What were you doing on….. Colin Ross?
As yesterday Bob tagged me about what I was doing on the 20th March 2003 I suddenly realised that there’s one person I had forgot to pass it on to. My old mate Colin Ross. That’s the guy who works for Ian Shires the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Walsall and who’s salary is paid for by Walsall MBC.
However I thought I’d make it a bit more specific in terms of dates and times, so here goes. I’d like to ask Colin what he was doing at:
10.37am, Thu 1st Mar 2007
2.56pm, Thu 1st Mar 2007
4.30pm, Thu 1st Mar 2007
9.18am, Fri 2nd Mar 2007
10.43am, Mon 5th Mar 2007
10.40am, Tue 6th Mar 2007
12.41pm, Tue 6th Mar 2007
4.52pm, Tue 6th Mar 2007
12.01pm, Wed 7th Mar 2007
12.37pm, Thu 8th Mar 2007
10.34am, Fri 9th Mar 2007
10.41am, Fri 9th Mar 2007
11.05am, Fri 9th Mar 2007
2.41pm, Mon 12th Mar 2007
4.47pm, Tue 13th Mar 2007
9.46am, Wed 14th Mar 2007
3.37pm, Wed 14th Mar 2007
10.58am, Thu 15th Mar 2007
11.07am, Thu 15th Mar 2007
5.03pm, Thu 15th Mar 2007
10.20am, Fri 16th Mar 2007
10.19am, Tue 20th Mar 2007
2.02pm, Tue 20th Mar 2007
10.29am, Wed 21st Mar 2007
OK, it’s a rhetorical question, I know the answer. Colin was posting to his blog and has been throughout the day for the last few years. Feel free to browse his archives he’s been at this for quite a while.
The only problem I have is that I thought Colin worked up at Walsall Council for Ian Shires, the Leader of the LibDems in Walsall and these times that Colin seems to post to his site throughout the week appear to fall pretty much within what would normally be defined as the traditional working day.
I only say this because I spotted this little article on the Express & Star’s website where it appears staff at Walsall Council caught doing things like downloading stuff and posting to their personal blogs might get into rather a bit of trouble.
I’m sure we’d all hate that to happen to Colin wouldn’t we?
NB.
I have of course recorded Colin’s entries for this month should they be requested from me for further investigation if Colin tries and pulls a fast one by deleted them or removing the timestamps.
21st March 2007 in LibDem Bashing, Walsall MBC
Paul Macmanomy responded on 21 Mar 2007 at 7:54 pm #
I can only assume that his employer has approved his activities and therefore endorses his views and opinions?
Political Penguin responded on 22 Mar 2007 at 1:47 am #
Who can tell Paul, but as I’ve been getting quite a few hits from Walsall Council as of late, who knows checking up on Colin’s activities.
Perhaps it’s time I put in an official complaint. Of course as a concerned resident of Walsall who wouldn’t wish for their procedures and practices regulations to be abused?
SteB responded on 22 Mar 2007 at 11:11 pm #
Maybe Mr Ross does additional hours at work, either a) before his scheduled start time; or b) after the end of the working day……I don’t know either of you, but stop being so damn petty…..what next, loitering too long at the coffee machine; walking at too slow a pace on your way back from the khazi?
Grow up.
Political Penguin responded on 24 Mar 2007 at 1:54 am #
Thanks for the comment SteB. As you’ll see Colin’s posting times are pretty spread out across the working day. He’d have to have some very strange working hours for that to be a legitimate excuse.
Secondly and I think you may have missed my point on this one. I’ve been aware of Colin posting during what would normally be considered working hours for the past few months and had chose not to post on it.
However when I noticed that Walsall MBC was going to introduce this policy and you’ll see by the article they appear to be taking a pretty hard line on the issue with threats of sackings I contacted the council to enquire about the new system, when it would be implemented and what scope there was for it’s introduction retrospectively.
Now from what I was told the policy has not been implemented yet although it is due to be very soon, they may wish to try and take action against employees retrospectively but as it appears Walsall MBC has no current ‘acceptable terms of usage’ policy for IT equipment then I’d hazard a guess any employee whom action is taken against for previous breaches of the new code would have a fairly good case in tribunal.
After all how can an employee be sacked for doing something that wasn’t against the rules? There are of course exceptions. If their activity online falls into areas of gross dereliction of duty etc etc but we won’t go there.
By highlighting this issue and almost certainly bringing it to the attention of Mr Ross I quite possibly may have saved him from the sack or at least maybe got him off with a warning assuming he doesn’t continue his practice of posting during what would be considered his hours of work from his works computer.
Now if I’d really wished to be a nasty git then I would have kept quiet. Waited for the policy to be introduced then picked a time that might be most politically damaging like a few weeks before the local elections in May and then released it.
My personal view having been in various positions including supervisory and management is that I don’t go for these draconian employment policies.
I’ve always believed that as long as an employee gets their job done then I really wouldn’t give a toss if the spent half the day chatting on MSN or looking up whatever on the internet.
So personally I think Walsall Council is implementing a policy which I wouldn’t agree with, both on the basis of it being a bit too overbearing and from the perspective of enforcement, very bloody difficult to achieve for which the only ones who will get caught are probably those who get ratted on by workmates who they’ve fallen out with. Not a happy environment in which to work I’m sure.
SteB responded on 24 Mar 2007 at 6:15 am #
I agree entirely with your last paragraph – if this was the real point you were trying to make then perhaps this is what should have been said, rather than the approach that you did take in your original post?
Political Penguin responded on 25 Mar 2007 at 12:28 pm #
As you stated in your first comment, you know neither me or Colin Ross.
Well, perhaps you might have a different perspective if you had been personally the target of attacks by LibDems who while trying to pretend they are the nice party, show a rather different side far too often in practice.
On that basis I have no problem whatsoever in drawing people’s attention to their hypocrisy, double-standards and general screw-ups whenever I feel like it.
Bob Piper responded on 25 Mar 2007 at 10:26 pm #
How very strange. Since you published this it seems Fat Col has found no time during the day to post at all…
Political Penguin responded on 26 Mar 2007 at 1:20 am #
He does seem to have slowed his rate of posting down quite considerably compared to previous form. Also interesting to note that the only times he posts during the week are at out of normal working hours times and a couple at what one might consider to be lunchtime.
Very strange that isn’t it?