A bit of a lefty rant

We’re doomed.

Our society is going to collapse sooner or later. I’m no astronomer but as I understand it, when a star reaches the end of its life it collapses in upon itself. The forces are so great that the matter becomes compacted and compacted until it is so dense that it becomes a point of singularity and a black hole is formed. Maybe the science isn’t quite right but you get the idea. We are going the same way. Genuine intelligence is reaching the end of its life and is beginning to collapse in upon itself. Soon there will be no more common sense and in its place will be a super dense point of singular stupidity.

But hold hard. This isn’t a rant against other drivers, children, shop assistants or people with push chairs. This is an attack of corporate directors. Once upon a time they would have thoughts of their own. Once upon a time the people at the top were the ones who created things, designed products and ran the company. They were the entrepreneurs – the wealth makers in society. Now a days they are parasites. Anyone who has worked for a big company knows how utterly worthless these people are.

You see, the flaw in the whole concept is that the people at the top – paid seven figures plus bonus and accountable only to each other – are employed to change things. The alleged logic is that change is good (sadly they have never heard of the politician’s syllogism “We must do something, this is something therefore we must do it”). Change is good so things have to change. Therefore every big company is in a permanent state of major change. Reorganisation upon reorganisation. But if one – just ONE – of their ideas was ever workable then they would never need to change again. If they put into place a system that actually did what it was supposed to do then they would be out of a job. Like the petrol company which suppresses the engine powered by water, so the board of directors deliberately seeks out plans that they know will fail to ensure that they remain in place. You would think that failure would equal the sack but every change is timed to take place before the previous failure has been fully witnessed. The staff on the ground can see how shit stupid the idea is but those at the top judging the results do not.

A juggler is only a juggler as long as his balls are in the air.

Let’s take an example of a big company – let’s call this fictional company Porwich Union (not to be confused with the real Norwich Union, obviously) – and they decide to start shipping their call centres out to India to save money. Indian labour is cheaper, Indian labour laws are much less strict so they can indulge their favourite past time of urinating on their employees in as many ways as possible. You are a Porwich Union customer and you have a problem. You call them to ask for information. Your call is routed from your home in Sunderland to somewhere thousands of miles away. Your query is then dealt with by someone who has received more training in how to con you into believing you are talking to an operator in Britain than they have on the service they are offering. They have been briefed on what English name to use, how to speak with a proper English accent, what the latest developments are in English current affairs and soap operas and very little on what you need to do in the event of burglary or fire. Because – and I am not making ANY of this up – Porwich Union do not care about you. They care about taking your money and not spending any of theirs.

The directors claim that one hundred Indian workers on a salary of £3,000 per year is a better proposition than one hundred British workers on salaries of £10,000 a year. They claim the Indian workers are better, the cost of buildings and infrastructure is less and that the savings are in the interests of everyone. In that case, why not sack fifty British directors on salaries of £1,000,000 per year and replace them with fifty Indian directors on salaries of £10,000 per year? A big saving and a more streamlined corporate structure because the directors would be closer to their staff.

Obviously this would never happen. The Indian people are too noble and generous to allow such appalling abuses as are demonstrated by the British director. The whole system would collapse if people of any intelligence were put in charge. With their sense of community and family, the Indian directors would destroy the self serving structure that has been carefully built over the past twenty years.

So Porwich Union believes that the staff they have are worthless, staff abroad are more easily exploited, their customers are nothing more than Direct Debit mandates and that the sole moral barometer in the land is the share price. Sadly, Porwich Union’s share price is a third of what it was three years ago. Obviously this problem can be fixed… by simply giving the directors three times as many shares so they don’t lose out.

Ten million customers.

Forty thousand staff.

Fifty people who leech off all of the above to feather their own nests.

Alas Porwich Union are not unique. Every major company operates on similar lines. They sell more and more business, have fewer and fewer staff to administer it therefore, like the dying star, the pressures involved in this inrush will create a point of singularity. With no new ideas able to escape, the old ones will continue to be recycled and rebranded until we finally put the whole parasitic lot of them against a big wall and shoot them through the head.

26th November 2003