Conrad Is Talking, Of Course - Obviously! - About More Manglement
I don't know who coined that word but they absolutely hit the nail on the head, and repeated the hammering process many times over. 'Manglement', for those who don't know what Conrad is babbling witlessly about - which means you've not been reading BOOJUM! WHICH IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE!!* - refers to managers who come into an organisation, or whom get promoted within it, and whom then send an avalanche of metaphorical excrement down through the structure. This is usually because, whilst they may have a Master's in Business Administration from Yale, they have precious little hands-on experience on the shop floor. Art!
Let us now regale you with a story from Youtube put up by Original Poster, who worked as a joiner/woodworker in a whacking big factory that made cabinets. OP's team were routinely efficient workers who regularly outpaced other teams across the floor, meaning that they were good at their jobs.
Enter a whole new layer of senior management RED FLAG NUMBER ONE. A whole raft of new management all at once? Not a good idea. The sensible thing to do would be bring them in one at a time. Except Manglement does not do Sensible. Art!
Probably hideously bad for you, given that colouring. Also, layers.
This layer of <thinks> lollygaggles proceeded to flex their muscles by sacking 47 staff RED FLAG NUMBER TWO. This is new management demonstrating that they are here to make changes, because they can. Not that the changes are - that word again - sensible.
Then this strata of stupid appointed a relative of theirs on many hundreds of thousands of £££, 'To help with a project' RED FLAG NUMBER THREE. This sounds like naked nepotism, creating a sinecure so that Uncle Pete can afford his mortgage payments. Art!
Proof that 'naked nepotism' is not rude
Then came the dreaded 'Efficiency Drive', which means trying to make up for the 47 people who were sacked without admitting it RED FLAG NUMBER FOUR. If it wasn't broken before then there'd be no need to fix it now. Departments and teams across the factory floor were tanking in terms of efficiency.
Seniorful (say it aloud) then descended on OP's department, loudly declaring that they were woefully inefficient and needed to adopt the new process for cutting cabinet wood, i.e. only work on a single batch at a time. Productivity immediately fell by 50% RED FLAG NUMBER FIVE. Were these numpties not keeping track of productivity and targets?
OP and his colleagues instituted a process of malicious compliance, only working a single batch of cabinet wood at a time, which drew the length of the job out to perhaps 3 hours instead of 1. RED FLAG NUMBER SIX, if your most efficient workers are seeking to subtly undermine and sabotage you, things have gone very, very wrong. Art!
A functional cabinet-making factory
The conclusion to this tale is highly satisfying, coming as it does when a lot of these managers simply get shunted sideways or are 'let go' or 'leave to seek challenges elsewhere'. The whole layer of senior management were fired for bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy.
RED FLAG NUMBER SEVEN when the company went back to their old ways profitability recovered almost overnight. Suck that and see!
Konrad's Killer Kebab Krusade Kontinues
Yes, we'll have a temporary moratorium on proper spelling here. One of Your Humble Scribe's guilty pleasures - apart from watching 'Lucifer' on Netflix - is getting an Extra-Large Donner Kebab from Tony's Fish & Chip Shop near the bus stop I use on the journey home. These things are not for the faint-hearted. Art!
 |
| With puny fork for scale |
This rump kebab is in fact what's left after two days, so it will most certainly form part of my evening meal tomorrow. And no, Edna gets not one jot or tittle.
Devin's Toys Of Terror!
Conrad has done occasional articles on children's toys that were ridiculously dangerous in the past, none of which have appeared on Devin's list, which is one reason to look at it more closely. All the more so since he tends to include the legal consequences of selling suicidally-dangerous plastic and metal tat. Art!
 |
| Klackers! |
These were a variation on the bolas, a weapon (note that word) used in South America to bring down cattle. The idea was that the child holding their handle would manage to have the Klackers bounce up and down so rapidly that they'd hit together repeatedly in very short order. Sounds great, right?
Wellllll no, they sounded annoyingly loudly. The balls, MADE OUT OF GLASS, also had a tendency to shatter. Filling a child's face with shards of flying razor-edged shrapnel was deemed to be A Bad Thing and they were banned.
"The Sea Of Sand"
Our gallant survivors are discussing possible next steps to warn their human compatriots about the very non-human occupants of Mersa Martuba.
One good thing was the gradual
recovery of Sergente Cappriccio. The
paralysing ray’s effects slowly wore off, until the burly NCO could gingerly
sit and talk without help.
‘I
felt as if hammers hit me, all down my side,’ he explained to Sarah. ‘It still stings.’
Lieutenant
Llewellyn in the meantime was working on when British forces might put in an
appearance. They needed to be warned
about the threat in Mersa Martuba, what it constituted and in what
strength. The Italian radio didn’t pick
up anything and wouldn’t transmit, so that medium was out of the running.
‘We
need to try and warn the force en route,’ he told Sarah.
‘How
can you be so sure they’re coming?’ asked Sarah, quite justifiably. ‘All we’ve seen is a solitary aircraft.’
Roger
sighed, an expression of despair at the civilian’s lack of understanding.
‘Logistics,
Sarah, logistics. No army can move in
the desert without huge amounts of supplies, which is just what Mersa Martuba
was established for. The schedule for
advancing on Tripoli might have slipped but that depot contains hundreds of
tons of supplies we need.’ Casting a
quick glance at Dominione, aware that such explanations were slightly
undiplomatic, he added:
‘Besides, Thirteen Corps won’t
want the Italians pinching our supplies.’
Ah yes, dull boring logistics the war-winner.
Light Ye Brightly
Another entry from the BBC's 'Bright Lights' photographic competition. Art!
Courtesy Louise Moon. This one is cheating a bit - well, okay, a lot - because whilst that is a real lightbulb, the fizzing and sparking energy that appears to be shooting out from it is, in reality, a lit sparkler going off behind it. Still, it is a nifty image and the competition judges can't have been too bothered, since it still made the cut.
Finally -
Just in case you were wondering, Your Humble Scribe has been on his very best behaviour at his temporary employer, Footasylum in Sandbrook Park, on the outskirts of Ur-on-the-Roch. We all know how dark and sardonic Conrad can be, which has been bottled up and censored for the time being. No point in scaring people un-necessarily, although I do need to check on Nic's claim about inflatable raisins. Just to keep you in the loop.
* It's not yet but when I take over O how it will be!
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