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Are all council staff as thick as two short planks? Well
obviously not, but some definitely have a problem in the comprehension department
and others are just plain rude and should be reminded who pays their wages. Give
a council officer a posh title with ‘Head’ in it and the power soon corrupts.
I offer this short anecdote which may throw some light on the state of our councils.
Some years ago when I managed a small business I had to ‘lose’ one member of
staff. He wasn’t stupid (he’d been to grammar school and acquired some GCEs) but
wasn’t nearly as productive as he should have been. Afterwards he asked me for a
reference as he’d been offered a job by the council. I wrote one designed to get
him an interview and neatly avoided any negative points.
Later I was thanked for helping him to get the job and he told me about the exam he
had to sit.
It was a written paper providing multi-choice answers to fairly easy
questions. He answered all of them in 20 minutes and wondered what to do
for the remainder of the two hours. So he carefully rechecked his answers and
left the room and wandered around town to pass the time. When the two hours had
elapsed he returned to the exam room and sat outside to see if he was needed for
anything.
Out came the other candidates and he was surrounded by several of them wishing
to congratulate him on having the courage to walk out early from such a
difficult exam which they couldn’t complete. Not surprisingly he was offered a
job and within a relatively short time gained a promotion. However the point is
that the candidates who couldn’t finish the two hour exam he completed in 20
minutes got jobs too.
OK, I have an admission to make. It was Greenwich council, not Bexley, but I bet
the situation there is no different. |
