The Law Of Large Holes

[peterbirks]

The law of large holes is, bascially, that when you find yourself in one, it might be a good idea to stop digging.

This radical concept has clearly not occurred to Capita, which runs London's Congestion Charge scheme. A "disgruntled" employee secretly filmed the inner workings of this company, revealing it to be bureaucractic, inflexible and generally inhabited by the kind of jobsworth that you see in administrative operations the world over. Clearly Capita gains most of its recruits from the Ministry of Defence or DEFRA.

And what is Capita's response to this? Contrition? An apology? Ahh, clearly you are not au fait with the workings of the petty bureaucratic mind. First Capita says that it may take legal action against Channel Four for filming the project which, they claimed, failed to point out that "Capital staff were seen applying Transport for London's rules consistently in their dealings with the public". Nothing about whether these rules were "right"; nothing about "common sense". All that was important was that Capita was following someone else's guidelines and that it was applying these guidelines "consistently". This is rather reminiscent of the logistics officer in Schindler's List who cares only whether someone is or is not on the list, not whether they should be on the list in the first place.

So, this "consistency" included taking to court someone who accidentally keyed in a slightly wrong number plate, and putting the bailiffs onto a woman who had sold the car for which she was being fined before the consistency charge was introduced.

But Capita's second response is even better than the first. "This is not a customer services friendly service. It is all about reducing congestion, and this is how our client (TFL) wanted it to be run".

So, back to the "we were only following orders" line, I see. But it really is a pretty good one. Yes, we are shit at the way we handle the people we fine. That's because they are not customers, but criminals. Except, of course, that a lot of them aren't, and they don't see it that way. They pay a set amount for a good (the right to drive in central London for a day), and they expect the provider of that right to provide a good service. Capita's response? "This is not a customer services friendly service".

Stop digging, boys. Stop digging.

Comments

Capita

[miserable-git.livejournal.com]

You forget Pete, that Capita see their customer as TFL as that is the source of their revenue. The poor saps who pay the CC and the fines are not "customers" as they do not contribute directly to the financial well being of Capita itself.

Two other things, Capita used to have a lot of ex-ICL staff, so I see why they are not responsive to the public (I'm ex & current ICL/Fujitsu).

Off on a tangent, our company car drivers get the CC fines debited from salary. There was one incident of a driver having a considerable number of fines deducted from his salary when he and his car had never been east of Swindon! This is partly as the make/model of vehicle isn't given as part of the penalty notice, just registration. I wonder how many fake plates have really been used since the inception on the CC?

Re: Capita

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I know that Capita sees TFL as its customer rather than the general public. But the general public is more likely to see the whole thing as a service (for which it pays). And Capita "runs" this service, so the general public, unsurprisingly, sees itself as a customer. It's a dichotomy. Capita's problem is that it can't see this dichotomy. It doesn't give a shit if it pisses off its employees, (one wonders *why* this employee was "disgruntled") the general public, or even the government, since none of these groups directly pays the bills. It is a view of such staggering short-sightedness and one that displays such a woeful lack of social ability that I am not surprised that you say a number of the staff are former computerish people. It's the kind of thinking that an IT person would come up with.

Re: Capita

[miserable-git.livejournal.com]

My previous message may have gone. A lot of the people who started in the early days were ex-ICL "Government IT" people. The attitude does not surprise me. Most big IT service organisations are run by bean counters who love trying to measure things, unfortunately perception is not measurable.

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

"Consistency charge" ??? Some kind of interesting slip there.

"Crucifixion?"
"Yes"
"Good, through here, line on the left, one cross each"

Subbing, what subbing

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Listen mate, if you want me to proof-read this stuff when I *should* be producing the daily newsletter, then dream on. Where does Life of Brian come into it?

Re: Subbing, what subbing

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

"Treating customers like criminals" got my perverse imagination on to treating criminals like customers and that was what popped out. Slow day at work today...

Geoff C - on about GH

[(Anonymous)]

GH appeared today containing about 40% new material and 60% blog recycled material. Now what do you do about the material that is new to the blog for all those strange finance-y/poker people who are unaware of GH as an entity or even the subculture from which it springs?

More immediately pertinent, what you need now is for people to respond to what's in the zine in such a way that it appears as part of the blog rather than like this as a response to a wholly unrelated topic.

You really are a sad bastard with the DVD thing aren't you? I guess we have a collection of 100+ videos around the house which I catalogued the contents of recently. In part it was to find free space for stuff we didn't need so I had a few spares for time-shift TV recording. But the better intention was to find films that we haven't seen but that the girls would now appreciate. Something like Heat is a wonderful film and worth seeing but not suitable for 11 year olds. Nicki turned 18 a couple of weeks ago and there is a library of 100 films that she and Steph can enjoy.

Once they've seen them though, the whole lot can go to the tip.

I am only obsessive about music and the same pattern is there with a hell of a lot of stuff that I would previously have not played. But in these MP3/iPod days it's all different. By having the thing set on shuffle it pulls up all sorts and gives you a real buzz from hearing stuff that would otherwise have vanished from your head. Exchanging tracks with Webley over Christmas has brought lots of old stuff onto the machine including stuff like Gabriel-era Genesis which is great and rekindles interest.

What we could do with is a DVD equivalent to stored movies - that plays random 5 min snippets of movies in your collection before jumping to the next clip. Let's face it - that's how a lot of people consume normal satellite television these days. It would just do away with having to use the remote.

Re: Geoff C - on about GH

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Geoff,

Yes, I see all the problems that the GH/blog interface poses. But the basic fact was, this was the only way that I could think that would get GH out. You will note that I put the blog address (mistyped, of course :-)) on page one of GH. The hope would be that some of the responses would come through online. I could then turn that into a ckind of lettercol for the next issue. I don't really want to bring new people into GH, because I had always planned to fold at issue 300 and the whole thing has been "in run-off" for some time. Its raison d'etre is now extremely tenuous. A blog does what I want to do far more efficiently.

Yes, I am a sad bastard with DVDs. I don't want to be and I really ought to send all the stuff to the tip, like you will. In 20 years there will be some kind of online library where any old film or TV programme can be accessed, so the need to keep movies and old TV series at home will have vanished. Just DOD (download on demand) or watch it streamed in real time.

Re: Geoff C - on about GH

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

By having the thing set on shuffle it pulls up all sorts and gives you a real buzz from hearing stuff that would otherwise have vanished from your head

Kind of a "Radio You". About 1 in 20 confuses me utterly and I get to play "guess the track".

The Law of Large Holes

[(Anonymous)]

Although I appreciate that Capita is not, presumably, integrated into the civil service, this story does illustrate something about government. On the one hand, it claims to be at the service of the people. On the other hand, it orders the people around and bullies them unmercifully whenever it thinks no-one's looking.

I return to Lenny Bruce as quoted by David Friedman at the start of "The Machinery of Freedom":

"Capitalism is the best. It's free enterprise. Barter. Gimbels, if I get really rank with the clerk, 'Well I don't like this', how can I resolve it? If it gets really ridiculous, I go, 'Frig it, man, I walk.' What can this guy do at Gimbels, even if he was the president of Gimbels? He can always reject me from that store, but I can always go to Macy's. He can't really hurt me. Communism is like one big phone company. Government control, man. And if I get too rank with that phone company, where can I go? I'll end up like a schmuck with a dixie cup on a thread."

Government is not a customer-friendly service.

-- Jonathan, near Barcelona