A couple of articles I have read recently display the reality of life, and in particular of travelling by public transport, in today's Britain.Writing for the Financial Times, Matthew Engel describes a week spent exploring the country by train:
If you think well of Britain’s railway companies for a second, they will turn round and prove you wrong. Standing on Leeds station, I was struck by a big double TV screen showing that all the trains for the next hour or two – about 50 of them – were allegedly on time. I thought this was magnificent enough to be worth a picture and whipped out my camera.
Up strutted a junior jobsworth, full of institutional paranoia and his own importance, to denounce me as a potential terrorist. “Show me those pictures!” “Why?” “You could be photographing the pipes!”And in the Guardian Simon Hoggart:
The other day I was on a bus ... when an inspector got on. She was a kindly woman, but had to go through the routine, so when it turned out that a girl of around 11, who was going to the dentist with her mother, had the wrong photopass, she settled down for a long session.
It was quickly clear what had happened – the lass had accidentally picked up her brother's pass and he had doubtless taken hers to school. You'd think a breezy "better check next time" would have sorted it all out, but of course that's not possible.
The inspector had to take names and addresses, impound the pass, issue instructions on how to avoid a fine, how to reapply for the next pass, issue a temporary pass for the remainder of the day even though it would be weeks before the replacement arrived.
We were stuck in traffic and it must have taken 20 minutes to do it all, leaving a clearly not wealthy family out of pocket and mired in endless paperwork.We Britons used to congratulate ourselves on not having to submit to such petty tyranny. For instance, I grew up with the firm idea that not having to carry an identity card was part of our reward for having won the war.
Why did this change come about? And how do we reverse it?
4 comments:
Recently I heard a peer of the realm point out that our near neighbour countries make different kinds of laws on the understanding that they are for guidance, not nit picking jobsworth enforcement.
Radio 4 this morning has aired a story of an LA fining a woman for throwing a small cheese something out of her car window - with the rider that it cost the LA £200 to collect much less than that.
Bring back Esther Rantzen.
My favoured theory is that many jobsworths are not instinctively authoritarian but are responding to top down management structures. It's a theory that allows me to maintain faith in human nature.
Top downism assumes that a system can be constructed that provides a set of rules to address all eventualities. The exceptions are often mishandled (and tough luck if you are an exception), but they will be fed back into the system to make it better. It's a possible solution to running a biscuit factory, but is weak when circumstances frequently change or when the event is about personal interaction.
Historically, there are some dreadful examples of top downism -- the conduct of WWI1 generals is possibly the most extreme. Our only hope is that those companies and organisations that delegate decision making and promote co-operative environments will be the ones that succeed. Winning by example and educating managerialists in all parties are two responses to logic bound, impersonal systems.
Instructing Councillors and Parliamentary Candidates on Daily Mail editorial standards would be a good thing too. There are occasions when the liberal thing to do will offend the Daily Mail so just get on with it; but only act like an authoritarian when absolutely necessary, because the Mail will justifiably nail you for it.
Note to dreamingspire: Unless you are talking about the Great Train Robbers or similar, the cost of prosecuting an offender is always greater than the cost of the offence. Which is why police and local authorities use warnings most of the time for petty offences.
In the case of the woman prosecuted for littering from a car, I don't know the background. Perhaps she may have been a repeat offender or the LA sought examples as part of a clampdown. Whatever the circumstances were, the magistrates concluded that an offence was committed.
Was that jobsworthism? I don't have the information to make that decision.
I was berated by a railway jobsworth for daring to look at the manufacturer's worksplate on a carriage at Inverness [if it was meant to be confidential information why put it on a stonking great piece of metal ???].
Only problem, it was in 1973.
So, you see, jobsworths have always existed!
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