On my way out to lunch, I fell into conversation with a fellow Colleague and he remarked that morale seemed to have slipped quite a bit over the last three weeks. Nothing anyone can put their finger on, just a general slackening of mood. Well, three weeks or so ago we had confirmation of when we are being expelled from the Eden of the West End into the Hell of the Liverpool Street Industrial Estate. Then there was an announcement that the Great Computer Project would be delayed, which added to the experience most people have of it, that it is going to be a huge mess that leaves brown smelly stuff all over everyone except the Truly Guilty.
Now the "cost savings" are coming. There's National No-Travel Week once a month. There's a rumour that anyone seen with a colour print-out will be marked as Not On Program. We're not supposed to print stuff. Now the reason I know this is a gesture is that if they were really serious, they would be removing the photocopier / printers. (They did a hand-in-your-old-computers week.) Except it wouldn't help if they did because photocopier / printers are on unbreakable multi-year rental contracts. Not printing is a gesture. There's a hiring freeze - but then, when isn't there a hiring freeze? The message that's going out is that non-compliance with the cost-cutting program will sink you, commercial creativity won't get a budget and actual success won't matter.
But the press rumour about 15,000 more job losses is way more true than you might think. The Bank must employ the corporate PR equivalent of Max Clifford, it's so good at keeping stuff out of the Press. If anything comes out, it's because The Bank wants it to come out. That article was a managing-expectations leak, and the expectations it was managing are the employees'. You know what happens now. The voluntary redundancy program, the office closures and moves, the non-compulsory compulsory headcount reduction.
Much more to the point is the increased pressure on the middle managers to get things done without the support and staff to do it and when the people who Actually Do Things have been told that they can't hire, spend and have these high priorities first. So the organisation turns into one huge pushing, bargaining, meeting-holding, priority-shuffling mess and the weak managers pass the tasks off onto their subordinates then blame them for lack of "influencing skills" when, surprise surprise, they can't get anything done. Which means everyone gets mediocre and poor reviews, no-one gets pay rises or bonuses and morale, having sunk, settles on the sea-bed. The whole place starts back-biting and arse-covering. Because no-one can actually do a grown-up's job, they make do by finding fault with each others' numbers and "challenging" assumptions and statements. Because no-one will actually be able to do anything, all they will do is posture.
Which throws us right back to the dysfunctional Bank of a few years ago. I hate that environment. Some people love it, but they were the kids at school who used to throw other kids back-packs over the fence.
Damn it. I liked the way The Bank was a few weeks ago. Now it's going to sink into the shite again and become just another posturing British Institution, like Virgin Media, Cable and Wireless, South-West Trains and all the others.
And double-damn it, the job market sucks. I've been on a couple of interviews and the phrase "frying pan to frying pan" occurs to me. And the rate at which Barclays hires people implies a rate of them leaving which is slightly scary. Like the annual recruitment of the Pricing Analyst at Tiscali as was.
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