Why senior civil servants should not be trusted with maths
As some of you may know, a chunk of the part of the civil service I work in is planning to go on strike next Monday.
A nice chap called Stuart Griffiths, head of the part of company I work for, has (as tradition dictates), written staff a letter telling them why they're wrong and undemocratic.
One of the arguments they always trot out (and this time is no exception) is: not everyone in the company is in the union, not everyone in the union voted, and not everyone who voted voted to strike. Ergo only a small percentage of people wanted the strike. The figure he gave is 22% of the department, which shows a fair degree of maths fail, as everyone else's maths gives 29%. But that's by the by.
You see I worked out the percentage of the electorate who voted Conservative in the 2010 UK general election, and - guess what - it comes to 23.5%. Therefore the strike still has more support than the government.
Now I'm not going to say where I work publicly. I imagine a lot of people who know me don't need to be told, and a bit of Google-fu can get everyone else up to speed. However the reason I don't admit to where I work is the constant threat from management about people who say where they work via "social networking". We keep getting it drummed into us, though there isn't any ban on it per se. What they're really worried about is that working for part of the civil service gives us added legitimacy. Suddenly it's not a matter of wiffly_shwoo 29-year-old psychology graduate posting a humourous (perhaps) Facebook update about her cat - it's a Civil Servant Having an Opinion. And they are very worried about us publicly having damaging opinions which can be attributed to the department.
I do see their point, though they are pursuing it with overkill.
The thing is, when a senior civil servant publicly comes out as denigrating the democratic process - the same process by which his employers were selected - that just feels wrong. A lot more wrong than admitting where I work on Facebook.
A nice chap called Stuart Griffiths, head of the part of company I work for, has (as tradition dictates), written staff a letter telling them why they're wrong and undemocratic.
One of the arguments they always trot out (and this time is no exception) is: not everyone in the company is in the union, not everyone in the union voted, and not everyone who voted voted to strike. Ergo only a small percentage of people wanted the strike. The figure he gave is 22% of the department, which shows a fair degree of maths fail, as everyone else's maths gives 29%. But that's by the by.
You see I worked out the percentage of the electorate who voted Conservative in the 2010 UK general election, and - guess what - it comes to 23.5%. Therefore the strike still has more support than the government.
Now I'm not going to say where I work publicly. I imagine a lot of people who know me don't need to be told, and a bit of Google-fu can get everyone else up to speed. However the reason I don't admit to where I work is the constant threat from management about people who say where they work via "social networking". We keep getting it drummed into us, though there isn't any ban on it per se. What they're really worried about is that working for part of the civil service gives us added legitimacy. Suddenly it's not a matter of wiffly_shwoo 29-year-old psychology graduate posting a humourous (perhaps) Facebook update about her cat - it's a Civil Servant Having an Opinion. And they are very worried about us publicly having damaging opinions which can be attributed to the department.
I do see their point, though they are pursuing it with overkill.
The thing is, when a senior civil servant publicly comes out as denigrating the democratic process - the same process by which his employers were selected - that just feels wrong. A lot more wrong than admitting where I work on Facebook.