he has relevant experience.”

  “More relevant than a degree in media studies,” I say, starting to lose interest. “Has your Uncle Charlie applied for the job?”

  “No, he can’t cope with all that handwashing you do. He only has to be in a room with soap and his skin goes red. And he’s always ill with some bug or other.” She picks up an application. “He’d be useless at the interview questions, like me. I was asked where I saw myself in five years.”