Tag: Change

Lemmings that pivot

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Winds of change blowing

charter for sycophancy

to be seen to do

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by Scooj

  • I have been around the block a few times in my job as a public servant and civil servant, and observed the ‘change lust’ that occupies Ministers, their Special Advisers and organisational seniors. It is a sight to see, where ‘yes men and women’ unquestioningly make change, because ‘change is the new norm’, and who would dare challenge or suggest alternatives.
  • All Governments and Government Departments do it. It causes disruption, but the surge in activity looks like something is being done, and ‘that’s what the voters want to see’. What the voters don’t see are the inefficiencies of change, the costs of change, and that top-down change rarely results in the outcomes hoped for, but hey ‘at least we were doing something’.
  • I’m an old cynic. It is my job to question and to call out what I think is wrong. I am no pragmatist or ‘human resource counter’, I am a brilliant employee who has to go through and try to survive another huge change, but survive I will. And all the others who are caught up in this flurry of excitement will move on and take their disruption with them.

Calling time

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Overwhelming joy

general election called

so long overdue

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by Scooj

  • I won’t go on for too long, but I have been waiting for this day for a very long time, and while the future under any new administration will be uncertain, there are truths about the past that are too much to bear. I care most about two things – public services and the biodiversity and climate crisis (that so many wedded to (funded by) the oil and gas industries have done their best to discredit) so I think you can probably guess who I won’t be voting for.
  • As someone who has spent my entire career in public service I have witnessed first-hand the jaw-dropping disregard the Tories have had for their staff in the civil service, health service, local authorities and agencies who have largely taken huge real-terms cuts in salaries over the last 14 years (in my own case about 19% cut). Cuts in staff numbers and budgets have been demoralising and to cap it all an ideology and poisonous narrative that suggests public servants are somehow ‘swinging the lead’.
  • But it is not just public service employees that have suffered, but the whole nation, particularly those who depend on or need the support public services can offer, the only people who are immune from the ferocious public sector cuts are the wealthy, many of whom do their very best to avoid paying taxes and resent paying taxes, so that they can maintain their ever more comfortable lives. I feel all of this is a sickening cliché… you know where I’m coming from.
  • I truly hope for change. I can see a much brighter future, both politically and environmentally. We do not have to succumb to the Hollywood tropes of a dystopian future, instead a green and compassionate future is something all of us can aspire to, a gentle kind world. This is my goal and my passion. It is why I am here.

Transmission

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In transmission mode

composing a note to self

listen more, talk less

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by Scooj

Two years

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So little has changed

since last I visited here

a great deal has changed

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by Scooj

on returning to the office after two years away.

Late

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At last, northerlies

draw down heavy Arctic air

and we see our breath

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by Scooj

3118. Dean Lane skate park (340)

Before I start this post, may I say just how much I dislike the new WordPress editor. It is utterly pants, and although it appears to have more functionality, writing a post takes about twice as long as commands are a little more buried in the architecture. Moan over.

This is something of a curiosity, it is a Hire piece that looks unlike any other Hire piece I have ever seen before. I don’t know what prompted this departure from his usual style, but it is a hugely accomplished piece and one that should give him the confidence to experiment further.

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2020
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2020


Set on a black background with a pink grid on the lower half and silhouetted skyline above it, Hir has written a four letter word that looks like DIAK, although I can’t be sure about that. There are very few hints that this might be by Hire other than the lower parts of the letters have his distinctive sharp edge to them. Be really interested to see where Hir goes from here.

Seeds of change

 

Preparing the ground

life will never be the same

look on the bright side

 

by Scooj

Yesterday’s haiku from which the last line was taken to create the first line of today’s:

 

Each moment savoured

each crumbling of every clod

preparing the ground

 

 

Paradox

 

An agent of change

seeking new ways of thinking

while disliking change.

 

by Scooj

Rock

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Unstoppable change

when landscapes are unstable

we seek out a rock.

.

by Scooj

Futile

 

To hope against hope

is an unhappy pursuit

which will end in tears.

 

by Scooj