30 January (Part 2) - All Covid; from trivia to a little less so. Jabs and jobs
Two bits of Covid related information, let’s do the really trivial one first.
I had an appointment time for my vaccination yesterday and chose a suitable train. As the time
approached Network Rail enquiries said it was cancelled. First train for six
months and Thameslink let me down. The choice was arrival a few minutes late or
about 20 minutes early. I took the latter course obviously.
Despite the early arrival there was no one else at the clinic and I was called in almost immediately.
I showed my booking number and “Name?”, and it was then that we discovered that
the internet was down. Back to waiting room.
Someone came around with a tablet and in went the details. By then four more
people had shown up. More details taken. Eventually we were all handed sheets of paper
printed from the tablet to be taken into needle man - in reverse appointment order - not that that mattered.
From then on, all was well including Thameslink on time. Maybe with no computer I will never appear on the stats.
Being a little more serious Bexley Council staff continue to be a little
puzzled, maybe annoyed, by what they see in the Civic Offices.
First it was regular staff displaced by Covid testers to alternative rooms that they regarded
as slightly risky and then it was an allegation that
library staff
had been press-ganged into being testers. Yesterday’s report was rather more interesting.
It alleged that at a time when Council staff are losing their jobs
due to the budget balancing cuts, a new recruit has appeared in the Civic Offices testing centre.
Alleged to be the offspring of a very senior man indeed.
I don’t know how that can happen. Wouldn’t the Head of Human Resources have
something to say about it and, doubling up as Bexley’s Monitoring Officer as he does, is
responsible for keeping Bexley Council on the straight and narrow, surely he would never allow such a thing?
Unless he has a very blind eye. On the other hand maybe no one else suitably qualified could be persuaded to do the job.
Even if it is true it hardly compares with the good old days when a Bexley
Director employed his wife as Deputy. No one was nicked or reprimanded for
that funny business so it would be silly to expect anything different for something on a much smaller scale.