Some people just ask for it, don’t they?
Yesterday, at the start of the Slovenia v England game, the staff of the Dundee City Council crashed the whole computer system and the Council site was unavailable to tax payers for transaction of business.
The management (and I use the term loosely, because it implies some sort of foresight, forward planning and control, none of which has been in any way evident) quickly blocked the BBC website which was live streaming the match.
What?
The action they took was to stop the match being shown. Right.
The only councillor they could find to comment was a Liberal Fraser MacPherson (without whom the pages of the Courier would be decidedly bare). He rather lamely said that he would speak to Council chief executive, David Dorward, to make the point that they should not be watching sport in council time. But he pointed out that because of flexible working practices some staff may have saved up time and might have been watching in their own time.
What?
Don’t they have homes to go to?
MacPherson continued: “The bottom line is no one is going to object to staff watching sport in their own time as long as management is Ok with it. We would have to be sure that there were sufficient staff to maintain services and particularly those staff in public facing positions.”
What? Again. If they were doing it in their own time, but on our equipment why would there not be sufficient staff in public facing positions (whatever that is?)
If staff are at work, they should be working. If staff are finished work, they should go home, or to an internet café or whatever to watch the match. No one should be watching the match in the office. If we allow people to watch sport why can’t they watch Emmerdale or Strictly Come Dancing? What nonsense.
How could other staff do their job effectively with the distraction of television entertainment? That’s not what the computers are for.
A council spokesman has said that measures have been introduced to stop this happening again.
So let me just enlighten him or her to the fact that we, the people who pay for this, are incandescent. Why aren’t the people who were logged in to the BBC website being disciplined? It would happen to me if I did it.
Ironically the very next day, the Dundee Trades Union Council, in the form of Mike Arnott, its secretary, has suggested that as many as 660 jobs may be lost in Dundee City Council in the cutbacks. Apparently 600 were due to go before the Budget and that has been revised upwards because of the austerity measures announced by Mr Osborne.
The council’s administration leader, Ken Guild, refuted this saying that the figures had been “plucked out of the air”. He declined, however, to say if the figures were in any way realistic. He said that he didn’t know how many people would be going, but rolled out the usual platitudes about avoiding compulsory redundancies. It seems, however, that there will be many more unemployed in Dundee in the near future.
Whilst I hate to see people made redundant, I really can’t help but wonder what we, the Council Tax payers, get for our money.
Yesterday, at the start of the Slovenia v England game, the staff of the Dundee City Council crashed the whole computer system and the Council site was unavailable to tax payers for transaction of business.
The management (and I use the term loosely, because it implies some sort of foresight, forward planning and control, none of which has been in any way evident) quickly blocked the BBC website which was live streaming the match.
What?
The action they took was to stop the match being shown. Right.
The only councillor they could find to comment was a Liberal Fraser MacPherson (without whom the pages of the Courier would be decidedly bare). He rather lamely said that he would speak to Council chief executive, David Dorward, to make the point that they should not be watching sport in council time. But he pointed out that because of flexible working practices some staff may have saved up time and might have been watching in their own time.
What?
Don’t they have homes to go to?
MacPherson continued: “The bottom line is no one is going to object to staff watching sport in their own time as long as management is Ok with it. We would have to be sure that there were sufficient staff to maintain services and particularly those staff in public facing positions.”
What? Again. If they were doing it in their own time, but on our equipment why would there not be sufficient staff in public facing positions (whatever that is?)
If staff are at work, they should be working. If staff are finished work, they should go home, or to an internet café or whatever to watch the match. No one should be watching the match in the office. If we allow people to watch sport why can’t they watch Emmerdale or Strictly Come Dancing? What nonsense.
How could other staff do their job effectively with the distraction of television entertainment? That’s not what the computers are for.
A council spokesman has said that measures have been introduced to stop this happening again.
So let me just enlighten him or her to the fact that we, the people who pay for this, are incandescent. Why aren’t the people who were logged in to the BBC website being disciplined? It would happen to me if I did it.
Ironically the very next day, the Dundee Trades Union Council, in the form of Mike Arnott, its secretary, has suggested that as many as 660 jobs may be lost in Dundee City Council in the cutbacks. Apparently 600 were due to go before the Budget and that has been revised upwards because of the austerity measures announced by Mr Osborne.
The council’s administration leader, Ken Guild, refuted this saying that the figures had been “plucked out of the air”. He declined, however, to say if the figures were in any way realistic. He said that he didn’t know how many people would be going, but rolled out the usual platitudes about avoiding compulsory redundancies. It seems, however, that there will be many more unemployed in Dundee in the near future.
Whilst I hate to see people made redundant, I really can’t help but wonder what we, the Council Tax payers, get for our money.
I'm assuming they were watching to see if England got beat ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhilst I can sort of understand it in England, I really don't understand the fascination in Scotland and Wales.
Tris
ReplyDelete'Whilst I hate to see people made redundant' and so do I but unfortunately we are going to see one fuc#ing load of people join the dole queue(again) in the next few years.
heard a stastistic that said one in four jobs in the urban area's is a public one.
but one in three is a public job in the rural area's
Looks like Englands green and pleasant land is going to take a spanking..even in Toryshire wonder how that will pan out
Oh Mr Cameron what have you done???
@Mixedbiscuit
ReplyDeleteWhat needed to be done of course ;-)
Still waiting for the proposed Labour £44 billion of cuts report that Darling was positing before they were slung out. I suspect it never existed, just the usual Labour soundbite.
QM
ReplyDeleteits the Tory poison pill being forced down the throat of the British people you should worry about
Not worried at all, bitter medicine after the usual Labour economic imbecility. When will socialists ever learn that you can't spend more than you earn.
ReplyDeleteQM
ReplyDeletedunno! but Bernie Madoff done rather well didn't he still he was a capitalist of the highest order.
Madoff the American ponzi schemer?
ReplyDeleteTake a good look at national insurance if you want to see another ponzi scheme in action and we don't jail politicians for running that.
Odd really.
Ha ha... you two don't really need me..... And I feel a bit like a wallflower...
ReplyDeleteBut I'd just say QM... The thing that irks me most, regardless of team, is the cheek of them using our computers and our electricity to crash the entire council system so no one else could do any work, no one could pay their council tax, no one could check out a book... etc.
Why didn't they just take a plane to South Africa on us?
They were at work! They should have been working.
Additionally, as you point out, it was another country that was playing albeit a near neighbour, and it was only a qualifying match.
If England makes it through to the finals will they expect us to supply beer and fags?
Yep Niko... there will soon be more unemployed than employed ... and no jobs either. Still we are all in this together, aren’t we?