Pieds en feu (Feet on fire)
At every shift’s end you can hear the complaint “My fucking feet are on fire.” Or “My bloody feet are burning.” It’s guaranteed. We’re all dog tired at a shift’s end, and the pace has been upped to a point where it takes me over an hour to recover enough from work to cook or even write when I get home. I slump at my desk, literally exhausted. Even my rest days don’t give me enough time to recuperate properly.
I can’t speak for the others, but it’s a fair bet that many are feeling the same way. This whole new regime has us missing much needed breaks, simply because there is no way you can manage your beat properly and fit everything in. All the zinc oxide tape and talc in Christendom isn’t making much difference on the foot front either. In addition, an old Rugby injury is making its presence felt. In the words of Marvin the Paranoid Android “I ache, therefore I am.”
While I’m ranting on the subject of ‘targets’; first thing this morning I was reading about the new educational ‘targets’ being set for pre-school children and babies. Is someone having a laugh here? Is this a joke? If not; I’m bloody well not having any putative step-grandchildren of mine anywhere near a state monitored nursery. The powers that be can keep their inept and greasy mitts off them. Even at the end of having to forcibly and terminally remove busybodies like this from the household (Sorry, thought they were a kidnap gang. No, never saw any local authority ID – Really Officer, I didn’t. Sorry about the blood). Even if we have to smuggle the poor little mites out of the country.
Is it just me or is everything being driven by ‘targets’ nowadays? Would someone with more than two properly functioning brain cells kindly tell me what real and practical use these ‘targets’ fulfil? Apart from driving the people who actually do a job of work somewhere up a very large and precipitous wall? Having given the matter a little thought I wondered; isn’t it funny those who set the bloody targets are never the ones who have to meet them, day in, day out. How they must laugh at us poor fools.
Excuse me, I just don’t understand the need; but then I’m just a thickie Parking Warden type aren’t I?
I can’t speak for the others, but it’s a fair bet that many are feeling the same way. This whole new regime has us missing much needed breaks, simply because there is no way you can manage your beat properly and fit everything in. All the zinc oxide tape and talc in Christendom isn’t making much difference on the foot front either. In addition, an old Rugby injury is making its presence felt. In the words of Marvin the Paranoid Android “I ache, therefore I am.”
While I’m ranting on the subject of ‘targets’; first thing this morning I was reading about the new educational ‘targets’ being set for pre-school children and babies. Is someone having a laugh here? Is this a joke? If not; I’m bloody well not having any putative step-grandchildren of mine anywhere near a state monitored nursery. The powers that be can keep their inept and greasy mitts off them. Even at the end of having to forcibly and terminally remove busybodies like this from the household (Sorry, thought they were a kidnap gang. No, never saw any local authority ID – Really Officer, I didn’t. Sorry about the blood). Even if we have to smuggle the poor little mites out of the country.
Is it just me or is everything being driven by ‘targets’ nowadays? Would someone with more than two properly functioning brain cells kindly tell me what real and practical use these ‘targets’ fulfil? Apart from driving the people who actually do a job of work somewhere up a very large and precipitous wall? Having given the matter a little thought I wondered; isn’t it funny those who set the bloody targets are never the ones who have to meet them, day in, day out. How they must laugh at us poor fools.
Excuse me, I just don’t understand the need; but then I’m just a thickie Parking Warden type aren’t I?
4 Comments:
Little known trick:
Liberally cover your feet in petroleum jelly before putting on your socks and shoes.
I know it sounds terrible and it does feel weird at first but it actually works. And your feet will thank you at the end of the day.
Old "boot camp" trick, taught to me by my Dad, for those long marches.
when bonus rates were being set for piece work a compromise was always reached. One person set the time, he was experienced enought to know that if he was too quick the other workers couldn't make any bonus and if he was too slow the management would be paying out too much and would intervene. Thanks to thatcher (small "T") we are all middle class now but think of these targets as open-loop bonuses. Close the loop by uniting and achieving a manageable amounnt. Management will be forced to adjust the targets. Of course if you work independently according to the middle-class model you are screwed
It's not just 'education' targets - everything that derives from this controlling (and out of control) government that a minority of the people of this country elected for us.
If you're reading this please have a look at this petition and sign it if you agree. I hope I never have to deal with a bailiff but am sure people in distress do not need to be 'robbed' with state approval as well. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Bailiff-Violence/
Having worked in a target driven 'industry' (mainly) managed by an implausible but no less real assortment of morons I have come to realise that for those who know fuck-all targets, rather knowledge, are power.
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