Someone else to slap

 I’m not sure what is happening to me in my old age. Rarely an advocate of violence I have recently had a strong urge to slap people.

Today, my intended victim is Gillian Keegan - Education Secretary. 

When discussing the crumbling schools problem, caused by a freeze on school building funding since ‘austerity’ started, which might have been fine if schools built in the 1970s weren’t built of chocolate aero bars, she complained that no one ever said, “You know what, you’ve done a fucking good job. No one ever says that, do they?”

There’s a reason for that.

However, she has done a great job of making me want to slap her.

This time, she’s ordered an enquiry. Fucking good job Gillian. 

I mean it wasn’t her fault that her department couldn’t get the calculations right, It’s not her fault that it was announced before it was checked. It’s not her fault that maths wasn’t compulsory to 18 for her staff. But she has ordered an enquiry.

Great job. And as she will be keen to point out the total amount going to schools is the same. £59.6 billion  isn’t to be sniffed at. 

It’s an easy mistake to make. Those of us who count children for a living know; they’re slippery little things, moving around, giving you a heart attack thinking you’ve lost one. It’s so easy to under count the number of pupils in schools and really 0.62% extra children is a tiny error. Let’s not mention that there are over 10 million children. 

“Schools haven’t got the money yet, so what’s the problem?” Gillian thinks. “Surely schools don’t plan how to use the money they’ll get in April in September? This changes nothing. The teachers pay award is still fully funded. The total amount given to all schools (59.6b) is an increase of 3.2%, so that fully funds the pay increase of 6.5%. There is no arguing with that.”

Amazing job Gilly.

The uncounted children will mean that each pupil will have £50 less spent on them, the percentage increase in funding per child is only 1.9% (when inflation is 6.6%). 

“No problem. Just don’t eat the glue sticks. Oh, you already stopped that? Never mind. You don’t need all those staff do you?”

SLAP 

What a fucking job you’ve done Gill. 

 

Wellbeing

Would someone please slap the person that invented the well-being survey.

No seriously. I mean it. A great big slap, right across the face. Then ask them, “What the fresh hell were you thinking?”

I’m not normally a supporter of violence but if you happen to come across TennantR, FisherL, PlattP, JosephS, WeichS, ParkinsonJ, SeckerJ, Stewart-BrownS then I don’t think you should hold back.

Pick them up by the scruff of the neck and say, “I was perfectly happy at work until some HR twit stumbled across your research and decided that managers should be forced to ask me to complete a questionnaire about stress once a year.”

The last thing anyone who is mostly happy in their job needs is to be forced to think about the things that irritate them. Even worse, to be asked to write them down. 

Humans have a tendency to focus on the negative. This isn’t a bad thing. It keeps us alive. Watch the one tiger, rather than the thousand pretty butterflies. When there aren’t any real tigers we have to train ourselves to see the butterflies. The Well-being survey does the opposite of that.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for managers’ stress levels to read all of those niggles; often things that they are powerless to change, that are also causing them stress.

What do you like about work? - that’s what I would ask. 

I like funny children, making noise that sometimes turns into music, my colleagues, the Friday sit, chatting about how recorders make perfect vomit tubes. I like my music room and going for a walk at lunchtime with a book and if my well-being scores are lower than normal it’s because it’s my birthday coming up and birthdays (specifically my birthday) always makes me grumpy. 

Keep a lookout for the butterflies