This is how it works now. Efficiency. Efficiency and the middle-management blob (MMB). Scared, out-of-their-depth people intent on creating knowledge asymmetries that will keep them in power. Asymmetries that allow them to demonstrate improving operating efficiency to those sitting above them, while making the lives of those below steadily worse. Not to mention the poor old customer. Who ends up spending more to get products and services that get progressively worse.
On my usual running route is a chicane in the road. Whenever it rains hard, guaranteed that one of the drains on the first bend gets blocked. Having endured several months worth of rain in the last couple of weeks, the drain blocked early on, and has stayed blocked so that half of the road is underwater. I run past it, to the next bend. About 100m. Around this bend is a team of workmen from the water utility company. They’ve blocked the road to repair what I soon learn is a broken pipe. It’s teabreak time, so I get to chat to three members of the team. Is there any chance you could pop around the corner when you’re done and unblock the drain?
The expression on their faces suggests I’m not the first person to ask this question. ‘We’re not allowed,’ one of them tells me.
‘It’ll only take a minute,’ I say, hopefully, ‘all it needs is one of your long rods’. I nod in the direction of the equipment on their truck. ‘I can do it if you like.’
‘Not allowed,’ the second team member says.
I can understand where he’s coming from. I’m not insured. I tell them that if I injure myself, it won’t be their fault. No dice. I get it, still. ‘How about if I speak to your boss?’
All three look horrified at this point. My immediate thought is now they’re angry with me because I want to complain about them. I try to re-assure them I’m not complaining. To try and demonstrate this, I suggest I speak to the boss to tell him what a good job they’re doing. And could they or I have permission to pop around the corner with a rod to unblock the drain.
The older one shakes his head again, ‘it’s not on the job sheet’.
‘Can’t we add it?’
A laugh this time. ‘If we don’t do what’s on the sheet we’re in trouble. If we do more than is on the sheet we’re in trouble. Boss says no. Computer says no.’
‘How about if we raise a new job-sheet with the drain unblocking on it? That way you get to complete two official jobs.’
A flicker of interest this time. But then another shake of the head, ‘we can’t add new jobs. The boss adds the jobs…’
‘That’s what I’m going to ask him to do…’
Another head shake, ‘he decides the priority. Unblocking drains not high. Lots of effort for not a lot of benefit.’
I want to say, ‘but you’re already here’, but I realise now that I’m fighting the boss’s job-sheet efficiency algorithm. I stand no chance. Time to smile at the three workmen and continue the run. Nothing to see here.
Except the MMB gone mad. Allow the team to add a new job-sheet. Do the job well within target because you’re already 100m away, happy boss. Road unblocked, happy citizens. Workmen allowed to use their initiative, happy workmen. Win-win-win. It’s not rocket science. But, tragically, it is anti-Blob. And if there’s only one rule in life right now, it is this: Blob wins; you lose.
