A Jester, Shoes and the Fat Controller

There was outrage amongst some of my fellow Jesters a couple of days ago. I would have mentioned this yesterday but I was on an 11am - 8pm shift and when I got home last night, I was too tired to even contemplate going on the computer. I went to bed instead.

I think a little background would be useful here. Our department, the Complaints Department, has grown quite a lot over the past few years. There used to be five or six of us at one time and now there are 40 odd Complaints Handlers. This means that we have outgrown our part of the office and so we have sprouted offshoots. Up until today, there was a small group of us away from the main area but still on the same floor and another upstairs sharing space with other departments. I have been sitting in what I humorously call "the leper colony" downstairs. There is always a little bit of banter going on in our little offshoot. The people upstairs probably keep their heads down a little bit more and get on with their work a little bit more.

Unfortunately for them, they are under the eye of our Customer Services Director, also known as Mad Eye W- or the Fat Controller. Now I have very little time for this man. He likes to come across as a bluff sort of man, a bit of a man of the people. However, he is a moral coward and a back-stabber and he looks unpleasantly like a cross between John Prescott, a Sontaran, Kryten and Mad Eye Moody.

I had my first run-in with him a couple of years ago when he took objection to me getting coffee from our staff canteen during work time - i.e. not in my break time. I wouldn't have minded if he had told me himself but he got a junior colleague of mine to do it. He started as he meant to go on and to my knowledge has never tackled anybody himself about perceived misdemeanours but has instead e-mailed their managers or, if a manager cannot be found (as in my case), then a colleague. I make a point of avoiding him at all costs. I will not make eye contact with him or say a word to him. Petty, I know, but I cannot stand the man.

Anyway, apparently, one of our Jesters upstairs was talking enthusiastically about some new shoes she had just acquired and he noticed (her talking, not the shoes). He told one of our managers about this (ironically, the same junior colleague who told me not to get coffee in company time a couple of years ago - she has since been promoted), who immediately went upstairs and, if I'm not mistaken, told the whole group that the Fat Controller thought they were all a waste of space.

This inspired great wrath and one of the girls immediately spoke to our managers' manager (we have a complicated hierarchy in the Dark Satanic Mill) and said that if it was not "sorted out" she would put in a grievance against the FC. After a little to-ing and fro-ing, they were told that he had taken exception to just one of them (the shoe enthusiast), he had not said that they were all a waste of space and they did not need worry.

This leaves a bad taste in the mouth for us all. Yet again, he lacked the moral courage to go over and tell the Jester in question to shut up about shoes and get on with her work. It also begs the question, what exactly did he say to our manager? If he did not refer to them as all a waste of space, then surely she has behaved in an extremely unprofessional manner.

One last point. I have already written about this particular manager. She is the one I accused of being a bully in a previous blog, Jester, Jeannie and the Missing Post. Her rise through the ranks was rapid after the FC noticed her and he couldn't fail to notice her. We were without a manager at the time and she took over some of the administration tasks, as did Goodwill Jester and some other members of the department. However, she did this very noisily and with great fanfare and so she was noticed. She leap-frogged one of the grades in our department at her next PDR and when the Dark Satanic Mill advertised for Trainee Team Managers, he encouraged her to apply and sponsored her application. She "graduated" and is now a manager in our department. I have not been particularly impressed with her managerial skills so far and therefore, by extension, with him as a judge of good manager material.