Paul tackles dirt

Paul sat cradling his third cup of tea and pondered his predicament. The problem was the mud. And the gravel. And all manner of dust from the road.

It got into all the vehicles and sometimes the standard vacuum cleaners that they had down at the Cleaning Section weren't sufficiently powerful. Or, in the case of the wet mud, they didn't make any impact at all and different cleaning materials were needed. And the other problem was that in the various car parks the vehicles would have different sorts of dirt in them - not all the same kind. This was because those scruffy, inconsiderate drivers would drive many different vehicles in a day and go to different destinations and walk over different terrains. Their cross-contamination of the vehicles was a significant problem and Paul had already introduced a scheme whereby the drivers had to change their shoes or boots between each journey - the Clean Below The Ankle policy - but strangely, this had not made much of an impact on the dirt problem. Paul assumed that this was simply because they weren't doing it diligently enough.

This morning for instance, one of the cleaners had had to hoover out a limousine that had been used to go to a hotel with a gravel drive, then clean a fork-lift truck that had been used to lift crates of vegetable matter and lastly try and scrape wet sand from an off-road four-wheel drive car. He had needed different tools for each job. How wasteful, thought Paul. It would have been so much easier if all vehicles encountering sand were parked in one place, mud in another, and so on.

He stood up and tried to think this through. It was however clear to him that such a scheme could not work as it it was impossible to predict what sort of dirt any given vehicle would encounter on its journey and moreover, there were other considerations when parking it in a nominated area - namely what sort of engineering maintenance it might need by the teams of mechanics that fixed, serviced and generally prolonged the life of all the vehicles after their journeys. Even Paul conceded that their task was paramount. But the cleaning issue still irked him.

He did what he normally would in these circumstances and convened a focus group to make an 'options solutions' list. The group's message was clear. As the vehicles had to stay in the areas where they currently were, so the drivers should stay in fixed areas too - as opposed to the criss-crossing of the compound that happened now.

Paul put a poster on the canteen notice board to this effect. He was pleased. Job done.

*

He supposed he should have expected it though. Never did he come out with a brilliant idea without the tiresome drivers challenging it at the first opportunity. This one was no exception.

"For heaven's sake, Paul!" they moaned. "We can't just switch round and drive all the vehicles in one particular area. There are all sorts of different ones needing all sorts of different skills to control. We aren't all trained in all of them, you know."

Paul sighed.

"If you just stayed in one area then it would only be one type of dirt that affected those vehicles." He spoke as if to little children. "Then we would only need one type of cleaning equipment per car park."

"But Paul," they chorused, "Take Tom here. He currently has two vehicles in Car Park D - a Ferrari and Jeep (he's still waiting for the European Universal Saloon)." Paul ignored the dig. "There's also a JCB in that area. Were he to drive that he probably crash it and cause all manner of harm. Last time he drove one of those was at the Drivers Training School over twenty years ago. Things have changed a bit since then."

"Are you telling me that you can't all drive all the vehicles here?" Paul was incredulous.

It was the drivers' turn to sigh. "That specialisation for you, Paul," they said.

Paul turned, looked out of the window and then closed his eyes just wanting the dirt to go away.

Paul checks on job completion

Each time the drivers had finished a tasking, however small or lengthy, they recorded this information on a standardized form and this record was then kept centrally. For some years however, this had all been computerized using the Electronic Drivers' Operation Centre Software so that anyone on any terminal in the company could check who had done which job and when.

The drivers filled out these forms, entering the basic information about the trip - time taken, miles covered, amount of petrol used, number of passengers carried and so on - but also such additional data as any existing faults on the vehicle, repairs that had been necessary, unusually heavy loads moved and the like. Thus it was that it was possible to build up an inventory of who had been doing what work and driving the most efficiently.

At least that was the theory.

And as with most theories, it folded upon contact with reality.

For the computer system worked on the premise that whichever driver had been allocated a job was the one who carried it out. In practice of course the drivers ensured that, as far as possible, the driver with the correct skills for that job took it on - regardless of what the computer had directed. Moreoever, the drivers swapped shifts, went on holiday and even occasionally had time off sick - all the things that a good computer-model driver would not do - and as such the data that was held on the company's mainframe was at best patchy, at worst wholly inaccurate.

Paul naturally was unaware of any possible discrepancies between the sterile environment of the hard drive and the messy, vibrant, colourful existence of his employees. He had spent much time promoting the system and he was not about to let real life intrude on his model. He regularly sent reports up to head office based on these figures and in return received instructions for future strategy based on them. He never questioned why these strategies rarely survived their first contact with the shop floor.

Each branch of the National Hire Service was required to submit this sort of data annually to assess which were the best performing, safest ones and which needed reform. These data, gleaned from the Electronic Drivers' Operation Centre Software were fed into a complicated formula to arrive at an absolute number - the Safety Measure Ratio - and this number in turn presumed to sum up all the work that had been performed in the branch over the last year. Branches with the best figures received more work and staff and kudos from head office. Their managers won bonuses.

It was that time of year again. Paul sent out instructions for all the drivers to review large numbers of their already completed forms to ensure that the data were accurate. Unfortunately the information, drawn from the fallible central system, failed to connect the correct driver with the correct job most of the time and thus the drivers had to spend valuable time checking the details behind the forms and then forwarding them on to whichever colleague had done the job.

Just as they had trawled through this arduous task, Paul sent another email:

"Regretfully, there has been a glitch in the way the software has matched drivers to taskings. A new list of forms to be completed is attached. Please ensure every one is completed within two weeks. Drivers failing to comply will need to attend my office to explain their failings."

And so the trawling, searching, reallocating process started all over again and the mood of the drivers soured further.

"Why on earth are we doing this anyway, Paul?" they asked. "We've filled out the forms once and we do them thoroughly."

"It is imperative that we submit accurate information," retorted Paul, one eye on his end-of-year bonus. "The extra information is vital to securing a good safety rating."

"Well, why don't you just add a few fields to the existing form so that we fill them in then and there rather than having to go back, months later when we've forgotten all about the particular job and vehicle?"

Paul hadn't thought of that. He was however not brooking any dissent on this one and resorted to his usual tactic of shouting.

The drivers shook their collective heads, and as usual just got on with it. Good or bad, they wouldn't be seeing any bonuses.

Paul's creative counting

The Single Colour Parking scheme had been in operation for many months now and the drivers, as with so many of Paul's initiatives, had incorporated it into their daily routine to minimise the fuss. However, one new feature of the scheme was beginning to increasingly irk them. Often they would come into work the next morning and find that their vehicle - correctly parked in an appropriately coloured bay the night before - had been moved somewhere completely different without their having been asked. Worse than this was the fact that often no one seemed to know exactly where the vehicle had been moved to.

Paul's so-called Parking Managers operated without reference to any of the drivers and seemingly without being held to account to anyone as the blame for finding moved vehicles too late in the day would always find it's way back to the drivers and never rest on the shoulders of those who had effected the move, even if problems had occurred as a result.

Much investment had been funnelled the way of these Parking Managers. They had high salaries and a smart uniform and a vast office where they would periodically hold 'crisis meetings', even when there was apparently no crisis to be seen. When asked about vehicle moves or locations they would usually deny all knowledge, blaming it on the previous shift - which was of course impossible to track down for many days, if ever.

Moreover, they were uncontactable by the usual channels. Whilst just about everyone else on the site could be reached by telephone or pager this elite crew sported weird, Star Trek-like communication devices worn around the neck on a cord that instantly sprang into metallic voice the moment they spoke to each other across the compound but were mysteriously inaccessible to the drivers and just about all the other staff.

As usual, and without much hope, the drivers went to find Paul to see what could be done about these unregulated, unwitnessed, uncatalogued overnight vehicle moves. They started on what they thought might be a promising line of attack.

"Paul," they said. "A few months ago you introduced a scheme to limit the number of moves a vehicle underwent between entering and leaving the site in order to minimize risk and increase quality of service. Did you know that some vehicles are still being moved up to six times between journeys and that therefore sometimes we can't find them in the morning leading to delays in services?"

Paul thought awhile.

"Well," he countered, "if they are taking up a valuable 'rapid-exit' slot they might need to be moved so that a rapid-response vehicle can use the space."

"Granted," the drivers replied. "But that accounts for about one in twenty moves. What about the other nineteen?"

Paul thought awhile.

"We try and put similar vehicles into adjacent slots," he tried.

"Not very successfully. This morning I had to visit five car parks before I found my vehicle," one of the assembled drivers shot back. "Even the superintendent of the area where I had left my vehicle yesterday had no idea where it had gone to."

Paul thought awhile.

"But the figures don't indicate a problem," he retorted obstinately. "In the last six months no vehicle has been moved more than the target of twice between any two taskings."

"What!" The drivers were aghast at this blatant twisting of the facts. "You can't have been counting properly!"

"Depends at what point you start counting," thought Paul and smiled.

Paul counts time

It was that time of the year again. It seemed to come round so quickly and the drivers groaned inwardly as they prepared once again to do battle with the online work-quantity assessment tool that Paul had introduced across the board some years ago after he had found a couple of drivers sneaking off early to play darts. The 'Zero Income Ration Calculator' And 'Demonstrator of Inactivity Abolishment' Negotiation toolkit was a hugely unpopular initiative but compulsory so the drivers had no choice but once again to embark on this time-consuming and ultimately futile exercise.

Every moment of every day had to be justified and fought for. Paul's premise was that they all worked a five day week, nine to five, but even he knew that in reality the drivers did much more than that. All the same, each time Paul had reviewed the submitted assessment the final answer always seemed mysteriously to come to a total of 'five days'.

Much as they disliked having to count each minute of each day like this the drivers nonetheless complied with this annual spreadsheet-filling exercise. They would then have a personal interview with Paul during which time he would question each entry with a view to deleting it.

"What's this do you do on a Wednesday afternoon then?" he would query, pointing at the entry in question. "It's not 'driving' so we can probably take that out."

"That's the afternoon I go over to the Driving School to teach, Paul," replied one. "Do you remember we have a contract to provide a set amount of tuition to the students there and in return we get £20 million and the pick of the newly qualified drivers each year?"

"Hmmm," grumbled Paul. "Alright. What about this?" He jabbed a finger at Friday morning.

"That's when I go over to the workshop. We're running this project to research more efficient use of fuel and..."

"Yes, yes, yes," Paul cut him short. "But that's your hobby. We don't pay you to indulge yourself!" And he pressed the delete key. "And what's this 'Extra Duties' part then?"

The driver looked incredulous. "That's time spent on call at nights and weekends for the emergency jobs that come up." he said.

"But you don't physically work all that time!" argued Paul.

"No - that's why it's paid at a different rate," the driver explained, as if to a small child.

Paul's finger hovered over the Delete key again. Then he saw another entry and was instantly distracted. "Ha! Three hours for 'Ongoing Learning"? Explain."

"Well, we are legally supposed to keep up to date with developments in the field," the driver replied.

"Ah, yes..." Paul smirked. "But we've taken care of most of that with our In-House training programme days." And he altered the entry from 3 to 0.5 hours.

And so it went.

One non-core profit making activity after another was questioned and amended in this way until each driver began to feel as though he had been trying to defraud the company by claiming for work that need not be done.

Finally Paul would lean back in his chair with a satisfied grin. "There!" he'd say, looking at the bottom line. "I thought so. A grand total of 'five days'."

Paul approves a business case

For over two years now the drivers had been lobbying Paul to invest in a new type of vehicle. Although rather specialist in nature, they had seen that there was a growing market for the European Universal Saloon and furthermore, their main competitor - the British Ultimate Passenger Association - did not have it. In fact only a small local company boasted this car and their chief specialist driver of the vehicle was about to retire.

Moreover, the last two times that the National Hire Service had had its performance reviewed by external assessors - a process that all car hire companies underwent to ensure that a safe service was being provided to the public - they had been criticized for not having the European Universal Saloon saying that it made a nonsense of Paul's repeated claim that they were the leading provider of 'specialist luxury long-haul family transportation'.

Although it was quite an expensive car, the drivers had calculated that the income it would generate would more than pay for itself inside two years and they wrote a business case for Paul to this effect. After a few revisions, whereby their original figures had been massaged out of all recognition by Paul and his Procurement Advisory Team, the drivers were pleasantly surprised to find that the idea had been approved. Moreover, the income it was due to generate was, in the new revamped business case, going to be used for other much needed improvements. Even more excitingly the company was also going to buy some very rare glass for strengthening the windscreens on its sports cars - the branded 'Superior Protection Y' glass was eagerly awaited.

All these new acquisitions were voluably trumpeted around by Paul as an example of pro-active management. The drivers were happy with the extra services although in practice found that the Superior Protection Y glass made little difference. They waited and waited for the European Universal Saloon to arrive and were often told that the purchase order had been signed - but nothing came.

They visited Paul.

"Paul," they began. "You've invested the predicted profits from the European Universal Saloon business case in all these other acquisitions but the car itself hasn't arrived yet. What's going on?"

Paul took out an old envelope and started writing down figures.

"What are you doing?" they enquired.

"Seeing if the extra income you can generate from private use of the European Universal Saloon would fund us investing in it," he countered.

"But Paul! The business case went through ages ago. You've even spent most of the projected profits on other schemes. There's no point in trying to reinvent it on the back of an envelope now!"

But nevertheless they were tasked to go away and rewrite it. Which they did, and then they took it back to Paul.

He squirmed a bit but eventually conceded that there was indeed a case to be made for the purchase. The drivers looked happy.

They made arrangements for an opening ceremony. It became clear that the car iteslf would not have been shipped by the date set so they arranged for the supplier to lend them a demonstration model for the day. They adorned it with a large red ribbon and invited the press. Paul made short speech about how working together was driving up quality and innovation, cut the ribbon, ate some cake at the buffet and quickly left.

The drivers looked forward to using the new car: it could only be another couple of weeks before it arrived, surely?

Thus it was that they were not a little perturbed to find that some weeks later they received a form to fill out analysing the benefits of the car and comparing it to other models.

"Why?" they queried.

"Well, we can't sign the purchase order until that is done," replied Paul.

"What?!" They were aghast. "We thought that had been done before the Grand Opening."

"Oh no!" smiled Paul, touched by such naivity.

Paul designs a pathway

Paul was looking out of his office window watching the hire vehicles enter and leave the car park. He watched as the drivers parked in the section cordoned off for returning vehicles, went to the canteen and then re-emerged to return to their cars, vans and lorries to refuel them at the in-house pumps and then clean them in the jet-spray area. Later they might climb into a different vehicle to set off on another job. Other times they might not clean the cars, and sometimes they refuelled before going off for a coffee.

This asymmetry irked him. “We need to streamline this to make it more efficient,” he thought to himself. “A pathway for managing all this activity after returning to the depot – that’s what is needed.”

He took a walk around outside and noticed that behind the canteen there was a covered area where the vehicles queued to get to the fuel pumps. It was tolerably large. Some vehicles however seemed to jump the queue, refuel and drive off immediately. These did not wait in the covered area.

He met with his managers to discuss this problem. They covered many sheets of paper with flowcharts, estimated timescales and projected numbers. Finally they came up with a plan.

“Shall we tell the drivers?” asked one.

“I suppose we should.”

*

“We need to restructure the process for servicing the vehicles when you return from jobs,” Paul began to the assembled company.

The drivers looked puzzled. “Why?” they asked. “What’s wrong with what we do now?”

“It doesn’t follow a defined pathway,” replied Paul. We need people to fuel and clean the vehicles and dedicated scheduled rest breaks.”

“But we fuel our vehicles now and clean them when necessary. When there’s time we’ll have a break. Sometimes there’s an urgent job to do so we just refuel straightaway and get on with the work. It works really well. No one gets upset if someone jumps the fuel queue if they have an urgent appointment”

Paul ignored this.

“We propose to build a dedicated ‘Fuel and Wash’ facility behind the canteen where specialist refuellers can work the pumps more efficiently and trained cleaners can be on jet-spray duty,” he countered.

“But Paul,” the drivers said. “Not all vehicles need cleaning every time. Their last job might only have been a trip for a few miles down the road. And most vehicles don’t need immediate refuelling as their next job might not be until the next day.”

Paul ignored this.

“You’re just going to spend money building a facility that simply reproduces what we do now.”

Paul ignored this. He was thinking of his pathway.

“Is there any evidence that refuelling our cars sooner and washing them more frequently improves our productivity?” they queried.

Paul ignored this, principally because he did not know of any.

The drivers despaired as Paul wandered off to meet with the architect to start building his new Fuel and Wash area anyway.

Paul's worker consultation

On another day Paul left his car and was again walking towards the company's building and his office, passing the rows of vehicles for hire. However, he noticed that one section of the parking lot was not filled with these but with the drivers' own cars instead. What a waste of valuable room, he thought. The company could stock far more hire vehicles if this was not simply 'dead space'.

He met with his managers and they discussed the problem. Eventually they decided to survey the drivers as to what they felt would be the best solution. However, instead of allowing them to voice their opinions - this might produce too many and varied answers - they felt it best to make it a tick-box exercise and let them have a choice of only three:

1. Pay more to park here

2. Pay even more to park here, or

3. Don't park here.

Unsurprisingly the drivers were not impressed with this tactic but were even less enamoured of their management when the results of the survey were published some weeks later and these showed that the majority view was apparently that the best option was to build a multi-storey car park, that it would need to be funded from increased car parking fees, and that these increases would be in relation to the salary of each worker .

"But Paul!" they cried in horror as the amount of the increase was made clear. "That is up to triple what we pay now. And we won't be getting any better facilities. Even now we often have to queue and search for a space."

But Paul was unmoved. "We need more space, and as there are other buildings all around we cannot expand sideways. We need to go upwards."

"But Paul," protested the drivers. "You can't fund real estate improvements by effectively cutting our salaries. That should be funded from the company's own internal budgets."

But Paul was unmoved.

"And another thing: this charge is related to salary - the higher the salary, the more one pays. Are you aware that only the government can set an income tax, which is what this effectively is? You are acting illegally."

But Paul was unmoved.

"Will the management staff also be subjected to these new higher prices to park here?" they asked.

Paul remained silent.

"If we don't want to sign up to the new charges where else could we park?"

Paul coughed. "You can use the Park and Ride facility we will be laying on or use the bus."

"But Paul. Some of our taskings are not during the normal working day. The Park and Ride or the bus services may not be running when we have to come in at these other times. Are we effectively being penalised for not working nine-to-five?"

Paul remained silent.

"And another thing, Paul," the drivers persisted. "If this goes ahead it is not clear what happens to this huge increase in fees when the new multi-storey car park has been built. Do we become part-owners of it as we will have paid for it? Do the charges then revert to the old levels?"

But Paul remained silent.