Franglais:
You only wander off topic rarely Albion, unlike the majority of us here.
Do you and Juddian and others think that the attitude displayed in companies is related to their size?
**Hasnt that always been the case? A company or department, with up to, about, 20/30 employees is going to function as a team, but much bigger and it will self divide and youll have infighting? Sometimes older vs younger, sometimes management vs workers? And back in the day didnt Murfitts drivers divide between artics and wagonndrags?** Im suggesting that, but not sure I really believe it?
There does seem to be a trend within some big companies for various departments to become too large. As the head of HR wants to justify their request for a salary increase they ask for more staff, they try interfering in other departments, and generally take resources that should be going to “the sharp end”. Those people (says the common thought) that work in the bits where they wear white lab coats, are less concerned with office politics and allow this to continue, and so the company can be loaded with too much dead-wood.
There is a clear place for good administration workers everywhere, but don`t some places go too far.
I think yes to your question, especially with the larger firms. You see it when you have two depots - one has to grab all the work, or drop the other in it. As a manger youhave to try and make everything fair and work equally - an awkward manager on site can really mess things up.
Purely in reference to my customer, they are actually about half the size they were when I started working for them in terms of staff. But a lot of the upper management had come through the ranks. I know one of the guys there pretty well, now reasonably high up and he started at 16 doing grounds maintenance. You would never get that now. What you get is someone with an MBA coming in that thinks a. they know it all but no experience to back that up and b. that having a degree means that those who don’t are therefore not as good. Thee isn’t any unpleasantness, it’s more that without that degree, your experience and opinion is irrelevant.
High horse got off 