And I thought Malaga was a hell hole………….



So back to work then. Nothing has changed. M is mysteriously posting on all the discussion forums at work. Perhaps he’s as busy as me then? The Sandman is away on business, as is my successor. In fact my successor is in the US on a business trip (some sort of training and seminar). I’m not bitter, but why the fuck was my travel on business limited to Warrington or Edinburgh. I was once allowed to go to Düsseldorf, but Jesus what a performance that was to get authorised. It seems to be that its junkets for the boy’s culture at work nowadays.



Fuck it, yes I am bitter. I am bored fucking shitless and I’ve been back less than one day. I could do this job with my hands behind my back and my feet tied together. Time to update the CV and start hunting around methinks.



Work is the new Malaga airport!



Here’s a little bit of the latest corporate gobbledygook bollocks talk posted at work.



“Within this exciting and vibrant company we have a lot of exciting things happening, not the least of which is the development of a new business plan for the next three years. It is clear that we are not on the safest road with respect to our business in the UK, and we are struggling to enhance our margins, therefore we must continue to leverage cost savings, develop synergistic global partnerships, provide better and more revenue generating value add services and develop better customer satisfaction. So we are very busily working on this as part of our night jobs. What could it mean to us in our area? It could mean lots of things, it is still too early to tell, but it seems so far to be a logical extension of what we have already started: reduction of management layers, simplification initiatives, right sourcing, outsourcing, in-sourcing, right sizing. On the outsourcing point it looks like we have a business case for the outsourcing of one of our support departments. We understand there are still many questions about implementation details, which can not be answered but have to be developed in conjunction with the individuals that know this area best. Still it was thought to be a better idea to be upfront about it than do a deal and spring it on those in the targeted support area. We have an outline of a business case which needs lots of work for the in-sourcing of project management across a broad range of groups and in-sourcing of marketing optimisation, although still not final. Anyway, the upshot of all of this is we have started to define and discuss lots of very sensible but ambitious objectives to drive the arrowhead of the organisation forward through the regulatory and competitive constraints under which we now find ourselves having to co-exist within”



Answers on a postcard please.



I lost interest in the Iraq photo scandal whilst I was away. It seemed to me a slow news week and the press and media were desperate to latch onto something and blow it out of proportion. We only had access to CNN, which should be renamed ANN (American News Network). It was the most dull and yank biased crap you could possibly have. I thought Sky News was bad at the dull press conference, whereby dull people stand in front of the press and fail to answer one single question, but CNN were….excruciatingly dull. Do they really think people are that interested? Does anybody actually sit and watch all of this? Her’s an idea, let the press conference happen, then just show any bits that provide insight or facts. It’s called editing!



As for the photos, well as I have said before, if true then it is wrong, although the “hooding” issue is trivial in my view. It seems to me that killing during a war is fine and heroic, but putting a few POW’s into a hood, thus protecting their identity, and also disorientating them to perhaps frighten them into giving information is not that horrendous. Do we really have to guess what they would have done to our troops in that situation? Mild mental abuse via using a hood is bad, but death is fine….hmmmmm. Weird priorities there then! What are we suppose to do? Treat them like gentlemen? Thank them for what they were trying to do? Get real. If we seriously believe this sort of stuff is not going on then we need to wake up and smell the coffee. I am not condoning it, and rules should be followed, but lets get it into perspective. Perhaps a few Kuwaiti men and women might like to comment on the “humanity” shown to them by the Iraqi soldiers in the first Gulf War.



My thanks to British Airways Engineering for the “helpful” comments on the aircraft cabin window!



Later, Grocerjack