In Case You're New Here -
'Menglement' is a term used of incompetent, inept, or over-promoted managers, who grievously harm or destroy their business from the inside. Instead of, you know, managing it properly. Now, to further validate this concept, I am going to show you an example of good management for contrast. Art!
I am going to inform you of OPERATION GOLDFLAKE, which Conrad is pretty sure you've never heard of previously, unless you're an officer in the Canuckistanian army. Yes yes yes, I know 'Goldfinger' is but distantly associated with 'Goldflake', you try digging up a compelling image to illustrate it.
ANYWAY by February 1945 the Allies had finally vanquished the Teutons on all territory west of the Rhine. Casualties had been heavy and it was feared that a Rhine crossing would be costly as well. What was the solution? It might sound like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but the decision was made to transfer I Canadian Corps from Italy to the German frontier, along with the 5th British infantry division. Art!
Note attempt to disguise the 17 pounder gun barrel
The reason this was good management is because these forces would be used to invade and conquer Germany itself, rather than the rump Italian state, which would collapse anyway once the Teutons were defeated.
Okay, more good management, in this case staff work, because I Canadian Corps consisted of: Corps Headquarters, 5th Canadian Armoured Division (a Sherman of them is shown above), 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade (about 1/3 of a whole armoured division) and 1st Canadian infantry division. Thus, tens of thousands of men and thousands of vehicles, who had to be moved unobtrusively from Italy to France and then railroaded to the front lines opposite Germany. Art!
Separately from this covert movement, Canadian staff took elaborate security precautions to maintain a fictional presence in Italy. Their collective signage was left up or moved around to simulate unit's being shunted around. All the off-duty leisure sites, which included a species previously unknown to me called 'Maple Leaf clubs', were kept open for business. The amount of radio traffic, a sure indicator of a unit's location and business, was kept at pre-Goldflake levels by padding it with nonsense.
Professor Peter Caddick-Adams, whose text I am partly following*, lists the daily transit of men as 3,700 per day, 650 trucks and jeeps, 50 Carriers and 40 tanks, all expedited over three weeks. Once ashore in France, the vehicles were covered with tarpaulins until they arrived in Belgium or north-east France.
The deception measures were completely successful and the Teutons didn't realise until the middle of April that the Allies opposite them were suddenly 60,000 men stronger.
That, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is what GOOD management, at every level, looks like. Art!
Let us now examine the opposite of good management, to wit: manglement. This is another cautionary tale from the Youtube video of "What's the fastest way you've seen a CEO ruin a company?"
The company, which remains coyly un-named and without even a geographical location, was a very successful construction business that grossed between $100 and $200 million annually, and continued growing year-on-year. What could possibly go wrong?
You had to ask. Art!
Two things went wrong. First of all, the owner of this very successful business died unexpectedly. It happens, men are only mortal. The still worse consequence of this was that the owner's son took over running the business. The narrator described him as a 'Fratbro failson'. For those unfamiliar with South Canadian argot, this is an abbreviation of 'Fraternity Brother' and refers to the fraternity organisations that exist in their institutes of higher learning. 'Fratbros' are often described as noisy, boorish, drunken and oafish, all the successful attributes one needs to become a business tycoon. Not.
After four weeks one-quarter of the workforce had either quit or been fired. Lest you be unaware, this is NOT GOOD MANAGEMENT.
After four months the rental companies that leased out industrial plant equipment such as cranes and carrydecks - Art!
A carrydeck, in case you were curious
- were turning up and repossessing their equipment as their rentals weren't being paid. Lest you be unaware, this is NOT GOOD MANAGEMENT.
Manglement at it's finest!
Finally!
No, this isn't the Coda that you usually see at the end of my daily blog. Art!
I bought this for myself over a year ago. For at least six months it was hiding in the bookcase, forgotten about, until I dug it out again yesteryon and finally finished it. I did cheat and look at the answer a couple of times - no way was I going to try and count up to 60 possible variations of rectangles - and some of the illustrations are bafflingly inept. No, it is not clear that Bill's shoes are of different sizes from your picture, thank you very much.
Conrad being a glutton for punishement, I now have 4 other puzzle books to work through. Probably get 'em done by this time 2029.
Our Journey With Bernie
First, good staff work. Which in this instance means checking to see if the FPG trading card is available. Ah, it is. Gentle reader, I give you #61 "Harry The Happy Headsman". Art!
Ah. Yes. Available, just not in focus. I have no idea what Ol' Bernie is waffling on about here, and can just make out the first two words: "Done with -". Conrad guesses that Harry is the officially appointed Hacker Of Heads, and that he loves his job, which is why he's happy. Or perhaps he's loaded on gin and tonics**?
No TWI today as we've had enough of matters martial in the Intro. Tomorrow. If you're good.
Mechanical Mishaps
Back to that array of clips showing hilarious disasters occurring in the world of heavy machinery. There's no proper description so one can only guess at where and when these events took place, and I say 'hilarious' because one assumes nobody was injured. Art!
A dump truck dumping it's load thanks to gravity and hydraulic cylinders. Conrad tried Googling for this event and couldn't find anything about it. You can't see the trucks licence plate and the wall plaque is so out of focus that the alphabet cannot be resolved.
What can possibly go wrong? Art!
This. This can go wrong. Note the panicky driver trying to hold down a truck that must weight several tons without the added weight of the rubbish carried in back. The triumph of hope over physics. Art!
At this point he realises there's no stopping this event and lets go, which is a good thing, because - Art!
There must be an awfully large void behind those doors because the whole truck has been swallowed up. Conrad unsure how they'll recover it from that confined space, given that there's also a drop at the door. A combination of crane and winch might do it. You have to feel some sympathy for the hapless driver.Gone
"Ah, boss, you know that dump-truck I was driving to the waste site?"
Finally -
Yes this is the real end of blog. I have to inform you that I'm going to trot down to Lesser Sodom and see what's going cheap at the Co-Op. Conrad likes to keep you informed.
* There's also an official Canuckistanian document from 1947 which is 23 pages long.
** Mind you, he seems more like a John Smiths kind of chap.
No comments:
Post a Comment