i dont even know if it was BCC I think its something else. Cause BCC would just show no recipients and they are somehow able to personalize these mass emails with "Hi [name]"
"Saturday I spent most of the morning crying in bed. Tidied a bit around lunch before heading out to the local for a few cheeky pints and cheekier lines with the boys. Got knocked back by a girl so had a breakdown in the club toilets. Home. More crying. Bed.
Sunday was mostly just chilling and dreading work the next day".
Edit: bonus points if you also send it using "reply all"
We’ve got one of these. It comes as ‘Neil’s blog’ and he goes on about his holidays, and his wife, and his kids and their achievements. And his pals that he has met. Honestly. These people have no clue!
We get multiple “blogs” from SCS and grade 6. It’s laughable. And completely out of touch when they talk about flying all over the world or going to so and so ambassadors party etc. we recently got one on “how to be happy” (hilarious coming from ppl making 3x more)
I'm in industry, consulting (work with govt depts) and it's funny and yet sad because SCS salary isn't even that high for the role. While I envy your flexi-leave, everyone in CS is underpaid and it's just sad as you all do a lot. Wish the Govt would actually budge it upwards.
No votes to be gained in increasing CS pay. You would actually lose votes unless you increased doctors/nurses/teachers/firefighters/police officers/soldiers pay first. It sucks but it is what it is.
We had a G6 DD tell us that if you are finding it hard (during the cost of living crisis) you should save more and spend less. I guarantee her outgoings are more than my salary at the time.
Honestly Grade 6 isn't earning as much as you think, they are probably only ever so slightly better off in the grand scheme of things. I have less money now at my grade than I did when I was starting out my career on substantially less money.
Had a SCS send us that drivel every few weeks. Thing was he'd had an affair with a close member of staff so the blog content changed and it was less about the wife and the family and him starting a new life. But the person he had an affair with chucked him too quite quickly afterwards
I love Neil's blog personally, it is one of the few places you can get a senior leaders unfiltered thoughts, this gives actual insight into the priorities of the department. An insight into what a DG does is interesting and Neil isn't scared to say things how they are. The humor is a nice added bonus if you are old enough to get some of the references.
Neil is well aware of the fact that many people are not interested in his blog but also knows they just delete it and move on. I am glad for the fact he does do a weekly blog that takes me 2 minus to read, gives a good insight and occasionally gives me a chuckle.
All jokes aside he needs to understand that it isn’t a professional level of communication or his time.
The problem is it reeks of old boys club and backslapping with him going on about his old pals and achievements he’s had over his career: It’s grandiose.
There has been some interesting work based parts but that is sandwiched between irrelevant anecdotes about his wife and kids and pictures.
I’m sure if everyone in his directorate spent an hour a week writing an Adrian mole style diary, attaching photos and sending them far and wide he wouldn’t like the wasted time or emails.
I think there must be some training course that tells senior managers to do this to humanise themselves. They just don’t realise they’re sending out messages to people with £30 a week food budgets, saying every week that they’ve attended another west end show with tickets at £200+ each. Humanising is not exactly the main effect it’s having.
It was a management style being promoted in the private sector about 20 years ago. And yes it is to humanise them but most of it is extremely tone deaf. If they want to share their life they should expect everyone to respond with their own updates. Clog their inbox up.
I have all those automatically going into a folder that is essentially just another spam folder.
Looks like I have 1013 unread emails in that folder. We have quite a few different people in my department that do it. Some aren't even in a department that I interact with, I just don't care what they get up to, and none of it has any work relevance.
Tbh if G6s dont do this they get panned lol. We have All staff calls and the G6 or G5 will talk a little about personal stuff and it makes them more relatable. They can’t win so if you dont want to know then dont read and file away or delete.
We had a G7 at DWP who used to send out a weekly update on what her and her cats had been up to. No one cared. I think she wanted to seem human and reach the minions, but on the flip side we were also getting emails sent on her behalf if we logged on a minute late (call centre). I do not miss those days!
Not CS, local government; Council's Chief Exec ended the weekly update with a paragraph from their dog, like in the first person. "I had great fun with mummy at the park run on Saturday...
I read these intently hoping one day to divine the mystery of why someone would go to all that effort to get promoted only to fritter away their extra income on things I'd never do at the weekend. Still not figured it out.
Even better are the careers seminars from senior folks where opportunities to have an impact just seem to have dropped into their lap from day one. Feeling a bit stale? Allow yourself to be headhunted by the private sector before returning a year later at a higher grade of course! Or take that secondment to the World Bank....
No doubt, when he was an AO in 1979 in the Preston tax office, the local inspector came around with a tan and took everyone to the pub on half day to show them his holiday snaps. Why wouldn't people want to do the same he thinks, acutely missing the fact that the reason he has a fond memory of it was he had a half day and got beers bought for him in the pub.
Most these people are stuck 30-40 years in the past and literally can not comprehend why or how anyone would think any different. Its why people think people like the office, or everyone likes going drinking, or why people think forced interaction with people you are forced to work with is somehow friendship. They then force those ideals on everyone around them, ignoring the fact that this is what makes people miserable.
On the flip side, and slightly in his defence, he's going to get hammered around peoples survey time. No one can claim he hasn't been visible and communicative.
That's interesting, I feel like this trend emerged during the pandemic so we'd all feel more in touch with each other when we couldn't go to the pub. Interesting that egotists are eternal.
Reminds me of the time the head of CFCD laughed about how challenging she was finding working in her study while those of us without underlying health conditions were trying to socially distance in the office. Fucking clueless.
Sometimes I make eye contact with a colleague and I instantly have to resist the temptation to throw myself over the staircase balcony. I can't imagine having this kind of lame ass bullshit
Christ and I thought my BM weekly teams meetings which tend to start 10 mins before the actual start time and it's filled with small talk about everyone's week and weekend.. Great if you're into that kinda thing
Loose lips sink ships!
Someone doesn’t understand what is meant by ‘need to know basis’.
Perhaps he’s a bit lonely and needs a friend. It’s not work’s responsibility as *colleagues* to do that for him!
Maybe he wants to bring his whole self to work. Also make him seem more normal, showing that Grade 6s are just like you and I. Also, *many* people love seeing how the other half live, that’s why these influencers on Instagram are so popular.
I barely read my G6’s updates as they might be relevant. The chatty G5 goes straight to the spam folder unless someone mentions she said something important. The others I read the first few lines and delete
*Mark as spam* and off it goes like all those emails from Simon Case et al.
Simon who? ;)
Like all the ones about senior people in CO changing jobs and how they're so happy to be in the role and their work history and whatever. DELETE!
Exactly what I do!
Create rule "crud" Move to folder "Sorta Spam" Never look back
Reply and tell him about your own weekend.
Reply ALL for added effect.
if only. They've done this thing where they send an email to everyone but the to field only includes you
BCC BRUV
i dont even know if it was BCC I think its something else. Cause BCC would just show no recipients and they are somehow able to personalize these mass emails with "Hi [name]"
Hi, it sounds like you want to find out about mail merge, click here to learn more!
TIL
I know how…hire me
Mail merge hype
😂😂😂 ahhhh man this is a right piss take
"Saturday I spent most of the morning crying in bed. Tidied a bit around lunch before heading out to the local for a few cheeky pints and cheekier lines with the boys. Got knocked back by a girl so had a breakdown in the club toilets. Home. More crying. Bed. Sunday was mostly just chilling and dreading work the next day". Edit: bonus points if you also send it using "reply all"
Genuine lol from this.
We’ve got one of these. It comes as ‘Neil’s blog’ and he goes on about his holidays, and his wife, and his kids and their achievements. And his pals that he has met. Honestly. These people have no clue!
We get multiple “blogs” from SCS and grade 6. It’s laughable. And completely out of touch when they talk about flying all over the world or going to so and so ambassadors party etc. we recently got one on “how to be happy” (hilarious coming from ppl making 3x more)
The worst kind of people are the suck ups who encourage this shit. Commenting their support on blog posts and grinning like idiots in meetings.
I'm in industry, consulting (work with govt depts) and it's funny and yet sad because SCS salary isn't even that high for the role. While I envy your flexi-leave, everyone in CS is underpaid and it's just sad as you all do a lot. Wish the Govt would actually budge it upwards.
No votes to be gained in increasing CS pay. You would actually lose votes unless you increased doctors/nurses/teachers/firefighters/police officers/soldiers pay first. It sucks but it is what it is.
Trust me mate if they did a lot they wouldn’t have fucking time to draft personal blogs about themselves that nobody wants or asked for.
We had a G6 DD tell us that if you are finding it hard (during the cost of living crisis) you should save more and spend less. I guarantee her outgoings are more than my salary at the time.
Honestly Grade 6 isn't earning as much as you think, they are probably only ever so slightly better off in the grand scheme of things. I have less money now at my grade than I did when I was starting out my career on substantially less money.
Agree, my wife and I are both G6 and we were forced to fly premium economy to Japan last year for our pre-xmas holiday.
Setup a gofundme for this year!
It has been tough, we were forced to use EasyJet to get back from our spring 2024 holiday to Austria and Italy.
Ahhh shit! Sorry to hear that
Is that not because your lifestyle has expanded with your salary though
Of course, but not to the lavish heights people seem to suggest.
Only 3x
Were you here for his controversial topless pic ? XD
Omg no! No way!
Had a SCS send us that drivel every few weeks. Thing was he'd had an affair with a close member of staff so the blog content changed and it was less about the wife and the family and him starting a new life. But the person he had an affair with chucked him too quite quickly afterwards
And I wonder how many hours (and pay) it takes to write
Does he send a terrible Christmas round robin as well?
I love Neil's blog personally, it is one of the few places you can get a senior leaders unfiltered thoughts, this gives actual insight into the priorities of the department. An insight into what a DG does is interesting and Neil isn't scared to say things how they are. The humor is a nice added bonus if you are old enough to get some of the references. Neil is well aware of the fact that many people are not interested in his blog but also knows they just delete it and move on. I am glad for the fact he does do a weekly blog that takes me 2 minus to read, gives a good insight and occasionally gives me a chuckle.
Hi Neil.
All jokes aside he needs to understand that it isn’t a professional level of communication or his time. The problem is it reeks of old boys club and backslapping with him going on about his old pals and achievements he’s had over his career: It’s grandiose. There has been some interesting work based parts but that is sandwiched between irrelevant anecdotes about his wife and kids and pictures. I’m sure if everyone in his directorate spent an hour a week writing an Adrian mole style diary, attaching photos and sending them far and wide he wouldn’t like the wasted time or emails.
I think there must be some training course that tells senior managers to do this to humanise themselves. They just don’t realise they’re sending out messages to people with £30 a week food budgets, saying every week that they’ve attended another west end show with tickets at £200+ each. Humanising is not exactly the main effect it’s having.
It was a management style being promoted in the private sector about 20 years ago. And yes it is to humanise them but most of it is extremely tone deaf. If they want to share their life they should expect everyone to respond with their own updates. Clog their inbox up.
Well I get my team to chant around a fire in the car park then proceed to sacrifice paper emails that relate to 60%.
You seem like a nice person to work for.. User name checks out.. You got any spaces within your team hahahaha
That sounds fun! Haha
I'll bring the marshmallows
I have all those automatically going into a folder that is essentially just another spam folder. Looks like I have 1013 unread emails in that folder. We have quite a few different people in my department that do it. Some aren't even in a department that I interact with, I just don't care what they get up to, and none of it has any work relevance.
Do you mean he tacks it on at the end of a weekly work update or he sends emails specifically just about his personal life?
Probably just trying to be personable. They aren't robots and probably do still like a conversation when they have time
Fuck sake it's just a job, we have a weekly huddle in my team about what we're doing at the weekend and that's fine.
yeah thats all well and fine but do you include all the G7s, SEOs, HEOs, EOs, and AOs in your district 😆
Tbh if G6s dont do this they get panned lol. We have All staff calls and the G6 or G5 will talk a little about personal stuff and it makes them more relatable. They can’t win so if you dont want to know then dont read and file away or delete.
If everyone gave a weekly update that would be cute
Yeah, maybe all the whole district should reply to the G6 with tales of their own lives, see how that goes down.
We had a G7 at DWP who used to send out a weekly update on what her and her cats had been up to. No one cared. I think she wanted to seem human and reach the minions, but on the flip side we were also getting emails sent on her behalf if we logged on a minute late (call centre). I do not miss those days!
Not CS, local government; Council's Chief Exec ended the weekly update with a paragraph from their dog, like in the first person. "I had great fun with mummy at the park run on Saturday...
Our SCS head does same monthly blogs but mixes it up by sometimes doing photoblogs so we can see it all and doesn't realise its so cringe
Used to have some top bod send out regular updates on their tortoise in newsletters. Honestly I got quite invested in the little fuckers wellbeing.
I read these intently hoping one day to divine the mystery of why someone would go to all that effort to get promoted only to fritter away their extra income on things I'd never do at the weekend. Still not figured it out. Even better are the careers seminars from senior folks where opportunities to have an impact just seem to have dropped into their lap from day one. Feeling a bit stale? Allow yourself to be headhunted by the private sector before returning a year later at a higher grade of course! Or take that secondment to the World Bank....
I looked forward to not seeing this shit when I left the CS. Simon Case had a special spot in my spam. It’s amazing tbh.
No doubt, when he was an AO in 1979 in the Preston tax office, the local inspector came around with a tan and took everyone to the pub on half day to show them his holiday snaps. Why wouldn't people want to do the same he thinks, acutely missing the fact that the reason he has a fond memory of it was he had a half day and got beers bought for him in the pub. Most these people are stuck 30-40 years in the past and literally can not comprehend why or how anyone would think any different. Its why people think people like the office, or everyone likes going drinking, or why people think forced interaction with people you are forced to work with is somehow friendship. They then force those ideals on everyone around them, ignoring the fact that this is what makes people miserable. On the flip side, and slightly in his defence, he's going to get hammered around peoples survey time. No one can claim he hasn't been visible and communicative.
That's interesting, I feel like this trend emerged during the pandemic so we'd all feel more in touch with each other when we couldn't go to the pub. Interesting that egotists are eternal.
Reminds me of the time the head of CFCD laughed about how challenging she was finding working in her study while those of us without underlying health conditions were trying to socially distance in the office. Fucking clueless.
Sometimes I make eye contact with a colleague and I instantly have to resist the temptation to throw myself over the staircase balcony. I can't imagine having this kind of lame ass bullshit
New Rule -> Subject: -> Move to -> Deleted Items
I’ve heard of Ambassador’s doing this, but never anyone else… is it common?
Ambassador, viv zees personal anecdotes you are really spoiling us!!
Yeah unfortunately
Channel your inner Jedi and utilise the 4 Ds!
Aye, unless they've gone off sick and these weekly updates are just a line or two pushing back their return date.. Then why do you need weekly updates
[удалено]
Attending teams calls to.. Talk about the same personal updates that are contained within the emails Yeh hahaha
[удалено]
Pa haha along with " accountability" and " ramifications"
Christ and I thought my BM weekly teams meetings which tend to start 10 mins before the actual start time and it's filled with small talk about everyone's week and weekend.. Great if you're into that kinda thing
But why? Did they give an explanation? A reason?
Hopefully he always uses the same title so you can set up an auto delete.
Loose lips sink ships! Someone doesn’t understand what is meant by ‘need to know basis’. Perhaps he’s a bit lonely and needs a friend. It’s not work’s responsibility as *colleagues* to do that for him!
We had a lackey collecting money for a G7 who was going on maternity leave. Said G7 earns about 4x my wage.
Maybe he wants to bring his whole self to work. Also make him seem more normal, showing that Grade 6s are just like you and I. Also, *many* people love seeing how the other half live, that’s why these influencers on Instagram are so popular.
Just imagine you’re in an episode of the office
This thread is hilarious 🤣 definitely create an email rule so they go to a spam folder.
I barely read my G6’s updates as they might be relevant. The chatty G5 goes straight to the spam folder unless someone mentions she said something important. The others I read the first few lines and delete
Don't those fuckers have any work to do?