Jaluch Limited

I attended a lunch last week which presumably was convened so the public sector could meet the private sector and tick a box to say that consultation had taken place and public funding therefore justified. 

It didn’t really seem to me to be like any genuine exercise to gauge opinion or listen to ideas. Shame really as the people on the ground in that organisation are great, but I felt massively let down by their leaders’ inability to create rapport, show genuine empathy, elicit ideas or demonstrate a credible leadership.  

That is sort of an aside though, as what I wanted to comment on was that at the end of lunch, no coffee was served. As a quip, the person in whose name the lunch had been organised said that the lack of coffee was as a result of cut backs and cut backs were good weren’t they? She seemed sort of pleased with herself for getting this ‘shot’ in and then she stood up and left without further comment.

Yes, cut backs are good, but if a senior person in public service thinks that cutting coffee is going to help our economy, then heaven help us all. And if a senior person thinks that cut backs are only the result of the private sector and public putting pressure on government then she is living in la la land. Perhaps no-one has impressed on her recently that this isn’t a game. Our economy is in trouble and serious measures need to be taken.

But choosing to cut the coffee? That’s absurd when at this gathering there were more in attendance from the public sector than the private sector. Do public servants always have to travel and meet in two’s three’s or four’s? Can’t they do their jobs on their own? She could have cut out one public servant from the lunch and there would have been more than enough money for coffee and mints on top as a real treat! 

And she could have looked to her left and spoken to a friend of mine who had just flown overnight 7 hours to be at that lunch and with just two hours sleep and a long trip home, coffee was probably expected and also essential. She might then have looked around the table and bothered to calculate the cost of people’s time to attend. And no we didn’t turn up for a free lunch. Time is too precious for most of us to even go there and if we wanted to stop for a lunch that is probably not the venue we would have chosen.  

I left that gathering seeing nothing but her ignorance and seeming self importance. What a shame!