It’s all in the asking

Image by Tonyç via Flickr

So none of this is true, but at this place I know really well, they’ve got these bar code scanners which are quite expensive and they bar code every piece of work with a unique 8-digit bar code. And they’ve never got any money, in fact they are always being told to look for ways to save money and every potential purchased is scrutinised until it withers under the glare and the request slinks away to some bottomless pit. And yet senior management saw fit to sign off the best part of £1000.00 for 8x bar code scanner so some of the Consultants didn’t have to weary themselves typing in an 8-digit number, maybe 12 times a day (occasionally). The rest of the staff and the data entry clerks and so forth, well they type in hundreds of 8-digit numbers a day, they get a bar code scanner if they are lucky, very lucky. And some of them even get to sit on chairs that have all the traditional number of legs, or aren’t broken or got a wheel missing. Some of them get to sit in environments that are lit or at a nice ambient temperature – most don’t get this luxury because they don’t have any money to spend on niceties, like bar codes scanners for people who are hardly ever there and when they are there – do a minimal amount of work that require said scanners – oh no wait we do, it all depends on who is doing the asking.

And then just double up the irony it transpires that they didn’t need 8 – no, they only needed 4; but said consulants wanted them to all look the same…. It doesn’t matter what they look like, they are a point and zap, they all function in exactly the same way. But it seems aesthetic value counts for a lot if you’re a consultant: To the tune of stumping up £1000.00 for kit we don’t need but looks nice. But stuff we do desperately need, well that’s not a consultant asking is it, so the rest just get to make do and mend grubbing around just to try and get the job done.