A day of two meetings
Aug. 28th, 2008 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylI had a deeply productive meeting first thing this morning, all cut and thrust, thrashing out the details of the new system and trying to come up with ways to ditch some of the more atavistic elements of our current system. It was great fun.
Then, this afternoon, we had a group meeting with one of our Lords and Masters which could haven't been more different. None of us wanted to be there, none of us had any real questions and no-one had taken the trouble to pass on an agenda. Consequently, the whole encounter was extremely stilted and rather embarrassing: I alternated between staring at my feet — at which point I noticed that I really needed a pedicure — and look hopefully at my boss, in much the same way that a drowning man looks hopefully at a lifebuoy.
The only remotely interesting item that came up for discussion was the ongoing regrading process. One of my colleagues expressed his dismay at being rated as a junior sysadmin, something that everyone — his line manager, his people manager, his divisional manager, everyone in the rest of the group — thought was completely unfair given that his job is exactly the same as that of the seniors. But all that our Lord and Master would say was that the post was junior for a reason and that he should find out why, follow the steps needed to upgrade and get himself upgraded.
But things aren't that simple. For one thing, the grades are being rejigged to normalise them with other divisions within the office. And for another, the salary of the post doesn't depend so much on the grade as on the skill set associated with the job — something else which has yet to be defined. Of this uncertainly is something of a concern given that we've been told that the new grades will be doled out in a couple of weeks time. My worry is that because of all the uncertainty, we'll end up being sold a pig in a poke: the allocations will be doled out, we will be asked to give a firm yea or nay, and only afterwards will we discover what it means for our careers. I mean, how can I possibly give informed agreement to something if I don't know its potential effects?
To describe the regrading process as shambolic is to give it far too much credit for organisation...
Then, this afternoon, we had a group meeting with one of our Lords and Masters which could haven't been more different. None of us wanted to be there, none of us had any real questions and no-one had taken the trouble to pass on an agenda. Consequently, the whole encounter was extremely stilted and rather embarrassing: I alternated between staring at my feet — at which point I noticed that I really needed a pedicure — and look hopefully at my boss, in much the same way that a drowning man looks hopefully at a lifebuoy.
The only remotely interesting item that came up for discussion was the ongoing regrading process. One of my colleagues expressed his dismay at being rated as a junior sysadmin, something that everyone — his line manager, his people manager, his divisional manager, everyone in the rest of the group — thought was completely unfair given that his job is exactly the same as that of the seniors. But all that our Lord and Master would say was that the post was junior for a reason and that he should find out why, follow the steps needed to upgrade and get himself upgraded.
But things aren't that simple. For one thing, the grades are being rejigged to normalise them with other divisions within the office. And for another, the salary of the post doesn't depend so much on the grade as on the skill set associated with the job — something else which has yet to be defined. Of this uncertainly is something of a concern given that we've been told that the new grades will be doled out in a couple of weeks time. My worry is that because of all the uncertainty, we'll end up being sold a pig in a poke: the allocations will be doled out, we will be asked to give a firm yea or nay, and only afterwards will we discover what it means for our careers. I mean, how can I possibly give informed agreement to something if I don't know its potential effects?
To describe the regrading process as shambolic is to give it far too much credit for organisation...
