The Obscurer

Month: October, 2005

Monday 31st October 2005

F Off

Now, I don’t like Gordon Ramsey at the best of times; not particularly. If he thinks that the best way to motivate his staff is to bully, intimidate and verbally abuse them then that is a matter for him; but I don’t personally find it entertaining, amusing or admirable. The thing is, on the occasions when I have watched Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares I have seen moments where he has shown a genuine skill for inspiring respect and building confidence in others; but I suppose such scenes don’t feature in the trailers for the show because they don’t make good telly. Certainly, that positive aspect of his personality doesn’t seem to get a mention when I hear his fans discuss him; it is the effing and jeffing side of Ramsey that people seem to like, which Ramsey himself seems proud of, and which I just don’t understand. I suppose Ramsey would say that his job is a very stressful one; but so is mine, and at my work we simply couldn’t get the job done if my colleagues and I showed such disrespect towards each other. Anyone can lose their temper in the heat of the moment, including me, but afterwards I would hope to apologise, rather than revel in my rudeness. I suppose it comes down to the paradox where some people reckon that you need to bollock people occasionally to get things done…but no one says they appreciate a good bollocking to get themselves going.

Anyway, there is another side to Ramsey that I am not keen on and that is his amazing hypocrisy. It centres on his disdain for “celebrity chefs” such as Anthony Worrall Thompson. Fair enough, you may think, but this is pretty rich coming from someone who has appeared in Ramsey’s Boiling Point, Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen, and has enjoyed numerous appearances on Jonathan Ross, The Friday Night Project, various “Top 100 whatever” programmes and who even had his own calendar out last year. His appearances on other people’s shows are especially weird, as away from the kitchen he shows himself to be a real dullard. On his first appearance on Jonathan Ross he revealed he had nothing remotely interesting to say; when he was a guest the following series he tried to be more engaging by playing to type and swearing a lot for no good reason, and to little effect.

Well the hypocrisy has really been cranked up with his new series The F Word (F for food), which I saw a repeat of yesterday on More4 (incidentally the best new TV channel we have seen for some time, and probably the best we will see for a while; I’m not placing much faith in Sky3 or ITV4). His new programme begins with credits showing him looking mean and moody, the theme tune bashing out a pounding and dramatic beat, the screen is filled with a close up of his scar ridden face; then we see him stripping off his “civvy clothes” as he strides purposefully down a corridor. A long shot reveals his topless frame before the camera is focussed close in again on his fixed, firm expression (did you forget how serious and mean he is?) and then we watch as he changes into his chef’s gear before storming through the doors at the end of the corridor. Cut to a swish restaurant full of eager diners, a long spiral staircase with Ramsey at the summit; the crowd goes wild, cheering and applauding the arrival of their hero. Ramsey skips down the stairs, basking in glory, milking the applause. And this is a man who hates celebrity chefs?

To be honest, that was enough for me and I had to switch over; and I’m glad I did. Over on BBC2 Bill Oddie’s Autumnwatch was in full swing and it featured the most amazing sight of starlings flocking in huge numbers; it really had to be seen to be believed. If it’s ever on again then watch it; a sky almost black with birds that swirl in unison, looking like a school of sardines that go squeezing and twirling into all manner of bizarre shapes in the sky before tumbling down like the steady flow of a waterfall onto a reed bed. Amazing.

But when that finished I flicked through the channels and there didn’t appear much else on so I gave The F Word another go, and it wasn’t too bad actually. Giles Coren’s look at how donner kebabs were made in a factory was quite interesting, and while it proved what a fatty and unhealthy product it is, at least the meat used looked to be of a decent quality, free of lips, lugs and spinal cord. It was also amusing when Ramsey challenged comedian Al Murray to see who could make the best bread and butter pudding. Ramsey was tedious, referring to Murray’s dish as a stale egg sandwich; not once but about 18 times as he clearly didn’t have the imagination to think of another insult. But then, when it came to a blind taste test, the judges’ unanimous verdict was that Murray’s pud was better than Ramsey’s soggy effort. Ha ha.

I don’t think I will bother watching The F Word again. Like Ramsey I don’t have an interest in celebrity, which is why I was puzzled when he was seen schmoozing with guests Martine McCutcheon and Sun columnist Jane Moore (Martine wasn’t too keen on the bread and butter pudding, she said, because she doesn’t like raisons; although when she later revealed that she doesn’t eat dairy or bread it became clear the dish was probably her idea of hell). His campaign to get women cooking again seemed a weak attempt to hang onto Jamie Oliver’s coat tails by being a cook with a cause, and there was a ludicrous part of the show where he picked the people for the blind tasting panel. Each guest was blindfolded and had to taste a variety of foods; those who correctly judged which food was which were considered the people with the finest palettes and joined the panel. The problem lay with the foods the guests were tested on; if you have never eaten salmon caviar before, or mozzarella with basil, then you are unlikely to be able to tell what they taste like; it doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion or cannot tell good food from bad. This is another thing that gets on my tits about Ramsey, that he likes to portray himself as a no nonsense, down to earth man of the people; yet all the while he can be as snobbish and pretentious about food as anybody and charges prices at his restaurants that only a small sector of the population can routinely afford.

In all, though, for me The F Word suffers by comparison with Full On Food, of which it seems a poor imitation. Full On Food was a cracking programme which, like The F Word, was a cookery magazine show with a studio audience; it had some fascinating and informative items from the resident presenters (I particularly remember a moving film from a vegetarian food critic trying meat for the first time in ten years) and even featured a minor celebrity cooking a dish in the studio each week. If you haven’t heard of Full On Food then it may be because unlike The F Word it didn’t also feature a minor celebrity audience, minor celebrity presenter and minor celebrity chef; something you would think that Gordon Ramsey himself would approve of.

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Thursday 27th October 2005

Equity

I used to work for a large private sector company who you will have heard of, and my wife still works there. In the main I left for the usual selfish reasons (lack of promotion, for more money) but also because I was sick of the way the firm was going. The company is a service provider – its product is the service itself paid for by annual subscription – and yet the quality of that service was worsening with every bright idea and reorganisation. The service department where I worked was valued less than those areas of the firm that directly generated income; how you can focus on getting people to buy a service, without paying attention to the quality of that service for those who have already parted with their money, is beyond me. During my time with the company quality of service very much played second fiddle to sales (whereas now I work in the public sector, and quality of service plays second fiddle to hitting government targets).

But give my ex-employers their due. Back “in my day” telephone calls from customers who needed assistance there and then had to be answered within 10 seconds; failure to do so would affect the call handling service level, which was not to fall below 90%. In other words, we aimed to answer at least 90% of all service calls within ten seconds. If the service level threatened to go below 90% then staff in other parts of the firm taking information, customer relations or sales calls were instead instructed to assist us in answering service calls. The priority was to deal with those existing customers who had already paid us their money and who needed our help immediately, before answering the phone to people who were not yet our customers, and who may or may not become customers. Sometimes, of course, particularly in extreme conditions, nothing could be done and the service level would drop well below 90%, but it was considered a bad day when it did so.

But times change and such outmoded practices must be swept away in the name of progress. Nowadays my wife tells me that rather than trying to answer service calls within ten seconds, the aim is to answer these calls within six minutes. One day last week, the service level for such calls was just 24%, a figure that in a more innocent age would have driven senior management to despair; but no longer. No; that day (when only 24% of calls from distraught customers were answered within six minutes) was actually considered a good day, because the service level in the sales department was maintained at 52%. I am being purposefully vague about what my wife’s firm actually does, but if you ever need their assistance, when you are likely to be in a distressing and possibly dangerous situation, you will no doubt be encouraged by this thought. As they already have your money, you are more likely to be left hanging on the phone than someone who isn’t yet a customer, who is sat at home, relaxed and comfortable, making a few calls to get some quotes, because their call is prioritised. One member of staff questioned the wisdom of treating their customers so abysmally, and so it was explained that sales calls were more important than service calls, as without new customers there wouldn’t be anyone to provide a service to, would there?

The short sightedness of this attitude is obvious, to you and to me, to even the dimmest three year old child, perhaps to some animals (certainly dogs), and even to certain inanimate objects, such as kettles; of course it is important to answer calls from people who may provide you with income in the future, but that it is also important to answer calls from people who already do provide your income, and who, if treated well, will continue to do so. Fortunately, a private equity firm currently owns the company, and it seems short sightedness is all that is required when you are in their employ. Overall sales no doubt will improve in the short term, although what will happen to long term customer retention levels is anyone’s guess; but in any event, long term customer retention levels are irrelevant to the current owners of the company, who will sell the firm in around a years time, pocket a handsome profit, and look for another company where they can work their magic. Onwards and upwards.

These days I often come home from my current job frustrated at the way thing are going, dismayed at how the stereotypical image of the public sector as being inefficient and bureaucratic has just been confirmed and played out in front of my eyes. Then I speak to my wife, and she tells me about the latest developments at her work; we swap anecdotes about the way our employers seem to be copying the worst practices from each other, and in a strange way it makes us feel better. If our experiences are typical then I’m not sure that the public and private sectors have all that much to teach each other. It doesn’t seem to matter where you work; everything’s fucked.

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Friday 21st October 2005

Laud Nelson

This is my first post for over a fortnight, and I don’t really have any excuses for my absence. I have been a bit busy, but not that busy. Inspiration has been lacking, and when I have come up with a few ideas in relation to news stories and posts on other blogs, by the time I’ve got around to trying to write them they had become far from topical, so I haven’t bothered and they have bitten the dust. Also, I have thought of some brilliant posts to write whilst drunk, only to discover in the morning when sober that they are utter shit. So you have probably had a few lucky escapes there.

The erratic nature of my postings is likely to continue for a while as I have got a few short breaks planned over the next few weeks. It’s York at the start of November, taking advantage of Travelodge’s absurd deal of £26 a night for a family room; but for tomorrow the boy will be deposited at his Grandparents’, and my wife and I are off for a two night stay in Chipping Norton, “gateway to the Cotswolds”, apparently (although considering the size of the Cotswolds, I suspect it can be considered just one of a number of gateways). It will be our first nights away from our son for a good few months, and yet from previous experience our love for him will dominate the conversation during our stay. The reason for our trip? We have vouchers for a free room (subject to conditions) in a number of hotels throughout the UK, including The Crown And Cushion, handily placed halfway between the touristy meccas of Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon; and it is also the fifth anniversary of our engagement (well, any excuse really).

Yes, I fancy a quiet break away from things, but the other day in the pub I saw a poster that suggested my anticipated tranquillity may be breached; for it appears that today, tomorrow and Sunday constitute “Trafalgar Weekend”, and we are all invited to celebrate the Battle of Trafalgar by attending our local public house to partake in a pissy pint of lager or two, along with a pack of those weird Nobby’s Smokey Bacon coated nuts; or the food and drink of your choice I suppose.

Let’s celebrate the day of the battle itself if we must, but a whole weekend in the pub? That seems a bit odd, although no odder than those official celebrations in June this year which were presumably to mark the 199¾ anniversary of the event. The last thing I want is gangs of rural louts roaming around Chipping Norton High Street, singing sea shanties and punching French and Spanish passers-by; it could quite put one of one’s Tournedos Rossini in the hotel restaurant (Oh yes; Tournedos Rossini! I’m going to push the boat out a bit this weekend (no joke intended)).

I guess we will be alright though; I don’t think many people will be commemorating the battle in quite the way the pub chain’s marketeers would like (although you can’t fault them for trying). I suspect most people will think that celebrating Nelson’s ultimate battle by going to the pub on Sunday afternoon, 200 years and 2 days after that historic moment, is a faintly ridiculous idea; although perhaps no more ridiculous that celebrating your engagement anniversary when you are in your fourth year of marriage.

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Wednesday 5th October 2005

A Million Dead-End Streets

“We are the change makers”, thundered Tony Blair last week, giving it the big “I am” before the Labour Party conference. A very odd sounding phrase, I thought, but one that got me thinking about change, and our attitudes towards change.

If you were to take a look at our common sayings and phrases then change is universally regarded as being positive; it “will do you good”, it is “as good as a rest”. Certainly, I can’t think of a phrase along the lines of “change will make you look like a right twat when you return to work after a fortnight off”. But in real life change is not always seen in such rosy terms; how often, for example, do we hear teachers complain that what the profession needs most of all is a period of stability after endless reforms?

I imagine that it was a recognition of such everyday resistance to change (along with a desire to make a shed load of money) that led Spencer Johnson to write Who Moved My Cheese?, a management parable of how to deal with change in the workplace. Now I haven’t read the book, so I may be off course here, but I know people who have, and opinion seems sharply divided on its merits. The partners at the firm where my friend works think it is a great book, so much so that they bought a copy each for all their staff. The staff think it is a patronising load of shite, and if they are to be believed than I can see why. The moral of Who Moved My Cheese? seems to be that change is always for the good, always to be welcomed, it cannot be avoided, so just get on with it and do as you are told (as I say, I haven’t read it myself, so if I have misunderstood its message then I am happy to be corrected).

Why such a divergence of opinion about the book, and indeed about change in the workplace in general? I suppose it depends on your position within the firm. At work I am far more of a change taker than a change maker. I wouldn’t say that my colleagues and I are resistant to change, indeed we will often suggest changes and improvements to our line managers; it is just that we are rarely listened to. Usually the changes that we do have to deal with are top-down, made by people who have never done our job, and who often appear to be making change for change’s sake; indeed at times it seems as if some peoples’ jobs depend upon tinkering with the parts of the system that appear to be working just fine, while leaving the myriad problems in place. Moreover, somethimes what the change makers announce as a vital new development for the business is recognised by the rest of us as a way of just reverting to how things used to be done 5 years ago; and for those with longer memories, to that way things were done 5 years before that.

What of the change makers themselves? Well, often (although by no means exclusively) their position in a firm is a purely transitory one; perhaps they don’t hang around long enough to develop the same cynicism towards change. They may well be on a promotion fast track, barely in one job for any length of time before they are moved on further up the corporate ladder and away from the consequences of their actions. They may be parachuted in from a private equity company to make swift, short-term changes before they sell up and move on. Or they may be from a management consultancy, whose only responsibility at times can appear to be to make changes, get paid and then bugger off; they don’t seem to have any obvious incentive or vested interest in actually improving their clients’ business. Who do these management consultants actually consult with anyway? They have never consulted me; we just get their reforms handed to us as a fait accompli. Has a consultant ever come into a company and said, “D’you know what, things here are working really well, we can’t improve on your current system. Goodbye”. I very much doubt it; they have to get paid for doing something, so they will move things around a bit, even if all they actually do is to change things back to the way they were before the last load of management consultants got called in. It is a bit like the interior designers on Changing Rooms; if they see an old Georgian fireplace in a room they feel the need to cover it up, but if the fireplace is already covered up they just have to dig it out and restore it. There may be some very good management consultants knocking around, but I haven’t yet knowingly stumbled upon one.

And so back to Blair; how does he fit into this pattern? He has always been fascinated by his place in history, and his renewed zeal is perhaps because he knows he is running out of time, and that his current spot in the history books is deep down in a lengthy chapter entitled Iraq-The Quagmire. So with extra verve he wants to make reforms, to be the change maker; but rather like the transitory manager he knows full well that he will be off in a couple of years time, and that if things do go tits-up they will likely land on Gordon Brown’s toes. No wonder he wants to push for change, while Brown is considered the more cautious; Blair is acting like a bad management consultant.

But at least we know that Blair will soon be on his way; and that is at least one change that I am looking forward to.

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Sunday 2nd October 2005

Good Morning, Good Morning

Well, the sleep has been prised from my eyes, I can still taste the toothpaste, but I am off to watch a game of premiership football. Oh joy.
When I first read that the City-Everton game was an 11:15 Sunday kick-off I thought it was a mistake. A Sunday kick-off? Fine. I knew that Everton would be playing in the UEFA Cup on Thursday so was expecting the game to be moved, but surely they couldn’t mean 11:15? But when the City website, Yahoo!, Sky and the BBC all agreed on the kick-off time I had to accept it. I briefly wondered if they could all be quoting the same, inaccurate source for the information, or even that perhaps there was some computer cock-up involving the clocks going forward and that they really meant 12:15. But no.

So why the ungodly hour? Steve at Occupied Country thinks it is so they can screen it at a reasonable time in China, and he could be right; but seeing as there must be about fifty time zones in China I doubt there is one uniform time that could be considered “reasonable”, so I don’t see why a kick-off an hour or so later would make much of a difference. According to the club website, this change was made at the request of Sky; I think it is more likely that as the game was originally slated as being a PremPlus match at 12:30 on Saturday, when they came to move the match to the Sunday the only way they could avoid a clash with another live game was by shoving us on before noon. That is a crap reason but it is the best one I can think of; after all, ITV were happy to show two Champions League games simultaneously on Tuesday, and I can’t imagine many neutrals being tempted to pay £7 or whatever it is to watch City-Everton under any circumstances, regardless of whether or not there are other live games being shown on the regular Sky Sports channels at the same time (while I would have thought the number of City and Everton fans lost to the televised Arsenal-Birmingham match at 13:30 would be fairly negligible if the two games clashed). But when it comes to re-arranging these matches I suppose there will always be a pecking order of considerations, and usually if they think they can get away with it then the fan or paying customer will find themselves at the back of the queue.

I suppose it could have been worse. As we are playing Everton there may still be a few hardy souls plucky enough to brave the short trip along the M62 in order to sit in the away end at the City of Manchester Stadium, having gone to bed early, or not at all. Imagine if we had been playing a team whose fans would have to travel from the other end of the country (Portsmouth, Sunderland, United); would that have troubled the minds of the change-makers? I doubt it.

So, wish me luck (unless, for obvious reasons, you are looking for an away win from this fixture) I’m off. At least when I get back from the game I will have the lion’s share of Sunday left, free and untouched.

Update 14.45: City 2-0 Everton. A lacklustre first half but an improvement after the break particularly when Lee Croft came on (why doesn’t he get a start?). At his 150th attempt Danny Mills finally saw one of his long range wellys fly into the top corner (the people in the executive boxes were cowering in anticipation when he shaped up to shoot) and then Darius Vassell had no right to reach Joey Barton’s through ball but his pace gave him a great chance to push the ball past Nigel Martyn and he took it well. Can’t we play at this time every week?

In the other games that kicked off at the same time, The Gun Inn continued their fine run of form with a convincing 8-2 victory over Dynamo Denton. Meanwhile the bitter local derby between AFC Poynton and Pott Shrigley Amateurs had to be postponed when Tony couldn’t find the keys to his van.

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