Music gets the best of me

This week has been a gruelling slog to the end, that has been ameliorated by a prideful weekend with friends.

Trust, but verify

As I have climbed up the greasy pole of the Civil Service, I have always been warned that the burden of corporate activity falls heaviest on the shoulders of the Grade 6 cohort. This week, it has very much felt like it.

I’ve spent a lot of time this week dealing with corporate processes. So much time, in fact, that I think it should be classed as a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the International Criminal Court.

Without fail this week, every corporate thing I’ve engaged with has felt infantilising.

I’m a very experienced civil servant. I’ve been at this game for 11 years this month. It infuriates me when I am managed on process, not outcomes. Trust that I know what I am doing and that I am capable of coming to rational decisions. When you’re worried I’m having a moment of wildness check if the outcome is on track, if you must, but let me get on with it. To borrow an allegedly-Russian proverb from a former employer; trust, but verify.

And this week has not been that. This week has been process for the sake of process. Forms on top of forms. Boards to “assure” that I’ve made the right decision when there are no viable alternatives. Rubber-stamps on every decision even though no one has a choice but to agree. Paper trails to prove you got the rubber-stamps that no one will ever look at again – but make sure it’s provided in PDF format and uploaded to our archaic, anachronistic IT system. It’s busy work that isn’t helping anyone.

And the thing is, no one likes this way of working. No one.

No one finds it useful. Even the people that enforce the process don’t find it useful.

The decisions are obvious and never change. And yet we do this repeatedly. Every department I’ve ever worked in has this same nonsense.

Every contract or procurement decision. Every recruitment decision. Every financial decision.

It’s exhausting and it’s massively inefficient.

In general, I don’t think I can be accused of being “anti-process”. But I’m very anti-bad-process. All of these processes get in the way of delivering effective outcomes. And they scream of a lack of trust.

Whilst we are being encouraged to be “innovative” with the way we do our work, I’ve got a better idea: no innovation until everything works. When we can get our basic corporate processes working to enable delivery rather than standing in the way of it, then get to the new, shiny stuff.

You better not kill the groove

Speaking of shiny stuff, I’ve been at Brighton Pride this weekend. It’s been delightful.

Girls Aloud were the headline act for “the official pride fund raiser for the Brighton Rainbow Fund”.¹ But to be honest, I’ve always thought Girls Aloud were pretty naff. I was there for it, but I wasn’t here for it, ya know?

I was far more excited for the real queen of pop – Sophie Ellis-Bexter.

She banged out tune after tune on that stage in a gloriously glittery outfit.

Murder on the Dance Floor. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love). Music Gets the Best of Me. Crying at the Discoteque. And she threw in covers of Madonna and ABBA to boot.

Fabuloso, you might say.

More importantly than all that nonsense, I got to spend the weekend with some of my GBFs (gay best friends) and shared some queer joy.

Happy Pride to all who celebrated it too.