My new job.

So I started a new job.

As ever, this department is besotted with computers. They are trying to achieve the "paperless office" just like every other benighted office I have worked in lately. This is not a new idea: it seems to be something of a wet dream amongst the powers that be, though I have absolutely no idea why that is, because it is perfectly obvious that it makes everything take longer and is very much less useful than what we used to have, even when it works.

Anyway I arrived to start my job. I never go anywhere there is not a problem with staffing, because I work as a temp and having to pay the agency as well as me means I cost the department more than their own staff do. So usually there is work waiting and there are very short deadlines to be met. The deadlines are a whole other story.....

This job is no exception. In particular there is a report which normally has to be produced in 15 working days, but which has been untouched for 10 of those days before I arrived. Don't ask me why they want a report in 15 days, whether it has any useful content or not. They just do. And as it happens, meeting that 15 day deadline is one of the office's "performance indicators". It matters not what the report says: it only matters that it is produced in 15 days. So I have a week to get it done.

I can do the work: that is a problem in terms of the time available to do it well, and there is not much satisfaction in producing scrappy stuff; but I can do it. It is not the first time that any semblance of quality work is ruled out by utterly stupid performance measures, and it won't be the last. The suits who sell these ideas of management wouldn't know a good piece of work if it was chiselled on marble by an expert calligrapher: but they can count. So things you can count become important by default. Oscar Wilde thought a cynic knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. From where I am sitting all public service high ups are cynics on that definition: but I think dear old Oscar was wrong. They haven't the brains to be cynical.

So I set about doing what I can with this. I do the visits, and talk to the people I need to talk to, and make a general nuisance of myself to make sure I see everyone I have to see within the time I have. And I get it all done.

Not surprisingly this report has to be put on "the system", and it is not complete till that is done. The work has been done, in the real world. But that counts for nothing. In the looking glass world of my work nothing at all has been done till it has been entered on the computer. The problem with that is that the IT people won't give me a log in. This is also not uncommon: for reasons I do not understand it takes about 4 weeks to get you on "the system": and you cannot do anything if you are not on it.

I don't know what you know about public servants, or what your experience has been. Mine is that they get inadequate tools and absurd expectations and they work around all this and get the thing done. In this particular situation what happens is that someone lets you log on as them. Which, as you all know, is the same as pissing in the font. It gives IT people and managers apoplexy, for some reason. So we usually don't tell them and they continue to dwell in never never land and they don't grow up.

In this case I was not able to keep the secret because I had occasion to talk to the IT person about a problem with the system. Since he knew I had no log in, this was a mistake. I should have got the person I was supposed to be to sort it out: but that was not an option, because that person has a job to do and was out of the office doing it. And I had no time. So I phoned and this IT person clocked that I must be logged in as someone else, and he asked me directly. And I told him. There followed an interesting exchange. I got a lecture about how HE had to protect children and what I had done was putting them at risk. He explained that he would have to report this breach of security to his superiors and the sky would probably fall. He pointed out that the rules about passwords being private were clearly stated on the front page of the system and I had no defence because when you click ok you agree to abide by them. And the person who let me in was going to be in big trouble too.

My side of the conversation consisted in begging him to please report me to his superiors.While he was about it he could explain to them that they were paying me to do a job I could not do because he woud not provide me with a log in. He could tell them that I had precisely two choices: I could not do my job at all, and they would fail their targets: and I would be in trouble. Or I could do it this way, and meet their targets: and I would be in trouble. There is no third way. As it happens doing my job is my responsibility and enabling me to do it is his. I can't change the situation: only he can. And if I meet his obligations I am going to have extra work later on as well. In course of this I acknowledged that writing his report to his gaffers might take valuable time that could be better used: used in putting me on "the system", for example. So I suggested I write his whistleblowing letter for him, by hand in the old fashioned way. Seemed more efficient to me, somehow.

But he wasn't up for it, for some reason.

Oddly, I got a log in that afternoon and I haven't yet seen the sky fall. I expect it takes four weeks to achieve that.....

The office I am working in is having an audit. All offices get a turn of this and it is supposed to.....well I don't really know what the point is, but in practice it checks that all the right forms have been filled in. And some people get to be interviewed. The last time I was one of them they asked about the forms....

These audits (as an aside isn't it odd that you would "audit" a service for people? Audit kind of suggests accountancy to me..) are announced in advance and so we always know when they are coming. Gaffers always get really excited and put pressure on to get all the forms up to date: and that is universal. The fact that that is exactly the wrong thing to do is immaterial: it is what happens.

But this time the management excelled themselves. I imagine there is an award for this kind of thing. What happened was that on Wednesday morning the Acting Assistant Director suddenly said she was coming to talk to the staff. On Wednesday afternoon. I missed this memo largely because I was out doing my job. So were most people, though there was an attempt to get folk back to the office for this event. Which tells you something about management priorities, really....

Anyway I got back towards the end of this meeting, and I knew nothing about it. I went into the office to find many people all standing about listening to this pep talk. They were standing about mainly because we don't have enough desks. Each day when I go in I have to find out who is out, and then grab their desk: it is good if they are off for the whole day, because at least half of what I have to do is write about what I have been doing (see previous post). The office is one big room like an old fashioned typing pool. It is virtually impossible to write a serious report in that environment:but that is ok. Social workers work around. Some folk come in very early: some stay very late. That works cos the admin people work 9-5 and before 9 there are desks free and the phones don't ring: same after 5. Who needs a life?

I am not wrong about this, and I now know that the managers are aware of it. Because the first thing I heard this gaffer say was that she understood it is difficult to get things up to date in such a noisy office: so she was prepared to allow us to come in on Saturday and Sunday to get the forms all done. Warmed the cockles of my heart, it did. Such generosity!. Course it was a wee bit disappointing that she did not mention any pay for this, but I am sure that was an oversight. (sometimes I tell lies, have you noticed? ). A lesser mortal might imagine that a boss who knows you cannot do your job in the environment they have provided, in the hours they are prepared to pay for, might see it as their responsibility to do something about that. As a matter of urgency, perhaps? Given that it admits that the job can't actually be done in the normal course of things? But that is why lesser mortals are not gaffers. They are made of sterner stuff, and they come up with "creative solutions" like we work two extra days for no pay....... Which is tantamount to dishonesty because the aim is to conceal those facts from the regulators. They are like the queen: it is said she imagines that the underlying smell in the world is fresh paint.

But the gaffer had anticipated that objection. You can see why she gets the big bucks. So what she said was that there is nothing wrong with this. It is apparently like getting a family photo taken: when that happens you want to look your best, so you get your hair done: pretending we are coping is no different, it seems. And if we are concerned that this is deceitful we need not worry: because she went on to say that the auditors are aware that everybody does this and they expect it. Er...if that is true then why bother? It is probably true: but the auditors can't discount it in any way: because they are not interested in content or quality. A form is either filled in or it is not: they can hardly report that all the forms were filled in but they are scoring only 75% completion because they know it wasn't like that last week: cos they don't, even if they suspect it is so.

What she omitted to mention is that this is a completely stupid idea from our point of view. If we cooperate and get it all up to date for the two weeks this audit lasts, then the auditors will report that the shortage of staff and the cuts to the budget and service has had no effect on the service. This suits government, who can then cut it again: and say that there have been efficiency savings and no downside. Which is a song I hear a lot, despite the evidence all around us. It suits gaffers, who can take brownie points for managing the service really well in face of austerity. You will remember that this is an acting assistant director: she might get confirmed in her post if all goes well.... But it does not suit us because those justified budget cuts make our job impossible. It doesn't suit the clients either, cos they can't get a service since we have neither staff nor money.

I am afraid that I do not think it is anything at all like a family photo. And I am sick to the back teeth of listening to that kind of patronising insult, actually. I accept they are killing a job I am proud of: I accept it is not going to change any time soon. But I object to being treated like an infant and I object to the demand that I should like it

The audit is all that matters. Today I was told that a meeting with our legal advisers, which has been arranged for a fortnight, and which is to consider whether there is sufficient evidence to seek a court order for the protection of a child at risk; and which was due to take place tomorrow, is cancelled. Because the person who chairs the meeting has to meet the auditors instead. There is a family awaiting the outcome of this meeting with a good deal of anxiety, as you might understand. It has been cancelled with one day's notice and unsurprisingly the person who has cancelled does not think it it is his job to advise the family: he prefers for me to do it so I can look like a clown. And this is for no useful purpose I can imagine. I have to imagine because nobody has explained: "we have to meet the auditors" is considered sufficient in itself. It must be me....I am obviously too dense to see why that is self evidently more important than child protection: that is what I thought I was there for......

Well that is it for the job. I will be unemployed again as of next Friday.

I do not think I am going to be able to work as a social worker in the future: the inherent contradictions are impossible to reconcile and this is due to a peculiar drift away from professional status to "local government officer": unfortunately that change is not recognised nor reflected in the position in court and there is no safety for the individual in complying with the views of departments as currently constituted.

This makes me sad and angry: and poor

Edited by FionaK - 5/5/2012, 01:32