Let the witch-hunt begin

You probably don't subscribe to the daily "Here is the City" email newsletter because if you're reading this blog odds are you don't work in the City of London¹ but pretty much everyone in The City (and the annexe down at Canary Wharf) does so it's a pretty fair bet that yesterday lunchtime when the newsletter came out there were a few ruined keyboards as they got sprayed with half eaten sandwiches in HR and up on the management floor when this little item hit the streets.

First things first, it's not from me. As I've previously mentioned I rank on the organisation chart at about the same level as the mould behind the coffee machine and this reads as if it's come from someone around mid-levels in the corporate food chain. It also reads as someone whose been "Pissed On and Passed Over" for promotion - I certainly don't recognise the part about bringing in external people rather than promoting internally, that's not what I've seen in my few years at Banko Di Haggis and I've seen plenty of people who want to climb the greasy pole be able to so.

Also there's this...

And joining the bank's full-time payroll in the coming weeks will be a number of 'conversions' - temp or contractor staff who will be given full time jobs...

... so if B di H is such a rotten place to work how come these contractors have taken the shilling and kissed the book? Much of my team is made up of contract to perm conversions (hell I'm one!) so they must have seen something worthwhile? It's not as though there are no contract jobs out there at good rates, I must get about 50 emails and a couple of phone calls a week from job pimps trying to push me to 600 - 700 quid a day gigs.

That said pretty much everything else he says seems to feel right. I've largely ignored "Northstar" and "Napier" and "WorkOut" and the "Enormous Giraffe Willy"² projects but that's only because I do my level best to ignore any kind of management initiatives that can be summed up in a single word and some sort of crappy motivational poster stuck on the wall next to our mouldy coffee machine as much as possible. But its certainly true that Northstar does seem to have been hanging around like a bad smell for quite a while.

Anyway regardless of what he said and its veracity or otherwise I think it's a fair bet that right now a thorough search to identify said anonymous disgruntled employee is probably ongoing and HR are warming up the branding irons and dusting off the rack and iron maiden. Old timers here might recall my former work blog called "That's Not a Bug Its A Feature" that bumbled along with a few dozen readers until the Sunday Times decided to make it one of their blogs of the week. Within 24 hours I was getting hit after hit from inside Banko di Haggis and even though I'd not said anything too bad about the place I dropped the blog quicker than I would drop radioactive elk shit as soon as I saw the visitor logs.

Anonymous, whoever you are good luck. If they find you and you manage to keep your job then I'll be happy to introduce you to your new peers - the mould behind the coffee machine.





¹ In fact the odds are you're someone who landed here when you were googling for "furry dragon porn" - how many times do I have to tell you we are not sodding furry!
² I think I might have imagined that one.