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"3 hours 42 minutes" I like
"3 hours 42 minutes" I like how precise that is, only in the civil service would you strike to the minute!
9.18
So in at 9.00, coat off, coffea, chat about Foyles War (insert TV programme of your choice), switch on PC powered by Windows 95 and then, Oh, coat back on, join picket line.
Of course he's not serious
I read many comments elsewhere about the level (or lack thereof) of HMRC service when calling them. How long you have to wait on the phone for, how under qualified or sometimes rude the adviser on the end of the phone is, how sometimes you call and simply hear the message "I'm sorry, all of our advisers are busy, please call back another time".
I can attest to these scenarios and how annoying they can be.I rightly join in with the criticism of these sorts of experiences.
And now, here are HMRC staff protesting against the very thing that will make these everyday occurrences even worst (reduced staff numbers, generic management targets etc) and they face criticism again in the form of a straw man creation of their supposedly typical lazy day.
Bash HMRC!! Bash HMRC!! Ignore any hypocrisy in our various arguments, just keeping bashing them!!!!
down time/pens, have a coffee
So we have had the computers off line from Thursday to Saturday when it could have been over Easter and now they go on strike for HALF a day.
These people do not live in the real world.
Went into my payroll software to file some P35's this morning and got a box up saying we would not get a response for a WEEK and not to file P35's until after Wednesday 10 April so are they going to strike again.
Just filed my first RTI for a payroll paid on Saturday and went through OK and got a response back.
If they are not satisfied with their Job then suggest they give their notice and find something they are happy doing and let the ones who want to work get on with it. They just do not want other people to be able to work, these are probably the ones who take so long to answer the phone and correspondence that is why they are against the HMRC's new performance management arrangements , shirkers the lot of them!!!!
This is another reason we can probably use in appeals, talk about stacking the odds against themselves they will get no sympathy from the majority of Tax Payers and Agents if they pull stunts like this.
This has been done in my lunch break
My plan B for Osborne
Plan B for the Government: anyone who goes on General Strike, plus guys like Abu Qatada, get sent to one of the 700-odd uninhabited islands on the Falklands. This creates jobs. We also invite the Argentinians to conduct military exercises on those islands, thus helping smooth relationships. Two birds killed with 1 stone!
Personally there have been four times in my career when things were so bad I felt I could not really carry on with my job. Twice I decided that alternatives were worse and carried on, in fact it was just a bad patch and I was glad I did. The other times I did what these professional moaners and whingers should be doing now:
RESIGN!
In the name of God, go! Make way for folk who want the work. Not once have I ever, even for one second, considered striking. For me being on strike and being a professional are mutually exclusive, simple as that.
Too polarised
I don't advocate continual striking at whimsical events but to assert that to strike is somehow immoral, or at least unprofessional, is a bit too much of a polarised view for me. Striking has brought about many positive changes. Of course, every strike is open to criticism individually but striking as means to an end has produced many positive changes in our history.
Again though, you can't moan about HMRC being rubbish at replying to letters and answering calls (which they are!) and then moan that they dare to strike to stop this getting even worst. Well, you can, but I fail to see how it's not hypocritical.
Real world
'Again though, you can't moan about HMRC being rubbish at replying to letters and answering calls (which they are!) and then moan that they dare to strike to stop this getting even worst. Well, you can, but I fail to see how it's not hypocritical.'
Im sorry Happy up north but I don't think you understand how HMRC works. I know people who have worked there for over twenty years and have never done a proper days work in their lives. They would not last a day in my job, your job or any job in the real world. These are the people striking as they do not want to change. It would benefit everyone to make these people leave as the rest of the HMRC staff could then do they jobs right.
There was a time when
Working conditions were so bad and opportunities so limited that striking was the only option to improve standards. That time has long since passed - union leaders have no other reason to exist but to justify their own jobs by leading their members the merry dance in believing that there terms and conditions will be so bad if changed that they will result in poverty. Of course in this free society they do have a choice as pointed out above - resign and find yourself that gold plated job in banking which your union rep has persuaded you exists for every employee in the 'private sector'.
I asked about the operating system used by HMRC...
....because it raised the immediate question of how they ensure their systems are protected. I cannot conceive, in this day and age, how old operating systems such as 3.1, Win95, Win 2000 etc could ever be classified as secure....never mind how they could link with modern systems.