This is a Fairy Story and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All names are fictional and nothing should be inferred from this preamble. The outline of the story is as follows:
A long time ago in a town far far away there once was a Company called Blackstone Technical Corporation with a managing Director called Dwight Widget. He had four Directors named Grant Standfast, Holly Heavyweather, Lance Carver, and Holly Witherspoon.
Dwight was a great dreamer and had many plans but was not effective enough to put them in place. The real force in the Board was Grant who made all the important decisions and ran the Company very efficiently.
The Company did work for the Government and one day it was inspected by the Men From The Ministry. Despite Dwight having told everybody that things were going very well, the MFTM condemned the Company and declared that it was not being run properly.
This caused a major upset and things began to move quickly.
Dwight went off sick again and later resigned with a handsome pension.
Replacement MDs were brought in to regain control and get the Company onto a better footing again. Holly Witherspoon was very kind to them and strewed rose petals everywhere they walked. It was almost as if she was trying to ingratiate herself with the new MDs. Some people, rather unkindly, were saying that her lips were taking on the shape of a backside. Holly then started acting like a Social Worker, making no decisions of any importance, pretending not to know anything of a technical nature, and generally liaising between the workforce and Management but always siding with the workforce. This was mainly observable when Management had a dispute with truculent members of the workforce. Arms went round shoulders and management were encouraged to forgive and forget but the worker was never to blame.
Grant Standfast was fired even though he was the best of the Directors.
Lance and the two Hollys (the last two had yet to reveal what they actually did all day) were not fired but were actually considered for promotion. (This is put into the story to add a sense of disbelief as in real life the useless Directors would have been fired for allowing the Company to fall into such a state.)
Luckily for the Company they were not promoted and a new Director was brought in to replace Grant. This was something new for the Company. This Director was a professional and had done a good job in another Company whereas Blackstone usually promoted internal staff beyond their own level of incompetence. See previous reference to Holly Heavyweather and Holly Witherspoon.
The Company’s Administration Manager, Vera Rotunda, tried to keep hold of her position but the new MDs quickly discovered that she was only kidding when she said she knew how to do her job and fired her. She left with an enhanced pay off and handsome pension. It should be pointed out that allegedly she was only appointed in the first place because, of all the candidates who applied for the job, she was the only one who knew absolutely nothing about any of the roles within the job, oh and she was a jolly good friend of Dwight (nearly forgot to include that in the story).
The new regime began and it was like the cabinet in the USSR during Stalin’s era. Secret decisions were made and slowly people began to disappear overnight. History began to be re-written and Managers who had been previously thought to be good were now re-categorized as bad and were disposed of.
Rumours were started that the previous MD, Dwight, had overspent all the Company’s money so that now it was running in deficit. The Company however had a huge problem in that a lot of temporary staff were being employed to cover for those who had been fired, suspended, or were on sick leave. The two new MDs were also a huge drain as their combined salaries were about three times what Dwight was being paid.
New maintenance staff were employed on much bigger salaries than the previous staff.
As an additional measure an expensive Consultant was employed to advise the Managers on how to do the jobs they had been doing very well for years. Like all Consultants she was believed without question, her suggestions were treated as though they were handed down on Mt. Sinai, and she would cut anybody dead if an MD was in sight.
Hang on, hang on, this is getting into the realms of fantasy; nobody would ever believe this fairy tale as it is too farfetched to be true.
I will cancel my plans to become another J.Archer.............................
