When life gives you lemons make lemonade.
I have not liked that saying for most of my life. Right now though it makes sense. Sometimes you have to apply the saying in a different way and use that deep down sarcasm that lurks inside us all. Sometimes no matter how much you want to make lemonade people will get in the way.
Over the past (very traumatic) seven months I have had to deal with a number of people in Newcastle City Council and in particular the children’s service. In particular the management team. To say it has been a struggle would be a massive understatement. I am not sure that writing about it will do the stupidity and disregard for me and Tam any justice. If the people I have dealt with from children’s services have shown me anything it is that stupid people employ stupid people and that once a culture of an organisation has turned rotten and no longer functions for the reason that it was designed it should just die. The problem with the public sector is that does not happen. More money gets spent and wasted to prop up a service that does not function for its expected and needed purpose. All it does is employ people who are rotten inside just like the system that they prop up. It is a diabolical system that if it was a commercial business would be bankrupted and forgotten about quickly while another company steps in and does it better.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
The only positive thing that I can say is that incompetence rules at NCC and the law of unintended consequeces sometimes comes to the rescue. Eventually, eventually the accidental outcome of total and utter incompetance is that someone makes a mistake and all of the bits fall into place. Well Newcastle City Council Childrens services I do not congratulate you. You have been absolutely abysmal, you communication lacks empathy and substance, the lack of keeping everyone on the same set of lies and just the delusion that is shown in providing what you all seem to think is a great service. Score - F (for fail)
At least now I am free of having to sit in meetings with the management team. I will no longer have to listen to the excuses of
- budgets are tight - well you waste loads on money
- shortage of staff - anyone with an reasonable amount of intelligence would quit working in the chaos that seems to pass for work
- getting good staff is difficult - so you employ bad people
The amount of people who seem to have been involved in what is a simple situation is beyond belief. The amount of time that I have heard “well we have to wait for someone to come in” as a reason for not being able to make progress is beyond belief. NCC seem to have setup an organisation that looks after the employees rather than to provide a service.
If anyone at NCC is sitting there reading this and thinking that I have been overly dramatic or unfair then you really need to look in the mirror and stop deluding yourself. Go on, find a mirror, go on, look yourself in the face and ask yourself a question “would my Mother be proud of me?”. I guarantee that if I spent 20 minutes talking to her and showing her how the system works she would not be proud of any of you. I bet I could approach dozens of families that have needed your help and would find a similar story. I have major doubts that any would praise NCC for anything other than incompetence.
No one has taken a hold of a simple situation and made it happen. I stand by the fact that progress has come about as an unintended consequence.
Thank you science you saved the situation.
Alan
Dad and Broken Human. (click the envelope to reach out)
