2012 G4S and the Account Responsible Senior Executives

Well lets face it, its not the first time NM has questioned mathematical abilities upon this very blog. NM’s no great shakes himself, but he does know that if he’s supposed to have five pieces of ‘stuff’ and when he lines his stuff up and counts them, if he’s got a finger or two spare on his left hand he concludes, normally, he needs more ‘stuff’.

G4S is responsible for recruiting, training and managing the security workforce that will be tasked with securing the Games. Originally tasked with supplying 2,000 security staff, in December 2011 they were requested to provide another 8,000 to which they agreed …

According to them:
We’ve been involved for some time already: G4S commenced its security operations for The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) in March 2011.
The G4S 2012 Project Team is working closely with customers, stakeholders and industry associations, to maximise on the opportunities and meet the challenges that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will bring to the UK.

Over to the Chief Exec of G4S, Mr Buckles 14/07/2012:
Despite having signed the initial contract in 2010, Mr Buckles said that he had only realised eight or nine days ago that there would be a shortfall in the numbers. He said G4S agreed to supply 10,000 staff about six months ago and received more than 100,000 applications from people looking for temporary jobs. But the complexities of vetting, recruiting and training applicants meant the company fell behind its targets. Mr Buckles said: “It’s really because of recruiting a large number of people for a very short period of time. It’s getting people to go through the processes which will probably take them three or four weeks of their time to actually get to work for three weeks.

So, Mr Buckles, your starter for ten.
10,000 people x 3 weeks ‘processing’ = 30,000 weeks required.

According to yourselves you started this process in 2010. Assuming January 1st 2010 kick off, thats 132 weeks of ‘processing’ up to doors open available, for cash, (you’re probably familiar with that at least). Roughly you’re looking at ‘processing’ 75 people per week assuming a 7 day week, and no rejects from signing the contract in 2010, So, no alarm bells ringing here, no sir, all happy clappy here, ‘crack on’ etc etc.

So with the new info that someone in G4S worked out that on the 1st Jan 2012 (‘about six months ago’) they had sufficient time, (allowing 3 weeks for processing), to train 312 security people per week, (no rejects remember) to meet their target, no one in your organisation in January thought, Hmmm …

No doubt you readers are now thinking Oi! we don’t want a chuffing maths lesson! Fair enough.

Putting it in Daily Mail speak:
Mr Buckles’ company was faced with:
138 London buses, or
24 ‘jumbo jets’ or
A column of people 59 x the height tall of Nelsons Column (assuming standing on each others shoulders),
Of people to ‘process’ sucessfully in six months.

At what point did this not ring alarm bells? Answer: Up until eight days ago apparently …

Mr Buckles:
Of course we knew that, so we’re not saying that’s an excuse, but clearly that’s what’s happened.”
Mr Buckles insisted the company had kept both the government and Locog fully informed about the difficulties, saying: “We have been sharing information every day with our customer and together with the Home Office we agreed last Thursday that it was a good decision for them to ask for more troops.”

NM suspects that what actually happened was the G4S assorted red nosed, propellor tie and large shoe wearing number management types, (Account Responsible Senior Executives) were found out. Up until a week or so ago, G4S was sharing the information every day with their customer that they were ‘on target’, building a solid clicks and mortar platform for olympic security. And then someone said , Hang on, remind me when it starts? The 27th?, ah, thats ok then. Oh you mean this month?… Oh Bollocks!

It’s not the first time NM has seen the effect of ‘transforming real-time supply chains’. This occurs when you’ve not got enough ‘stuff’ and you have to ‘deliver killer content’. That means putting your hand up early and saying Sir, Please sir, We’ve not got enough stuff sir!. Thats real killer content, not your ‘happy clappy, no elephant squatting in the corner here’ mindset.

NM’s curious about the ‘processing’ involved too. NM has to deal with G4S on a daily basis. We check a telephone line, they ring first and ask NM to call back on the dedicated line. NM does this, and before he says anything the receiver states yes ‘thats lound and clear’, and the phone is put down. NM then puts the phone down having said nuffink.

What they really mean is the bell works.

However, we have no idea if the phone actually works.

Clearly, G4S leads from the top …

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Paradise City

Albert Square 2010

Albert Square

We’ve all got our idea of a Paradise City, places we’ve been, lived, worked, read about, well this is mine, unashamedly, London. Where it all started was Lambeff, Albert Square to be precise, not that crappy beeb London one, but the real, sahf of the riva, see above. I never really thought about why I felt such an affinity with the Kings Cross area when I worked there, but re-visiting pictures it seems that the similar architecture of Georgian three storey architecture with basements and Portland stone probably made an impact on the two year old NM prior to heading out of town, a relief then to realise it wasn’t just the drink, prostitutes and drugs that captivated me on my return. Sometimes I wasted my money on toy trains.

MRM Kings Cross London

That led me to working at the Model Railway Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of York Way. The building has survived the recent development of the area and is now a restaurant. That will be somewhat ironic for the previous staff members who worked there, in that you can now order food to be eaten in the building, rather than using our shop intercom from three buildings away. That could be used, (allegedly), to order food in a cafe, Renzo’s, (three doors away), much to the dissapointment of the proprietor whom on opening an unsummoned dumb waiter, was to see ‘Dooamaneg’ glaring balefully at him on a grease laden sloppy plate…

The friendships built up there still last to this day, some of the antics still bring a wry smile to the face. As youngsters into ‘London’ it was important to find out the area, so we had a street map on the wall, theoretically, for customers who pre googlespace/mytube/facetwatter, wanted to know how to get from place to place. Well there was only one way to find out. Research.

St Pauls

There wasn’t a reseach budget as such, just an unerring faith in our ability to leave the shop at 13:01pm (without a map), ‘RLF’ for twenty to twenty five minutes, and then deliberately find a different route back to be through the door at 13:59pm. The result then being plotted on the map using the shop as the centre and a radius/range being drawn in with a compass. Therefore if a customer asked how long it took to walk to X, you could theoretically give an answer …

Thames from the 'right' side of the river ...

Now, Nm’s regular readers will already be seeing ‘potential’ for interesting and frank, free flowing discussion with ‘management’ on return to the shop, and to be fair there were a few occasisions when such discussion took place. I can recall one particular return trip that went ‘a bit wrong’. We’d headed south to Holborn, via Bloomsbury on a beautiful spring day, but had headed back to route up Grays Inn road. We’d been a bit too long and it wasn’t the first time we’d been bollocked for being late, so the pressure was on. The lack of map bit us here and we were actually lost but continued ducking and diving up side streets to head north. We came across a small playing field and thought we could see a way out at the far end, so we were ‘safe’ and stated to walk. At the end of the field we came to a brick wall, literally, about 8ft high, too high to see over. Doing the old schoolboy run at it and jump, scrabble up and sit on the top worked. The only problem there was, was a concrete yard the other side but with a bigger drop, and expensive cars, probably a law firms parking area. A shout and we simultaneously took our chance and dropped into the yard, splitting in opposite directions, just like the filums. We exited through two different gates running, followed by shouts of very rude words, from an old boy presumably in charge of ‘security’ having served on the Russian Convoys, and used to chasing cabin boys all over the decks. We got back to the shop in time for a summary bollocking, and every siren that sounded that afternoon had us on tenterhooks.

What it did do was to provide a better than ‘the knowledge’ knowledge of the part of North London around the Kings Cross area, including all the street life that entailed.

Trafalgar Square

Street life occaisionally came into the shop, where it was the job of whoever wasn’t ‘busy’ to remove them. Nm had a absolute pearler of a case where he very quickly learnt one of lifes lessons, this was re-inforced by ones colleagues ‘QFO’ing as soon as they realised the Quatermass pit sized whole Nm had dug himself. A lady came into the shop, looking a little distressed, but nothing un-usual to raise alarm bells. (Even at that time Nm was pretty streetwise, being able to identify a pimp/pro/ned/alchy/smackhead at twenty paces). It was a lunchtime, ‘may I use your toilet she asked?’, seemed reasonable, didn’t smell odd, she looked alright, ‘clean’, if you know what I mean, if you don’t … Well, yep Nm says and showed her the way (to the bog).

After about five mins she hadn’t re-appeared. Helpfull comments and queries such as ‘is she still in there?’ from my colleagues rapidly followed, countered with ‘Yeh, she’s probably reading a paper or summat’ from an increasingly intrigued worried Nm. Well a good half an hour passed, questioned through the door, ‘are you alright luv?’ from Nm, his colleagues helpfully asking ‘how are you going to get her out then?’ When on Top Gear one of the guys gets left by the others whilst taking the piss as they leave is just so true, it’s almost a right of passage, and when it happens to you with the right bunch of mates it almost makes it alright. Now the crapper was on the stairs and Nm had to hovver near it to appear like he was just going for one whenever the bosses appreared, to prevent them asking any awkward questions, like ‘WTF is the smackhead doing in the crapper?’

After a good hour or so Nm was thinking I’m going to
a/ have to go in, but the door is locked from the inside …
b/ tell the boss the smell isn’t in fact one of Bri’s unholy ones
c/ just run away

There was a dreadful groaning from the crapper, which was peculiar for Nm. It at least meant that the tart wasn’t dead, but filled him with the dread of getting the aforementioned ‘trollied’ bint out of the shop, negotiating her past a counter full of customers, ‘interested’ colleagues and a security camera attached to a CCTV. The thought of dragging or firemans lifting an unconscious bird through the shop and being caught on camera (again) just filled him with ‘bowell water’ making fear. It is at these times that you realise why adrenaline is brown and leads to real moments of fear inspired brilliance. There were two front doors to the shop, No14 and No12, No12 rarely used. If the bint could be steered through the rear stock room, past the phone and map to No12, there was a real chance she could be released into the wild relatively discretely. So Nm managed to lift the latch of the door at No12, easing it shut so the boss couldn’t see it was open, and as soon as the bint opened the door to the karzi, at about the hour + fifteen mark, he very quickly shoved, escorted her to the other door where on leaving she belched a projectile stream of the foulest smelling puke Nm’s ever had the displeasure to encounter. Well you’ve read the blog, you can easily imagine…
Nm slammed the door behind her and turned to see the boss who had come down the other stairs looking at him very oddly. ‘Whats up’ he said?, ‘Oh just some drunken tart who’s puked in 12’s doorway’ Nm straightface replied. Seemed to work. There were a few comments re the whiff from No14’s crapper though, it stank as though someone had emptied the entire waste contents of Smithfield, Covent Garden and Billingsgate and a bit of soggy cardboard into the smallest room. Nm gave it a quick clean, and declared it clear of sharps and fit for use, (the tart that is, not the bog).

In true team spirit the smell was blamed on Bri.
It’s what mates are for.

Millenium Bridge

Albert Sq piccies from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sczscz/

White Christmas

Happy Christmas

You Gotta Go There To Come Back ..

Chew's been in trap three again ...

While the rest of the world is grabbing the space race firmly by the horns, UK PLC has cheekily stolen a huge leap forward. Our redneck pals from the U S of A have to no great surprise chosen a high profile approach. They’ve fired a bloody big rocket at it to smash bits of it off to see if it has frozen water, no doubt Dr. Jeremy Clarkson was their technical advisor, and this from the country that previously brought you the Manhatten Project. Well predictably the Brits have taken a more laid back less gungho approach, our previous best efforts being a machine that goes to Mars and does cock all, and Atomic Kitten. For the first time in our history we have got the lead in the number of our citizens that have become astronauts, and frankly we’re likely to stay that way for some considerable time. Even more surprising is that they are not all suntanned demi-gods from Top-Gun test pilot school in Miramar, with perfect teeth, but have come from Bristol.
Bristol, “The city where they don’t bury their dead, they prop them up in bus shelters”. Taking the easyJet low cost approach to our scientific endeavours, our thousands of astronauts have been plucked from obscurity, or more accurately a municipal landfil site, to be packed into an aloominum choob and launched into outer space. A bit like Friday’s EZY6051 then.

The worms have been carefully selected for the mission and will be exposed to conditions in space for four days. No details of the selection process have been released yet, its not clear if it was a written application process, Name, Brian Worm. DOB, Dunno I’ll ask the other end see if he/she knows, Occupation, Worm, Qualifications, Pink and Wiggly, AC/DC. At the very least they’re partially qualified for cabin crew. Or alternatively a talent show, where they have to perform in front of three industry experts and a vet to assess their ‘worming’ skills.

Scientists hope the worms will help them work out why astronauts’ muscles get really weak when they’re in space. Contrary to popular belief its not because they all lounge around saying, ‘That’s not my job, I’m avionics/engines/airframes’ etc etc. Now I may not be a scientist, but my guess is that due to the lack of gravity, and a new found ability to throw Katyana the 320lb ‘girly’ cosmonaut from one end of the space station to the other, without any significant physical effort, could be key factors in this muscle wastage.

Katyana, 2nd Left, Belarus National Football Team Cheerleaders 2009 Run Forest!, run as fast as you can!.

That and the fact they are on live TV feed into Cape Canaveral 24/7, reduces the opportunity to whack one off unseen (allegedly).

Still the worms apparently, after four days in outer space, will be drugged up for their return. Once they’ve helped the scientists by filling in a questionaire on their return, they’ll be returned to the site they came from. And their mates won’t believe a word of it. “So you were kidnapped, taken to a spaceship, fired into outer space and then, after four days experimenting on you, they drugged you up and brought you back here?” That’ll be the EZY6052 back.

Bristol, Britains answer to Area 51 …

Brown Sugar

This week we have mostly been training. It’s that time of year that the HR department realises they’ve persuaded enough skilled, really useful people to leave, and they now have to cover the shortfall in ‘skills’. Unfortunately those that leave aren’t the bright sparks (in a transport company), that determine to commemorate the Kings Cross Underground fire, the best way is to have two minutes of silence. The commencement of which, is the sounding of the fire alarm…

Mostly the skills shortages are covered by existing staff, but when your elfin safety, environment, and first aiders leave you have to ‘replace’ them. The replacement of these ‘key personnel’ is a selection process assisted by shift work. You simply allocate someone who’s on a day off, as the nominated ‘volunteer’. Sorted.

Thus when they return from days off they open the HR email cordially inviting them to their ‘First Aiders’ course, and as everyone else is busy they have to attend. This means six hours of ‘Death by Powerpoint’ and WWF status wrestling matches with life sized dummies. These are sometimes referred to as ‘Instructors’. Needless to say the idea here is to get to the pub at dinnertime and sink as many ‘Vitamin T’s’ into the instructor as you can.

After several coma inducing lectures in the afternoon there’s the bonus 15 minutes of ‘Any Questions’. This is where you get to ask questions on the subject at hand. Now we all know how to play ‘Bullshit Bingo’, but the ideal here is to get the instructor to cover a subject matter that could plausibly occur, in extremis. So, roll the dice on diabetic recovery.

Now the instructor will cover the normal scenarios, not unreasonably. Seeing as you’ve been down the pub, and its a Friday, when they’ve finished, roll the dice again and ask about Rectal Infusion. At this point you’ll hear all the chairs scraping the floor, as everyone positions themselves to be fastest on the draw for pointing at someone else, anyone else frankly, to ‘volunteer’ for the demo.

Now this would be a highly unusual procedure at the best of times, but remember this is work, in extremis, and you’ll be left with a minimum of equipment and choices, especially at 02:00am in the morning. Fortunately we’re next to the engineers section, so it was determined the MEL (Minimum Equipment List), would comprise, 3ft of garden hose, a pair of rubber gloves, a funnel, and a can of Vimto from the drinks machine, for the sugar hit.

Now anyone with a engineering background or an ounce of practical common sense can see how they would fit together, and where. Now the problem with the demo was that in the sniggering at the back of class, a vital part of the MEL was missed. That element was the ‘to’ of Vimto. So, unfortunately, as it turned out, they supplied …

A simple mistake under the ‘five pints’ rule.

Now I’m informed, I hesitate to say reliably, that 330ml of carbonated beverage up your chuff will get your attention, regardless of sugar levels. So, the application of ‘several’ ml, (well it looked about right after five lunchtime pints, you know how it is), of concentrated cleaning solution would also appear to ‘revive’ the recipient. You could tell immediately after application that the reaction, and reduction to 0.5mm diameter accompanied by small children covering their ears, rats and mice running in all directions, and dogs barking was unusual. ‘Do they always whistle like that?’ the instructor was asked, as we all looked away from what appeared to be a full stop in the centre of a very muddy roundabout.
Well, its fair to say that the description of ‘raging homicidal maniac’ seemed somewhat lacklustre to describe the quite rapid personality transformation that occurred within the volunteer. Not only was there a very high pitched whistle accompanying the somewhat vitriolic outburst, he was now belching like a navvy in between the shouting, the gasses having now found the path of least resistance.

Next week, environment, and how to get stubborn monkey stains off your ceiling. I can’t wait …

I Can Hear Your Heartbeat

Well its been a while since NM broke cover, fortuitously since the slug incident, things have been quiet. Ever so sportingly arranging to be out of the drum when Mr Hoovers finest was fired up in anger again probably helped. I’m led to believe ‘dried’ slug is a bit wiffy too. Mrs NM commented ‘the Hoovers making a really odd smell’, ‘Is it?’ NM replied, taking an inordinate amount of interest in assorted paint color swaiths the boss had brought in. One wonders sometimes if you can ‘over egg’ the pudding.

Anyhow in the intervening period ‘The Berg’, reminded by the GCM’s hoofing and footlight performances, has related the story of his mixing with the luvvies 43rd Light Artillery Dance, and Mime Field Regiment. Picture the scene as proud parents in ball-less strapgowns, Dj’s, cummerbunds, (Berg, jeans T-shirt), etc assemble to view their offsprings finest endeavours, in the field of unarmed, hand to hand, dance and mime. ‘The Berg’ continues …

Berg is godfather to the twin daughters of his good friend Dr S; a man with more letters after his name than in it. ( I’ve counted). Now eight years old, the gruesome twosome attend dancing lessons run by an ex leading light in tripping the light. When comfirming the date of his most recent visit to the Dr S household, Berg was informed he was to attend the forthcoming prize-giving. Along he went, expecting a few kids and parents and a quick finish. He was thus surpised to arrive amid some 400 parents and kiddies ranging from 5 to 15 yrs old. Recorded music was playing and the children were dancing the routines they had learned. Photography was allowed so your scribe was locked in combat with low light and high ISO. After a while everyone sat down around the dancefloor and out came the guest, professional dancers. They proceeded to give several demonstrations of how it should be done properly. Between numbers, the male partner spoke a few words to the audience. He asked who was everyone’s favourite dancer on Strictly Come Dancing. Looking back, Berg has to admit that given the dance-enthusiast audience, John Sargent probably wasn’t the most apposite name to loudly call out.

However, the highlight was still to come. For the next number the female partner wore a rather fetching dress with skirt split all the way to her waist. During the dance she was held by her partner horizontally at his shoulder height as he spun round. Sir Isaac Newton be blessed, gravity had its way and the skirt fell to the side. This revealed, how shall we put it, a ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’ !! However this was to make Janet Jackson’s threppenies wafting around the Superbowl look a bit tame.

This was much more of a Super Bowel type thing, for the geographers among you we are talking the amazonian basin. For the Zooologists a Dromadarian Pedicure Exhibition. There was nervous laughter from the mums. There was a hushed, some say almost reverential, ripple of applause. In the silence that followed you could indeed hear peoples hearts beating, mixed with the faint aroma of a distant canning factory.

The dads and ‘The Berg’ sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the view.