Despite not being Greek myself I have very personal connections and commitments there and I was recently asked what I would do to ease the situation further (because Germany is not happy with the proposals so far). Of course I have no real influence on Greek politics but were I to be able to dictate here are my views. Warning, this is the brutal truth as I see it, it doesn’t mean I don’t like Greece but this is what I see as stopping Greece from being great again.

Personally I feel that the Greek people have let themselves get into trouble because of the way they conduct their politics. I am told that in the main the politicians are corrupt on a grand scale but as long as they do nothing that overtly and obviously affects the daily lives of the population the people won’t do anything. The people of Greece value individual liberties even if that is at the sacrifice of the common good and for all their protestations as to having been the originators of democracy they have forgotten that the cost of democracy is collective responsibility.

The unions and the people will strike because they are getting affected by the obviously unpopular cutbacks. The most notable issue is the fact that the public sector is massively bloated with probably 20-30% of people who are completely superfluous. In addition they spend huge amounts on academic research but believe that co-operating with business to commercialise efforts would taint academia. It seems that half the café workers in Greece seem to have a post-graduate degree and most of the workers seem to be regularly practising some form of tax evasion.

I love Greece but it just needs to wake up to a little self-sacrifice and the people need to take some responsibility (not just the politicians). My interim measures would be:

  • Tell every government department to cut at least 1 in 4 jobs over the next two to four years. At the same time offer amnesty to non-permanent staff and let departments decide who they actually need (many good staff are on short-term contracts many lazy people have permanent contracts).
  • Cap redundancy payments to limit the expense and begin a separate “back to work” scheme for those who are made redundant by the cuts.
  • Don’t pay those who go on strike and let them face the responsibility of not going to work (hold firm).
  • Ask politicians (local and national) to take half-pay for the next year and/or audit all expenses for the past two years.
  • Force all academic institutions to fund part of their budget each year from external (non-academic) activities or cut their budgets proportionally. Starting at 5% and adding 5% each year until 20-25%.
  • Modernise the power generation system to avoid dependency on ancient dirty/inefficient power stations.
  • Reduce bureaucracy and paperwork by 30%.
  • Cancel all non-maintenance spending on national defence (Reduce defence spending to <=3% GDP?). (Turkey isn’t really going to invade any more and they don’t need new submarines).

Just my observations over the past five years of being involved with Greece. Perhaps I am too harsh, but it is tough love. Greece lords itself for being one of the greatest countries in the history of the world, but that is history. The Greeks must look forward with a unified vision to what they want to be and have the ambition to execute that without sacrificing the things that already make Greece great (family, social life, community spirit).

Just my two Euro-cents.

In light of recent errors of judgment by members of government it has been determined that all staff should be made aware of revised guidance on personal expenses:

1) Staff are not permitted to use company money to pay for accommodation beyond that required directly for business. In order to remove all doubt this includes the paying mortgages with salary. Staff are expected to use their savings or take supplementary employment (subject to approval on the grounds of conflict of interest) to fund their lifestyles.*

2) Manure: by-products of grazing animals may only be purchased with company money where required for normal business operations. No authorisation is required for the purchase of modest quantities of bovine manure for sales staff or support staff.

3) Pornographic videos may not be hired by spouses of employees and be claimed on expenses, only by employees themselves for their own use.

4) Plumbing services may be provided on the company account providing sufficient evidence is provided of the problem before hand and 7 days of notice given of any unexpected work.

5) Employees may employ their relatives only where that relative is paid through the off-shore shell account funds normally reserved for bribery.

6) Bribery will no longer be tolerated, instead the practice will be retitled: external non-declared incentives.

7) Due to previous abuse of the system a maximum number of days of ‘away from home’ subsistence may be claimed in one year. This limit is now set to: 400 days per annum.

8) Staff will be expected to hand all gifts to the finance department for placing on eBay. This includes personal presents for the following events/holidays:
– Birthdays
– Christmas (and other religious festivals)
– Weddings (except for those in junior grades or director grade and above).
Income from the sale of these items will be put towards to executive training and development fund maintained by our contractor: Betfair.com

* Acceptable forms of secondary employment not considered a conflict of interest include but are not limited to:
– intimate massage
– private escort services
– sale and distribution of narcotics
– sale and distribution of videos (especially for pornography or blackmail)
Employment which is considered a conflict of interest with company business includes (but is not limited to):
– Fraud
– Organised religion
– Children’s entertainment
– Murder, arson and/or pillage

Please ensure you follow this guidance in future.

Kind regards,

Finance Department

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend towards “turnover per head” in organisations, this means that an organisation will do anything it can to increase it’s turnover relative to the number of book employees. Even sacrificing employees to outsourcing because, while costs increase, the amount of money handled per-head has dramatically increased.

Continue reading “Outsourcing effectiveness”

So,

 We've just returned from Venice, it was lovely and well worth the time. I realised several things while I was out there:

1) I still hate crowds and tourists (wish I could take a tazer on holiday with me)
2) The average American tourist is the most annoying in the world.
3) The Italians are more helpful and friendly than I could have imagined.
4) It's expensive to be trapped on an island who's main income is tourism.
5) Book major attractions off-season and book hotels directly.

  

Continue reading “Visit to Venice”