Are Local Authority staff trained to not smile at their customers, or is it just the weight of

[Ashberto]

working for a dull, humourless bureaucracy that drains them of any warmth?

The first makes sense, as it prepares the client for what is probably going to be a fairly unpleasant experience, but the second would also be understandable.

Their website said that you can get parking permits for courtesy cars but on arrival the scowly receptionist gave me a standard permit application which I had to fill in, despite it being seemingly inapplicable. When my number came up I was told by the next surly operative that the person who applied for the original permit should be the one signing that form. I explained that she came in at 8.00am yesterday to do so, (the opening time according to the website) but was told that it didn't open till 9.00am. "It's changed" I was told.

Anyway I signed it anyway and when I handed it back to he she seemed to brighten up, and stapled it to something else without even looking at it. Conclusion: all they want is to make people fill in forms. It doesn't matter what you say, or whether it is the correct form, just fill in a form and you make them happy.

[Classic Jorge]

I think they go through a "breaking" process on induction

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

It would make you bitter, wouldn't it? If you awoke in the morning, looked in the mirror, and faced another day at the Civic Centre, with a timetable of Diversity Training and Health & Safety Courses :-(

[Monty91]

miserable?

[Ashberto]

At the interview I had to swear my allegiance to their policy of positive discrimination.

I think I ticked 19 out of their 20 competencies boxes for skill set, but the fact that my Unix experience was on a different version to theirs meant that I didn't tick box one, and so couldn't be considered.

I probably got lucky there.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

There are no excuses. Stop looking for excuses; it's your fault you're a nasty piece of work and no one and nothing else is to blame.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

You haven't turned black since I last saw you, have you?

[Classic Jorge]

It's sad really, Locakl Authorities could make a massive difference to their patch by being a bit more innovative or entrepreneurial but they are usually so mired in funding cuts, KPIs for funding and dealing with de-motivated and unproductive staff that they never seem to manage to do anything but exist, and grudgingly at that.

[Monty91]

It's not even a political position about individual responsibilty. It's just horsehit.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Rude. Spiteful. Hurtful.

Do you work in local government?

[Brentwood]

She said you wouldn't believe how many approval forms she had to fill out, and how many approvers there were in the chain just to make a small change to content published on their intranet. There were loads of them employed there as well, with hardly anything to do

[Ashberto]

Having worked for a multi-national home electronics retailer, all the people running it were spivvy, over-promoted salesmen. Yuk.

Small-to-medium sized organisations are better places to work imo. Though small can involve being horribly overloaded at times.

[Classic Jorge]

But I've had invoices that took 7 months for them to pay as nobody with the requisite delegation level was available to sign them off.

Essentially at least 50% of people in these places exist to stop people doing their job.

[Classic Jorge]

The worst thing you can do is promote a salesperson though, they are basically psychopaths. Salespeople make the worst sort of managers, especially managing non salespeople.

[Ashberto]

It doesn't matter that you're telling your customers to come in at the wrong time, as long as it doesn't get changed without being signed off all the way up the line.

[Ashberto]

[Brentwood]

but the least you'd expect is that the receptionist would be extremely apologetic for wasting your time, apologise on behalf of her organisation, tell you that she'll make sure they get it corrected straight away etc etc

I bet she spoke to you like you were an idiot

[Ashberto]

and for considerably less money than many/most LA staff, but I presume you still expect them to smile and show courtesy.

[Ashberto]

Apart from the form and some surliness it was all done quite quickly really. I was just pleased to have got out of there with the permit before my parking meter expired.

[Ashberto]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Classic Jorge]

<10 micro, <50 small, <250 medium.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Classic Jorge]

in fairness, it's usually an and/or thing

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

2/3 criteria of which 2 must be met, same applies for a small company.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Something like that.