The Gray Monk

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May 28, 2006

All things considered ......

The last few weeks, if not months, have certainly held their challenges. Not the least of these has been the fact that I have been heavily involved in a redevelopment task which is trying to turn a two week and very intensive course into a one week course with lots of "e-learning" to make up the difference. Now e-learnming certainly has a place in the modern scheme of things, but I have certain very strong reservations about what it can actually achieve in terms of higher level conveyance of knowledge and understanding - especially in highly technical subjects and in situations where a huge amount of the current teaching is not out of books or notes, but out of the heads of the teachers - and is developed and conveyed in the interaction between student and teacher. That cannot and will not happen in an e-learning package - simply because there is no way it can be supported 24/7 by online mentors, teachers of advisers. FAQ's have been mooted as a solution to this, but frankly simply cannot answer all the potential questions and cannot fulfill the requirement to discuss and cross check understanding.

Coupled with a "practical" programme that this is supposed to support that is frankly half baked and does not address half the students required learning needs, and I am not very happy about my professional name being attached to this. This is, in fact compounded by the receipt today, of an "offer to retire - voluntarily" and congratulating me on "my successful application to take voluntary release". Don't you just love management speak?

What it boils down to is that I have been given an option, take a "voluntary" package and go a day after my 60th birthday, or refuse the voluntary package and be retired anyway. Unfortunately they can do this - as long as it is done and dusted by the 31st October. Why? Because the law changes on that date and I would become a very expensive asset in their terms - and one they could not get shot of without making me "redundant" and paying out an even bigger lump of cash.

All things considered however, I am glad that I have finally received a date on which I will no longer have to dance to the tune of the politicians and their minions who have sold their souls to the ideology of the moment in return for what passes for job security these days. In one way I am my own worst enemy in this regard since I have never been able to bring myself to sing the political ditty of the day and have twice chosen to stand on professional principle rather than bow to coercion and follow a path I could not professionally subscribe to. In both cases I was proved correct in the longer term - and had to help put things back on the right track and repair the damage. I will not do so again. This time I will walk away, with a pension that does not cover the mortgage, but will also be free to earn an honest living without the frustrations I have endured for the last four and half years. I do not, at this stage, know exactly how this will all turn out, but I am reasonably confident that it will turn out well.

Ironically, those who trashed everything I and others had built to make our training credible and of lasting value to our students, have now had to confess that we were right and they got it wrong. Already there are attempts to rebuild what was lost, but it may already be too late to save the institution that has provided the professional emergency service Prescott and Blair have all but destroyed. It is now, thanks to the Civil Servants who imposed gender and equality quotas, unloaded civilian management (which means we now have a "director" on inflated salaries for almost every two teaching staff) on us who know nothing of the service, care nothing for the service and take orders from Whitehall. This has disconnected us from our "customers" and lead, thanks to the mantra of "shorter and cheaper", led to competition springing up in all directions. I suppose I should not complain - since I am now in receipt of job offers from several of the competitors, all of whom are offering better rates than the place I have given so much too.

Am I bitter? Well, I suppose I must be, after all, you cannot give as much as I have tried to do without feeling very sore when your efforts are trashed, denigrated - or simply credited to that amorphous "Management". No doubt, when it all goes down the tubes and the place finally closes, we will see the Honours List adorrned with the names of the present Management all awarded CBE, KBE or DBE as appropriate for "services to the emergency services".

Small wonder that the Australians long ago dubbed these as "Cunning Bastards Efforts", "Knowing Bastards Efforts" and "Deadly B***h's Efforts". I am sorry to say that too many of the gongs handed out in the last few years have gone to people whose career choice has been to play the politics - and to hell with professional conduct. If you want to know what thirty pieces of silver look like - just check the Honours List for the CBE and above awarded to any Civil Servant or any member of the "modern" emergency services for their efforts in "modernising" the services. Equally sadly, this detracts hugely from the just recognition of those who receive the OBE or MBE for their truly deserving efforts to improve a service or to serve their community.

All things considered, it is probably time I went, a pity that it has to be with such a bitter taste and a feeling of wasted effort. What an epitaph for a career!

Posted by The Gray Monk at May 28, 2006 07:06 PM

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Comments

Posted by: vw bug at May 28, 2006 12:48 PM

Posted by: The Gray Monk at May 29, 2006 09:59 AM

Posted by: skipjack at May 29, 2006 05:39 PM