Ha! Take That, Bllly Shakeshaft!
I am mangling a quotation from 'Piglet' or 'Porklet' or similar, where Beeflet, the Clown Prince of Dunmurk (sp?) waffles on about it, which I shan't bother quoting. No, I am talking about the act of reaming, in the sense of using a bore-cleaning tool to clean out a cylinder, as applied metaphorically, i.e. having an unpleasant experience. Art!
Here a Crusader Mk III is having it's gun barrel reamed out, to remove all the cordite deposits and dust and dirt, amongst the greenery of Tunisia in 1943.
ANYWAY let us shift focus to businesses acquiring other businesses, a phenomenon that Your Humble Scribe has a tad of background experience in. You see, when I worked at the Co-Op in Old Bank Building, that creaky but characterful Victorian slum, there was a push to merge with the Co-Op Bank on a journey that would take five years to acco-
Suddenly the merger was off, we were not to speak of it again nor mention that cursed phrase 'Co-Op Bank', and cross ourselves if we ever did. The COB, it seems, had acquired an enormous amount of toxic debt when it also acquired Britannia Building Society - £1.5 billion of it. Ooops. Art!
AI Art Generator manages to come up with an appropriate artistic analogy (for once!).
Okay, this Intro concerns Business-Acquired Narrator, hereafter BAN, whose employer got acquired by another far larger business that was in the habit of buying up smaller businesses. This happens a lot in South Canada and frequently leads to bad things, as the buyer normally borrows money to make the purchase and then has to pay the loan back. They then cut corners, quality and staff. Art!
That's BAN waving from the 7th floor window
The CEO of this Megacorp got fed up with the general chaos of a giant melting pot of businesses and clients, and appointed a Vice President, hereafter Venal Plonker, and an HR Director, hereafter HURDI, to ensure staff didn't walk out. VP instantly made matters worse by forbidding pay rises outside annual reviews, and HURDI asked for feedback about problems and then targeted anyone who provided feedback. A classy pair indeed. Art!
Official staff photo of VP and HURDI
BAN was voluntold to work with 4 other colleagues on a client project, winging it but ordered to make it look good, so that VP looked good in the eyes of the CEO.
'Hmmmm,' considered BAN. 'My promotion has been denied, no raise, fobbed off with shares, and retention bonus moved into the indefinable future. I'm walking.'
Being vaguely compliant, he told VP that he was moving on in two weeks, fully expecting to be escorted off the premises within the hour, as was S.O.P.
Not so. Instead VP told him to just keep working BUT not to tell the client about his departure being imminent. Being an old soldier with many rodeos under his belt, BAN managed to convey his imminent departure without actually saying imminent departure. O my, the client was not happy! Art?
Primarily because VP was lying by omission to them, and BAN had no understudy or replacement to take over.
THEN HURDI tried to do him over by saying that, due to his departure, he wasn't eligible for his retention bonus, and uttered the fateful words "If you want to argue terms, get an attorney." This, gentle reader, was HURDI lying and hoping BAN wouldn't bother going any further. No wonder their retention levels were bad and getting worse. This, lest ye be unaware, is not how you create loyalty amongst your staff. Quite the opposite. Art!
BAN and friend
Here BAN used his secret weapon, his friend the employment attorney, who went over his contract, deemed it laughably badly-worded, and that he was eminently entitled to his bonus. She drafted up a letter, added as many incidental fees as possible and sent it in.
Just doing what they suggested, after all. What matter if it reams them a new nether fundament?
In time, the company settled with BAN. He didn't mention what the amount was, but we can guess at circa $10,000. His attorney friend saw their legal firm's letterhead and burst out laughing, as this was an extremely prestigious law firm whose fees would have been possibly $50,000 to represent. Another ooops. Gosh, I wonder whose budget that would have come out of?
In the meantime that client project BAN left went down the tubes, with some of the team being fired and others quitting, and eventually the client just cut contact with the business, leaving it's CEO frothing with rage that a prime opportunity had been so miserably handled. Art!
HURDI did not long survive this debacle, when BAN checked on LinkedIn a few weeks later, she had been fired. 'Not enough permanent staff left to justify an HR position', apparently, so she created the problem that got her fired.
VP's office was just - empty, a few weeks after that, with his name never being mentioned again, much like Co-Op Bank.
BAN said he still works in the same city but has never come across either of them since, which means they either moved away out of shame, or occupy much lowlier positions. Either one works for me, they did it to themselves, a right proper reaming.
"The Ockers Go To France"
OR
"Official History of Australia In The War Of 1914 - 1918"
"Volume III The AIF In France" By C. W. Bean
I am now over 100 pages into this 12th Edition, published in 1941 - a date with it's own associations - and the first 70 pages are a long, detailed and frightfully boring account of how the ANZACs were withdrawn from Gallipoli to Egypt. There they were re-organised and reinforced and then sent to France. There you go, it took me less than a paragraph.
ANYWAY by April 1916 the ANZACs were being put into front-line duty in the trench systems around Armentieres, which was a nice quiet 'nursery' sector, where a tacit live-and-let-live ethos existed with the bally Hun. Art!
ANYWAY AGAIN blimey, this was supposed to be a quick 'filler' item, the author lists the different stores indented for when the three Australian divisions arrived in line, to wit:
20,000 blankets
8,000 woollen vests
8,000 woollen drawers
5,000 cardigan jackets
40,000 gas helmets
21,000 anti-gas atchels
20,000 anti-gas goggles
14,000 steel helmets
Though many of these men were veterans of Gallipoli, they had never suffered the level of gas warfare as it existed on the Western Front (Teuton 'Kultur' at work don't you know) and all the gas kit would have been novel to them.
The '14,000 steel helmets' are a case in point. These were the Brodie pattern helmet as you can see the 6th Brigade soldiers wearing, and at first there were insufficient to accommodate the entire British army in France, it being 1.2 million strong in April 1916. So they were issued as 'trench stores', being kept in line for each successive formation moving in. Art!
The Ockers, long used to improvised and dangerous (to the user!) 'jam-tin' bombs, were now issued with 52,000 Mills Bombs - hand-grenades to you and I - for each division, to their muted awe. Only muted - it wouldn't do to give the British army praise about anything much.
Dog Buns, so much for a short item!
See, The Sinister Slav!
I did warn you we'd come back to Vladek Sheybal. More correctly, Wladyslaw Rudolf Zbiginew Sheybal, who was never happier when playing mordant characters. Art!
Almost smiling, hmmm?
Vladek had no fond memories of either occupiers of Poland, as the Nazis put him in a concentration camp, from which he escaped twice, being recaptured, twice, and tortured just to make the point. He departed for the shores of Perfidious Albion in 1958, aware that the Sinisters were itching to throw him in a concentration gulag for his anti-Communist views. Art!
 |
| 'Kanal' 1957 |
This Sounds Like An Urban Legend -
Art!
FYI the 'necklace' was actually a 20 pound chain with a lock attached, and the BBC names the victim and his wife, who had told him to come and help her get off the MRI gurney. Doubtless there is profuse signage warning patients and their relatives NOT to enter the MRI room whilst the scanner is on, thanks to the enormously powerful magnetic field it generates. Because otherwise there would be enormous legal penalties to be inflicted. South Canadians love their litigation.
Finally -
That Raspberry and Yoghurt ice cream is one of the best I've made, what a shame you cannot share the taste and texture. Sorry not sorry.
No comments:
Post a Comment