I Don't Intend To Traduce The Consulting Detective
However - that word again! - I did need a name that rhymed with 'Clock', and didn't think it appropriate to go for 'Jock', as this would imply a Caledonian connection when there isn't one, and the Facebook twod mods would likely sweep in like the Black Douglas himself - Art!
Not a chap to get on the wrong side of by being English
Yes, I could have used 'Spock' instead, except that makes even less sense and if those Facebook mods who are twods had seen that in the title, they'd have swept in at Warp Factor 5.
This Intro concerns a story consisting of Malicious Compliance and an item about employment law in the land of Oz, and it's taken an age to get both parts together. Art!
Where everything is trying to kill you all the time
Our Put-Upon Narrator was a part-time supervisor at a large company, and was the only person there with the qualifications to on-board and certify new members of staff. Bus Factor Of One Alert! They had been working there for 7 years and enjoyed the job and staff, partly thanks to a Director who listened to what those on the shop floor told him.
Naturally this could not last, and the Director was moved on. Big Co. then tried to cut corners and expenses by ramping up PUN's hours until they were doing as many as 50 per week, rather than the normal 20.
Full-time, in other words, on a part-time contract. Art!
Because this is South Canada we're talking about, PUN wasn't eligible for any of the health perks a full-timer got, which rather rankled. In fact his manager and Big Co. went so far as fiddling his hours to ensure he remained a part-timer. When he was clearly not.
Upon the departure of his manager, PUN had informed his manager that they needed to hire and train a substitute for PUN, as he would henceforth only be working part-time hours.
Manager's comment?
"Change is good. Embrace the change".
This is the kind of management-think that inspires utter hatred in it's audience, and so it was here. Mid-December, on a Friday afternoon, PUN put their notice in as the last thing they did before leaving.
Here is the salient bit as it relates to the Ockers. Over the weekend his manager tried to call PUN, who - rare for a South Canadian - completely ignored the calls. The same with the texts she sent. Art!
YOU CAN'T DO THIS IN AUSTRALIA!
If you try, expect a whacking big fine.
On Monday, as per expectations, PUN got called into the manager's office and was told they couldn't resign as there was nobody else to certify staff. Bus Factor Approaches Zero! PUN informed her that he'd informed her a month previously they needed a trainer to be trained up.
By the time his notice was up, it was the Christmas holidays, where PUN took the opportunity to interview, land a new job, get an $8 per hour increase in pay.
His manager then called him at home to pester about his return date.
YOU CAN'T DO THIS IN AUSTRALIA!
PUN did answer this call, informing her that he wasn't returning to work in order to quote "Change is good. Embrace the change" to her, presumably to a strangled silence from the other end. Art!
The story ends there, but Conrad can see round corners and can guess how it played out in real life. Big Co. simply couldn't function without new staff, so they will have had to sign-up an outside contractor to train and certify on a month-by-month basis, as well as sending AT LEAST TWO PEOPLE on a Training & Certification course. This will have cost thousands if not more, because the contractor can reallllly gouge them. Looking at this incurred expense, how much would giving PUN overtime pay, holidays, sick pay and benefits have cost by contrast? Trying to shoehorn a part-time worker into a full-time role without compensation?
YOU CAN'T DO THIS IN AUSTRALIA!
"The War Illustrated Edition 194 November 1944"
I should have pointed out that four of the illustrations for Sunday's "If I Were To Say Mule" blog came from the pages of TWI, and this very same edition, which is interesting as we featured Brazilian soldiers in Italy. Conrad thought they only arrived in early 1945.
ANYWAY Art!
'Sappers', again for your enlightenment, are Royal Engineers, who perform a multitude of tasks, the very last one being to take up arms, as they are highly-trained chaps worth preserving. Here you see various sappers dealing with Teuton booby-traps: the first one at upper port is made from a child's doll (shades of "Full Metal Jacket"); below at mid-port a charge wired to a Chianti bottle is defused; to starboard a deadly kind of 'fruit' is discovered and defused; last of all is a tripwired-bomb intended to render legs absent.
More Of Mules!
You may not be aware, as it is a bit of a niche area, that the Royal Indian Army Service Corps had mule companies, and that four of these very same companies were sent to France in early 1940 to form part of the British Expeditionary Force, henceforth the BEF. Art!
There were approximately 300 of these Indian soldiers, who were present because some gadfly in high command thought that they'd be useful at supplying the front lines where there were no roads. Mule companies, as you may have gathered, do best in trackless mountains MOUNTAINS of which there was an especial dearth in France's north-east. Art!
I mention this because some I recall pillock* castigated the film "Dunkirk" as being shamelessly racist and biased and whose makers very probably passed the port to the right, because it didn't feature the RIASC mule companies front and centre.
Ah yes. Because 0.0769% of the BEF's 390,000 troops were not represented.
There's nothing stopping them from raising a good £20 million and making a film dedicated to the mule companies, is there? I can see it now, a sleeper hit, especially if one of the mules is fluent in Hindi and English. I can write you a treatment, Sunny, for only £1,247,948! Art?
Historical precedent. Also attractive young lady getting her legs out.
Dog Bus Buns!
I should explain at this point that I'm slightly behind schedule, thanks to First Bus, who had me waiting for 20 minutes in Lesser Sodom before a bus turned up. Whilst I was walking downhill into LS, there came 4 x 409s one after the other. Since they are supposed to be 10 minutes apart, Conrad suspects the lead one was 40 minutes late. Art!
First Bus spokesdemon's go to excuse
Typically I do not take my Devil's Digital Device along on my constitutionals, so you are simply going to have to take my word for it.
Featuring Thomas The Frank Engine
You may recall that the Ukrainians dealt Putinpot's offspring, the Kerch Straits Bridge, an horrendously destructive blow last year. The word afterwards was all hands on deck, above deck and below deck, because Putinpot's offspring cannot possibly be allowed to look bad, lest it reflect upon him.
Cue suspiciously rapid repairs.
Now? Art!
This is not how railway bridges ought to look. "Bendy", "Flexing" and "Falling over" are not words you should find in the architectural specs of a major transportation hub.
Will it get worse? Time will tell!
Finally -
Currently working through remaindered pasties and fried chicken, and - Gosh! - who has come to visit but Edna!
No chance, madam.
* Sunny Singh, who cannot count.
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