Re: I smell a shill
Wrote :- "I've worked for state bodies: but for most of my working life I have been with private enterprise. PE is incredibly inefficient ........ Of course there are exceptions and, of course, some civil servants are appalling."
Agreed - I've seen both sides of it too. Small businesses, supposed to be the most efficient of all, ("nimble", "lean" and all that myth), are the worst. The one's I've seen have been owned and run by people who merely inherited them (from perhaps more capable forefathers) and would not employ anyone who they could see were more capable and intelligent than themselves - out of fear and jealousy I suppose.
My wife, a bookkeeper, (very capable, but in a different field from the companies' main businesses) has worked for several small companies (and through them has dealt with many more), and the stories she can tell of their incompetence would make your hair stand on end. According to Free Market theory they should go out of business, but they don't because their rivals are even more incompetent.
Dangerous and illegal working practices are rife in small companies too. Like where she works now, when the HSE safety inspectors call, they park their illicit bottled-gas heaters off-site in the lorry and move a ton of junk away from the fire doors; the inspectors always forewarn their visits because they have been told to "go easy" on small businesses.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
