Ms Shoesmith said: ‘I can’t get a job. I’m unemployed and unemployable. But you can’t stop me using my brain...’...it would be nice if you'd used it before, though, wouldn't it?
And she really should be a Liverpudlian, such is the level of self-pity she clearly churns out:
‘I can’t get any work, so the actions of the Secretary of State that day wiped out 35 years of a career and my future.’Yeah, your utter incompetence had nothing to do with it, I suppose?
Just off to look for my tiny violin, be right back.
ReplyDeleteI don't often disagree with you, Julia, but I think you are a little off the mark here. The woman failed to look after her brief, and with tragic consequences, that's true, but many of us have jobs where we wouldn't want to be held accountable for every single failure of those who are under us. It's as well to remember that only one person killed that poor child, and it wasn't the police, and it wasn't the overstretched social services, and it wasn't Sharon Shoesmith. She was sacked on live TV by Ed Balls, who was looking for a scapegoat to take the pressure off himself, and who acted in pure spite and self-preservation. I have a lot of sympathy for her from the way she was treated by him.
ReplyDeleteShe failed in her job and probably needed to go, but I don't think she is the evil monster that some people paint her as. Her errors were of omission, not commission, and there's no evidence that she was anything other than incompetent, rather than cruel or wicked.
OK, that's me done.
@ Richard: So she may have only been incompetent (although I do think it right that the head honcho should carry the can) but to say she can't get a job is rubbish. Councils are crying out for tealadies, roadsweepers and binladies!
ReplyDeleteWhat she means is she can't get a job at the same salary where her incompetence would be welcome!
I have no sympathy for this woman whatsoever!
@WfW - fair point, although it isn't as easy as it sounds. I lost my job earlier this year and was willing to work at anything, but my qualifications (good) and experience (extensive) made me virtually unemployable in the kinds of job you mention, Employers just don't want to know. I ended up working as a security guard, but only because the employers knew me beforehand. If that job hadn't turned up, I think I'd still be unemployed.
ReplyDelete@ Richard: I am only too aware of what it is like to be made redundant - I was in my 50s and like you, no-one wanted to know - mainly due, I suspect, because I knew more than them and they then feared for their own jobs! So I went self-employed.........making use of my DIY skills.
ReplyDeleteVery similar experience to mine: a) they are worried you are going to be a smartarse or show them up, and b) you are going to stay just as long as it takes to find something better. Neither may be true, but that's the perception.
ReplyDeleteIf I relied on my DIY skills for a living, I'd be eight stone by now.
It is as wrong to blame the departmental manager for a failure by a staff member as to demand the resignation of a government minister because of things that happened before they held the office. In this case however the initial failure, subsequent attempts to cover up and the fact that according to a personal acquaintance involved in the aftermath (sorry, I can't say too much,) the entire department was a shambles suggest we got the right result.
ReplyDeleteSo I have no sympayhy for Ms. S.
My heart pumps purple piss for Shoesmith ..
ReplyDeleteShe happily took the money & kudos for being in charge .. now that she's faced with the other side of the "Leadership" coin, she whinges ..
Bollocks to her ..
I am sure that she could find a job if she wished. Not at the level she had but the balance of evidence points to her being promoted beyond her level of capability. It is interesting to compare the "poor me" (isn't it always me, me, me - other people are to blame but not me) attitude with the late Mr Profumo. He took a lowly job with a charity, said nothing and all but disappeared from view until his death. Perhaps Ms Shoesmith may learn from the example.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Ms Shoesmith to be no more or less incompetent than most heads of social services. The argument isn't whether she was treated poorly, more why the rest of them get away with it for so long.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous: much as I admire Profumo's integrity in his actions after the 'affair', I believe he had private means and was therefore able to work charitably for nothing. That's a big difference from the rest of us, who have to get out there and graft.
ReplyDeleteFunny, isn't it, how these days we have to look to Profumo for honorable behaviour in a politician?
I read an interesting one the other day that Liverpudlians have an average IQ of 63. Of course, it has to be wrong but the general idea is indicative.
ReplyDelete"I don't often disagree with you, Julia, but I think you are a little off the mark here."
ReplyDeleteBlogs would be no fun if we all agreed 24/7, would they? ;)
The problem is that, for someone in her position, carrying the can for the performance of her underlings IS the main part of her job.
Sir Paul Stephenson wasn't driving the Royal car, took no part in any of the operational planning of the cops on the ground, yet even he knew that offering his resignation was the right thing to do.
Shoesmith, on the other hand, has wriggled and squirmed and blamed everyone else and appears to have pity only for herself.
That marks her out as a poor manager at best, and an utter narcissist at worst. I'm with Mrs Erdleigh: where's my tiny violin?
"...the balance of evidence points to her being promoted beyond her level of capability. "
That seems to be a main factor in al these cases - the people in charge talk a good game, yet are found utterly lacking 'under fire'.
I would accept she was a poor manager (and I have worked with a lot who fit the description you give), who didn't deal with the situation well. But that wasn't my point. She was hounded out, principally by the bullying of Ed Balls, and didn't seem to get fair treatment in her dismissal. He effectively sacked her on television, and demanded that she lose her pension etc, effectively reducing a complex and outwardly fair process to a soundbite and a cheap headline (Labour - cheap headlines R Us). It would have been a brave authority that insisted on strict due process after that. She was a scapegoat for his embarrassment and his wish to look tough, and anyone would have some of my sympathy in those circumstances. And secondly, selfish, incompetent or poor manager does not equal child-killer, which is what some of the more unhinged newspapers portrayed her as.
ReplyDeleteWell said Cap'n Haddock. Cruella's mistake was not having it away on her toes, like plenty before, before the fertilizer and the fan went mutual. I have little doubt she was a scapegoat, but no sympathy for her. The real truth is still hidden, and that truth is that there are many more like her across our public sector and politics.
ReplyDeleteJames Higham said...
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting one the other day that Liverpudlians have an average IQ of 63.
You only have to look at thr droves of scousers writting in to defend the place against such posts.
NONE!
That's because even though they are good at robbing the computers, none of them can read.
F.u.p.s.
ReplyDelete