2011 — 3 March: Thursday
If all goes according to plan1 I shall be lunching with my chums Chris and Gill later today. I'm predicting sausage & mash at "The Bridge", but then I'm a creature of habit.
G'night.
Having owned...
... both three Hondas and a Mercedes in the last 31 years, this made me smile:
The best line I ever heard was from Charles Kingsland, the legendary Liverpool obstetrician, when he said: "It's not that women live longer. It's just that they take longer to die." More going on inside, more to go wrong, but ultimately longer lasting — the difference between a Mercedes and a Honda, as he had it.
Time (09:14) for breakfast and that vital second cuppa. Then I shall see if any ice remains to be scraped off the see-through bits of the Toyota. [Pause] Brrr! It's 10:33 but not even +2C out there. Still, there's a hint of sunshine.
A morning for...
... redressing historic wrongs. Or, I found the letter I needed from the Jobcentreplus people. It confirms that the bereavement allowance paid after Christa's death was indeed for a maximum of 52 weeks. Thus, since November 2008, Ms Tax has been taking a few more pennies from me than she should have been.
For the cost of a First Class stamp, a few minutes drafting a polite letter on one sheet of A4, and one scanned copy of the first sheet of that Jobcentreplus letter, I should in due course get another tax repayment (and, who knows, maybe even a drop of interest?) As dear ol' Dad always used to say "Every little helps."
Time to get out there and lunch!
Later
Crikey, it's cold out there. The lunch was delicious and animated. But driving up there, I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been snowing.
Despite my growing hunger pangs I've just sat for 30 minutes listening, entranced, as BBC correspondent Kate Adie tries eating porridge, reports on watching the TV series "The Sopranos", playing bingo, reading Arthur Ransome's magnificent "Swallows and Amazons" and having a go at yoga. Radio at its finest, and she has a delicious laugh, too.
Right! On with the evening, and my evening meal. Oh, I also dismantled a nasty set of brambles in the vicinity of my pear tree before they got (as it were) too far above themselves. Vicious brutes.
Speaking of which, the latest newsletter from the IBM pensioners group makes grim reading. And, worse yet, here's one entry from an ex-manager spelling out all too clearly the reasons for what I expect is now a highly poisonous atmosphere in what used to be a genuinely enjoyable workplace:
I recently left IBM because of the PBC process. It forced me to administer unwarranted and unfair grades to hard-working, talented and dedicated people. IBM's PBC system is immoral, unfair, demoralising, and it destroys teams and people's lives. I loathed being a part of it. There are many other managers at the sharp end in IBM (ie. the ones who have the impossible job of delivering the bad news and living with the consequences each year), who also have a deep-seated loathing of this corrupt appraisal system...
The way to really get your colleague a fair review is to say that their work is better than yours. Yes, to stand up and say "I am Spartacus". If the colleagues of a PBC 3 person say that their colleague contributed more than they did, if they stand up and volunteer to take the PBC 3 bullet for their workmate, it completely undermines the relative assessment system and shows it for the utter farce that it really is. If enough IBMers took this action, it would also (I'm sure) get recognized by the press/MPs/etc. I'd like to see an IBM exec explain the merits of relative assessment to Paxman or to a Commons committee
A "PBC" (personal business commitment) is something you agree to achieve or deliver during a given period. Its assessment is largely subjective. It's generally agreed in advance of performance assessments what proportion of staff will be deemed to have achieved at each level. If the system wasn't already a tragic and distorted process, it would be a simple, black, farce. I had regular (and lively) discussions arguing the flawed nature of the scheme with more than one senior manager. My respect for these people fell rapidly. The bean counters truly have taken over, haven't they?