Kelly raises a finger. “It’s not. What about mint pose? Or omits pen?”

  “Or tops mine,” I add, not to be outdone.

  “They’re not single word anagrams, are they? They’re useless.”

  Lucy looks ready to punch him. “What the hell are you talking about, Nigel?”

  He leans back, a smug smile showing he’s enjoying his moment. “I’m talking about our new recruit – Gemma Dean, the Chief Executive’s niece.”

  Kelly flips back a couple of pages. “She’s the one who wasn’t interviewed but got a job because the system stinks.”

  “You weren’t supposed to minute that,” Lucy says.

  “You never said.”

  “I would have thought it was obvious, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s why we say pimentos,” Nigel says.

  “Have you got a fetish about peppers, or are you determined to wind me up?”

  “Lucy, it’s a code. If we mention the cardinal sin of nepotism someone will report us to the Chief Executive. But if we say pimentos, we’ll know what we mean, but no one else will. Walls have ears, you know.”

  Lucy rolls her eyes. ”And I thought management talked out of their backsides. So Nigel, you don’t think people will be suspicious if we suddenly start talking about peppers? Good morning, Miss Dean, are you a fan of pimentos?”

  Nigel folds his arms and says nothing.

  Kelly’s forehead wrinkles. “Is nepotism like egotism?”

  “No, it’s a game for your family and close friends,” Lucy replies with a smirk.

  “Like Twister?”

  “She means friends and family are given jobs that you and I can’t get,” Nigel explains.

  “I get that,” Kelly says, still looking puzzled. “But if I like don’t want a job then why would I care if someone else gets it?”

  “But what if they got a job you really wanted?” Lucy asks. “You’d be upset then.”

  “Not if they were better than me,” Kelly replies with a shrug. “Anyway, I’d rather know which walls have ears. That sounds much more interesting.”

  “All of them.” Danni is halfway through the door at this point, timing her entry to perfection as usual. “Even the clock on the wall has a hidden camera.”

  “So you can see what time it is,” I add, wondering how much of our conversation Danni overheard. She sits next to Kelly and looks down at her pad. “Perhaps you can tell me why we’re discussing pimentos.”

  As Nigel opens his mouth to respond, Danni raises her hand. “I’m asking Kelly, as she’s taking the minutes.”

  Everyone looks at Kelly, wondering what she’ll say. “You know you ask people what animal they are at interviews, well Kent was wondering what vegetable people might be.”

  I nod. “We wouldn’t want to offend vegetarians by describing them as tigers, would we? Equalities and all that.”

  “But if they were herbivorous animals that wouldn’t be offensive,” Nigel says. “You wouldn’t be offended if I said you were a cow, would you, Lucy?”

  Her tight-lipped smile suggests otherwise. “Can you stuff pimentos, Nigel? Before you roast them in an oven, I mean.”

  Danni raises her hands. “Think of me as camomile and calm down. Let’s return to the agenda. Now, where were you?”

  “We were waiting for you to feedback on corporate pimentos, I mean issues,” Nigel replies, looking pleased with himself. It looks like his code has worked because Danni launches into a speech on financial cutbacks, end of year budgets, and service plans.

  “So Kent,” she says, leaning back in her chair, “have you produced this year’s work programme – apart from inspecting retailers of pimentos? You could give that job to our new recruit, Gemma Dean. She knows her vegetables.”

  “Do you mean onions?” Nigel asks. “Idiomatically speaking, of course.”

  Danni ignores him. “I hope you’ll welcome Gemma. We’re lucky to get her with all the cutbacks and posts being frozen. Other heads of service will be so jealous.”

  “I can’t wait to have another woman on the team,” says Lucy. “When does she start?”

  “In three weeks. She’s currently working as a waitress at one of the bigger hotels in Eastbourne, which means she’s au fait with food hygiene.”

  “Doesn’t that depend on the hotel?” I ask.

  “It’s relevant experience,” Danni replies. “We can build on that.”

  Lucy smirks. “She can show you how to fold a napkin, Nigel.”

  “And how to give good service,” he responds.

  “She will be an asset, I’m sure.” Danni rises, signalling the end of the meeting. “Now does anyone have any questions before I discuss pimentos with the Chief Executive?”

  Talking Nubs

  Clear communication has never been one of local government’s strengths. While letters beginning, “I refer to your missive of the 4th ultimo …” were officially banned last month, there are still plenty of examples of misleading communication at Downland.

  ‘We’re monitoring the situation’ means we’re doing nothing. ‘We’re actively monitoring the situation’ means we’re actively doing nothing. ‘The situation is under review’ means we lost the file.

  And then there are the titles intended to glamorise the dull. We have Waste Transfer Operatives who empty the bins, Daylight Maintenance Engineers who clean the windows, and an Equal Opportunities Officer who leans to the left.

  Danni, who believes that everything can be done more efficiently and effectively, is on a mission to introduce clear and concise communication – or CACC as it’s now known. The trouble is she’s mistaken acronyms for concise communication.

  She summons me PDQ at 1400 GMT into her office for my APA. When I arrive I find a note that says ‘Grabbing a DSL’.

  Thankfully, Kelly speaks fluent acronym. “Decaffeinated skinny latte,” she explains, placing a file on the desk. “Or in your case, Kent, DSL means you’re in deep shit, lover.”

  “Me? What have I done?”

  “Or what have you not done?” She points at the file. “Your APA – Annual Performance Appraisal – is well bad.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  She nods. “I typed it up.”

  Why am I surprised that my appraisal was carried out without me being there?

  “So much for discussing and agreeing the contents first,” I say, wondering when Danni’s efficiency campaign meant making decisions for everyone.

  “You haven’t brought your LDP, have you?”

  Before I can ask her to translate, Danni strolls in with her DSL. “I specifically asked you to bring your LDP, Kent. Wasn’t my email clear enough for you?”

  “Sorry, Danni, I missed the AFM course.”

  I know she has no idea what I’m talking about, but being a manager she’s not allowed to admit this in case she looks weak. “Sorry, I’m talking CACC,” I say, giving Kelly a sly wink as she leaves. “It’s the Acronyms for Managers course. Apparently I was AWOL when the invitations went out. So, maybe you can tell me what an LDP is.”

  “It’s your Learning and Development Portfolio.”

  I had a feeling I’d be none the wiser.

  She sits and sips her coffee through the small hole in the lid. “It’s where you record your training and Continuing Professional Development.”

  “I know what CPD is, thanks. But I wasn’t aware I had to record it in an LDP. But now I know I’ll do it PDQ. QED, as they say in scientific circles.”

  “You like to have the last word, don’t you?”

  I shrug and move my head from side to side.

  She picks up the file from her desk. “Are you aware your team has the worst performance statistics in the Council?”

  I sit opposite, realising I’ll be here for some time. “That depends on what you’re measuring, surely. Are you saying we do less work, or do fewer jobs to a higher quality?”

  She fixes me with a cold stare. “Your team fails to meet performance targets more than any other team in the council.”

  “That’s because we don’t fiddle our returns, Danni. We tell it how it is. Are you asking me to lie?”

  “If I told you your individual performance is one of the poorest I’ve ever seen, what would you say?”

  “Following your example obviously isn’t working.”

  Her laugh sounds empty. “How can you be so sharp and witty, yet so dumb when it comes to the simple targets I set?”

  “Perhaps if we agreed targets I’d be more likely to meet them.”

  “You advocate management by committee?”

  “No, management by consensus.”

  She opens the thin file that takes pride of place on her precise desk. “Does that mean the team decided to waste an afternoon with the Scenes of Crimes Officer from Sussex Police?”

  “Mike Turner showed us how to collect evidence and preserve the scene of a crime.”

  She starts to massage her temples with her fingers. “Are you proposing to investigate murders while inspecting the kitchens?”

  While this could be an excellent example of joint working, I think it’s best to keep it to myself. “I know a few chefs who can murder a good recipe,” I reply.

  “I can think of a few managers who could be driven to murder,” she says, glaring at me. “Are you trying to make me a laughing stock? Whatever possessed you to bring in a Scenes of Crime Officer?”

  “We investigate workplace deaths, don’t we?”

  “Health and safety at work is hardly murder, Kent.”

  “But it’s still a crime. What if someone is crushed by a forklift truck, or falls to their death from a ladder? We can’t afford to lose or miss evidence. We need to know how best to interview witnesses and suspects. Even if we only attend the Coroners Court to give evidence, we want to look professional, surely? That’s what Mike taught us.”

  Danni steeples her fingers. “Kent, this is rural Sussex not the dark satanic mills of the north. People work in tea rooms and garden centres. They die from old age and polishing antiques, not work accidents.”

  I try to contain my increasing frustration, but fail.

  “When did you last visit a garden centre, Danni? Didn’t you see the forklift truck moving pallets of compost? Didn’t you notice the glass on the greenhouse roof that has to be cleaned? What about the plant bulbs, coated with fungicides that can cause severe dermatitis? What about the pesticides?”

  “I delegate all that to you, Kent. It’s the key to successful management.”

  “I thought that was listening skills.”

  “So, what’s the key to improving your team’s performance?” she asks, pulling a sheet of printed paper from the file.

  “Employing more of the Chief Executive’s relatives?”

  The smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Appraisal is the key, Kent. It’s the nub of successful management, the pathway to future development. I’ll expect your team’s APAs on my desk in a week’s time.”

  Back at my desk I find a subdued team. Bad news travels fast. “How can we be the worst team in the council?” Nigel asks. “HR said vacant posts perform better than us.”

  “Others fiddle their statistics,” Lucy says, peering around her monitor. “So why won’t you, Kent? Do you want us to lose our jobs?”

  “It’s fraud,” says Kelly, joining us. “And no one knows what you do anyway. I mean, I never realised they put cow’s eyelids and lips in pies and burgers. Imagine finding one of them staring back at you.”

  Nigel winces. “I’d rather not, thanks.”

  “Yeah, but it’s well cool,” Kelly continues. “That’s why eating out’s so exciting. You never know what you’re going to get. I never knew there were so many types of food poisoning. I thought the world just fell out of your bottom.”

  “At least you know the names of the bugs now,” I say.

  “Yeah, it’s so much easier to skip work when you can say salmonella and name all the symptoms.” She bursts into a fit of giggles, struggling to speak through them. “My mate, Cheryl, nearly lost her job when they asked her what malaise was.”

  “Why?” Lucy asks.

  “She told them it was salad dressing.”

  “And appraisals are window dressing,” Lucy says, her voice rising above the laughter.

  I can see I need to deal with this right away. In the absence of anything positive to say in favour of appraisals, I recall the lecture Danni gave me. “Appraisals are the nub of successful management.”

  Lucy hoots. “Listen to Mr Manager, talking nubs.”

  “What’s a nub?” Kelly asks.

  “It’s like a key,” Nigel replies. “The key to successful management.”

  Lucy smirks. “I thought that was creeping. Anyway, according to Google a nub is a small lump or protuberance.”

  “My nan has one of them on her neck,” Kelly says, becoming animated. “It’s brown with hairs growing out of it, like. When she’s bored, she flicks it with her finger. It’s well gross.”

  “Brown, hairy and well gross,” Lucy says, glancing towards Danni’s office. “We’re definitely talking nubs.”

  Bog Standard

  I sometimes feel like I’m losing the battle to maintain standards. When I asked my team to spell check their emails before sending them, I was soon sermoned to see the Head of IT in his office on the thud flour.

  I approach Gerry Wardle’s office, expecting to hear sitar music wafting along the corridor. He should wear a kaftan to go with his yellow tinted John Lennon spectacles, but today he’s wearing a crumpled flower motif shirt and knee-length jeans.

  “Hi, dude,” he says, extracting fluff from between his toes, “take a pew.”

  I sit on the sofa while he slides his foot into an open toe sandal. “Do you ever get chafing?” he asks, wiggling his toes.

  This is not the most appropriate question to ask someone you hardly know. “The occasional jogger’s nipple,” I reply.

  “Man, that’s a beast, especially under a hot shower.”

  He sprawls out in his executive leather chair and puts his arms behind his head. “So, Kent, what’s this I hear about you creating IT policy? You fed up with closing down restaurants?”

  “It’s unprofessional to send emails full of spelling mistakes.”

  “No worse than text speak, I’d say.” Gerry studies his tie as if he’s trying to work out what he had for lunch yesterday. “You know the Chief Executive’s on a texting course so he can communicate with the district’s youth.”

  “I heard, yes. But as the invitation came by text he could be anywhere doing anything as we speak.”

  “But Kent, it’s his right to make a tit of himself. And it’s a fundamental human right to express yourself freely, with or without a spell checker, man. Like who cares?”

  “Lots of people care, Gerry. Without standards, society slides into anarchy and chaos.”

  He laughs. “You were always the master of understatement, Kent. Just stop creating rules you can’t enforce or HR will be after you.”

  Being pursued by the lovely Sarah is one of my fantasies. Unfortunately, it reminds me I need to talk to her boss, Felicity Trimble, who’s obstructing my attempts to manage my team.

  Unlike Gerry, she’s dour and precise, sitting behind a large desk that is spotlessly clean and tidy, a trait she shares with Danni.

  “Ah, Mr Fisher,” she says, gesturing to a chair, “you’ve finally graced us with your presence. If it’s concerning your request for last year’s appraisals then you’ve had a wasted journey. I will not release confidential documents.”

  “Then how am I supposed to carry out this year’s appraisals?”

  “Not possible. You haven’t had appraisal training.” She taps a couple of keys and glances at her monitor. “According to my database you have avoided any kind of training for years. That makes you a development desert, Mr Fisher. But fear not because I’m your oasis.”

  The thought of her becoming my ‘Wonderwall’ distracts me for a moment. “Is that because there’s no training budget?” I ask.

  “That’s a question for the Head of Finance.”

  My heart sinks. Finance – the department that puts income as a minus figure on my budget sheets. How intuitive is that? If I challenge this, I’m informed that no one else has a problem with a system that has worked for decades. Had I taken Financial and Income Systems training – or FIST as it’s referred to – I would have known that.

  “But I have no training budget,” I protest. “That can’t be right.”

  “Then you need to talk to HR.”

  Deadlock. I can’t appraise my team against last year’s targets because I’m not allowed to see them. And without training, I’m not allowed to carry out appraisals. Why am I wasting so much time fighting the people who should be helping me? It makes no sense at all.

  In desperation I approach Danni.

  “You don’t have a training budget because I need to make savings,” she tells me. “Most internal training courses are free, so I don’t see a problem, do you? Or don’t you read my training course emails?”

  “I’ve never seen one.”

  “You’re probably not on the mailing list. If you talk to IT, they can fix that.”

  Once again my heart sinks. Standards have dropped too far. How can Danni just take away a budget without any repercussions? Joanna on the IT Helpdesk seems unconcerned. “You’re not in STAB,” she says, ignoring my outburst. “I’ll get you a JAB.”

  “Fab,” I remark, wondering when acronyms TOTW – sorry, took over the world. “Could I have that in English please?”

  “STAB is the Standard Training Address Book,” she replies, as if I’m a moron. “If you’re not in it you need a JAB – Join an Address Book. There’s an online form to complete and submit to HR.”

  A few minutes later I’m back on the top floor in Felicity’s office, giving her a JAB. “I’d like to join STAB, please.”

  She shakes her head. “STAB is now SLAB – Standard Learning Address Book. It’s a Human Rights issue. We can’t train people, you see. But we can facilitate learning.”

  I’m learning that you can’t get anywhere without a degree in acronyms. “Will I need a learning budget?”

 

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