Hoping for Mediocrity

I passed the big meeting room at my work today.  It was rammed to the gills with people in badges faffing about with post-its (I think they were doing their ‘ice-breaker’) while a PowerPoint slide said ‘Striving for Excellence’.  I think they were something to do with the Council - in which case ‘Hoping for Mediocrity’ would have been more appropriate – but I just felt kind of ill really.  Hundreds of people on reasonable wages wasting all day waiting for the coffee breaks looking at slides about ‘Our Core Values’ and other generic anaemic management speak. 

Like all of these things, their ‘core values’ will be bland stuff about ‘opportunity’ or ‘customer service’ or whatever.  In fact I’ve just cheated.  I Googled the organisation that I think was in there to find that one of their ‘core values’ is ‘Embracing equality and diversity’.  I know it’s a trick people use but it’s a good one – flip it over...Obviously they’re not one of these outfits that rejects equality and diversity then?  I also picked up ‘excellent value for money’, ‘customer led’, ‘open honest and trusted’...It does seem that one’s ‘core values’ are often the opposite of what people really think of your organisation.  The triumph of HR.  The triumph of management speak.  The triumph of going to meetings rather than getting on with some work.  It’s just depressing.  Send them down the sludge works...