Huguenot

Lord of the Rings. Celebrating stubby people.

Oxford Blues. Row. Bot. People.

Bladerunner. Robot dead. People.

I had a really rubbish steak at Boisdale's once. Used to go there all the time, never went back again after that. Must have cost them quite literally thousands. I used to take clients there all the time, but I was stuck with this feeling that one of them might get the same result. I usually recommend giving people a second chance, but with a steak I rarely do. Dunno why.

Terminator. Robot. Dead People.

Moflo, this is all in your head. Made up stuff. There is no removal of 27 appliances, there are no 500 ffs losing their jobs. There is no reduction of 10.3% of the workforce. There is no drastic reduction of call out time. Ther's just one throwaway comment. More than that, it isn't all about Coleman. It doesn't surprise me that people want to make it all about Coleman, he's a soft target. It's bloody childish stuff though, and reveals that there is no intent on behalf of the ffs to engage in intelligent debate. It's just hairpulling and namecalling. PS. Just to really hammer the point home, follow this argument: these 27 appliances have been gone for how long? What was the reduction in call out time in that period? In fact, was there any reduction at all? 50 quid says there was bugger all, but we'd never have found this out if the idiots hadn't gone out on strike, would we? So the ffs have shot themselves firmly in the foot, and are now so stupid they're publicising it.

Sorry GinaG3, you've hit the forum at rush hour. I'm here, but I'm 8,000 miles away and everyone else is on the bus.

The shift wasn't about budget cuts per se, as far as I can tell, but about productivity uplift. kbabe01 :"and now surprise surprise 16% cuts! In less than a week" No. There hasn't been any budget cuts. WTF is it with you? Are you so desperate to win an argument that you'll make stuff up? What there is, is an ebullient olde skool slighty thick director who wants revenge on the people who rubbed his nose in the dirt. Because he can't actually do anything, he's stuck with making snidey comments. Because the ffs called off the strike, he has been forced to give them their ball back, so he's doing it begrudgingly. What's new here? Water. Duck's back.

If you've lost the argument, Moflo, I should start attacking the people. In particular I think dragging up uncorroborated evidence of silly behaviour in the past is a really constructive approach. Maybe choose something at least 6 months ago? Or longer? How about his schoolfriends? Perhaps we could call him names? What about photos, have you got any photos of him picking his nose or something?

Well, none. Unless they hum the 'Marseillaise' of course. The pills rather than the consumer.

Oh dear, this has become mumbo jumbo couched in unreasonable deductions based on experiential evidence. Jeremy is quite right, our Basque friends do not have the inside story on rainbows. Refraction does bend light waves of different frequencies by different degrees. A rainbow is not an illusion. Blue light, with it's smaller wavelength will be bent (scattered) more than longer wavelength red light. It's the same reason the sky is blue (all that blue light scattered all over the place) and sunsets are red (because all of the shorter wavelength colours have been scattered by traveling through so much atmosphere leaving just the red to travel to your eye). Pills have a different colour not because colours are 'healing' but because the mind responds differently to colour signals that are entirely natural in their provenance.

Gary / dulwichflower / hadenuff - you may not realise it but computers have what's called an 'IP address' which identifies the machine. If your posts are coming from the same IP address in a very short space of time then 90%+ chance they're coming from the same machine, and 99%+ they're coming from the same home router. It isn't always the case, but you demonstrate few signals you're an internet whiz, and many more that you're a slightly niggly sock puppeteer on the edge of a rather narcissistic persecution complex. Admin isn't one person, and isn't full time. This is a free local resource that has neither the infrastructure nor capacity to provide a regional service. The line gets drawn somewhere about what stays in and what stays out, and people do their best to cooperate. Unless they're you. In that case they whine and whinge to try and get their own way. Not a very flattering style from an adult.

Well thankfully we've all got you here to set Admin straight eh hadenuff?

Head rolling, Ecstasy, worshipping the divine, rock concerts, football matches, running of the bulls. Only one of them seems to involve a surfeit of moral righteousness, self regard and incorrigible desire to foist it onto others. It's not even as if 'God' whoever she may be can tell us 'why we are here', she's just a neat platitude to side step the discussion and leave us free to pursue our inherent narcisism with a sense of self satisfaction. Whoops! I say 'she', but haven't five archbishops just resigned at the very thought that women are allowed to, you know, share the joy? Seems it's not all about 'love' at all....

Well there you go legal beagle, I'm about as offended as Phil Jupitus. :)

"Don't be a Wally" is more of a chastisement than an insult. I withdraw the apology if it's seen as an indictment. SMG I simply used an analogy that legal beagle would be familiar with. If you'd like a people related analogy I can discuss the time at Yahoo when I withdrew revenue related targets from the client sales team because client sales is evangelical not 'sign here'. It caused a riot in the client sales team, because they thought it undervalued their desire and they would all be fired. It didn't, I actually increased the headcount by 50%. It caused a riot in the agency sales team because at that time their targets rightly went up, because they were reaping the remuneration rewards of the client sales team activity without having to lift a finger. It wasn't broke, but the improvement delivered 60% growth in revenue within 3 months. Everyone got richer, because I also pushed through an agreement that a larger percentage of the bonus went on team rather than individual revenue. Win:win, but nobody wanted the change at the time. Perils of management eh?

Intellectually offended, not personally. I enjoy a good humored brawl. It's like legal beagle with her "if it ain't broke don't fix it". It's misdirection. If she has a good wine she moves it to a prominent position and gives it more shelf space. If she has a menu item that sells less than others she changes it to improve it. Nothing's broke - it's just an improvement. Same with the firefighters. Job focus can be improved, health can be improved, family time can be improved, risk factors can be improved. No-one has suggested fire-fighting is broke.

I blame Sarah Palin. I wish she'd have dabbled in witchcraft..... Or did she? Hmmmmm.

SMG, I'm not trying to wind you up at all. I'm most offended that you're insisting that you're not anti-management whilst describing them as 'the only impediment'. I'm also offended that you claim that I'm the one making stuff up, whilst you trot out phrases like 'more to it than meets the eye' which are ONLY ever used in connection with deception or duplicity. The implication of those two statements is quite clear - that management are involved in a destructive deceptive plot. You are right that this debate has angles, but with all due respect the only people informing it and being straightforward are failing to see the strength in the ff argument. Those who support the ffs have been talking about 'plots', 'sackings' and offering consistent misdirections (such as your comments about my views). I appreciate Keef's point, but if anything the crime has been to be both blunt and to the point. Not something you could accuse the ffs of.

Nature or Nurture etc.

SMG "I'm not anti-management" takes the biscuit. How about this one Sean - "This management team are the only impediment to that from what i can see." That's hardly equivocal? "It seems obvious to me there're is more to it than meets the eye" That doesn't sound like your pushing innuendo about a 'plot' at all? You're trying to twist the knife because you think you've got the upper hand on 'reasonable' here, but us elephants have long memories.

;-)

leaglebeagle, your comment only repeats a question that has already been posed and responded to - recently at that. Well done for demonstrating that you haven't even bothered to read the thread before launching an ad hominem attack on me. *raises glass*

I'm quite prepared to listen to other people's point of view, but when you reach page 17 of a debate and there's still no substance apart from "they're all out to get us" it gets a wee bit tedious. As for "That's not a discussion. It's a tedious and self important monologue", well maybe you're right, because those in support of the firefighters have really been open minded and interested in anything beyond their anti-management paranoia haven't they? Anyway. Now you've started ad hominem attacks on myself - the only person who's really tried to add any sort of information to this blessed debate. Great. Genius. What importance an effective fire brigade when we can turn this into an argument about whether we like Huguenot?

brum, sorry mate, I thought you were being snippy. The entire researched case study is available as an attachement on my post in around page 2 or 3 of this thread ;-) It specifies all studies and sources. If you don't like what you see, then you can't call them liars and be done - you have to find better research. If people don't believe the change in fire stats they can find all the data here The 48% figure is from the annual stats not the six monthly - but if you look back over 20 years (to only 1990) they've dropped even more.