There was once a comedy program when whatever the request the tag line was always that the computer said "No". I am experiencing that same computer - now alive and thriving in French officialdom. It deserves a name.
I need to sign for my apartment but need an insurance to be put in place to guarantee the owners that they will receive their rent. Fair enough but I am now categorised as sans-emploi - not SDF or sans-papiers, just sans-emploi. My ambiguous status gives the system a problem.
I am considered solvent. I have offered letters of commendation to attest to my good character. I have offered a bank guarantee, even offered to pay all my rent upfront. But so far to no avail.
"It's nothing personal M. Mottram, just that rules is rules".
No great shakes and I am sure I will somehow overcome but what a waste of energy.
Large organisations - commercial and statutory - need form and function. Ambiguity is to be avoided. All cogs need their seat. Machinery needs to be robust and dependable. People in the chain need to know where they fit and what is expected - Chaplin's Modern Times.
More sophisticated organisms add accountability to the mix and a good measure of freedom and latitude. Treat every transaction and interaction as if it had a customer and put that client at the centre of the desired outcome.
I am reminded of the Luddite movement in the English Industrial Revolution where workers, threatened by the introduction of new technology, sought to destroy it.
Just had a thought of a 21st century opportunity to begin a movement where customers refuse to be enslaved by processes and systems that have somehow "forgotten" why they were created. Some might call this a first step on the dangerous road to anarchy and chaos. Others might see it as the road to transformation.
Whatever I do next, it will be about this transformation - away from a status quo that has outlived its usefullness, inhabited by teams who are lost in the machine and who just know there is more to be achieved..
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