Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

We have a big adjustable spanner like thing, supposedly used for undoing nuts on hot water tanks. Don’t need it very often for that purpose, so it lives in the kitchen drawer, regularly used for undoing jars, and yesterday, pressed into service for helping to ease out the cork from a bottle of Prosecco. Very efficient and more effective than the grip handled jar opener we have bought since.
I shouldn’t think about wastage in the NHS, as I don’t want my blood pressure to hit the roof. The procurement system in my day was ludicrous, the number of times I was sorely tempted to head out to B and Q or Staples to pick up items for a fraction of the cost to the NHS.
The other stupidity was what happened if you didn’t spend your whole budget for the year. Lots of sensible reasons why that might happen. Delays in recruiting a new member of staff, or less need for certain consumables. However, if you did underspend, it was assumed that you had been given too much money, and the next years budget would be cut back accordingly. So when you did recruit the new clinician, you didnt have the money to pay them.
So everyone was encouraged to have a last minute spending spree! I did take that opportunity to stock up on materials we might need, but amongst the non clinical ‘managers’, the popular choice was to take out a contract for a non clinical ‘consultant’, self employed at an inflated salary, to carry out a research project of some kind, certainly nothing that would really benefit patients.
I wasn’t allowed to carry over my underspend to update equipment, or equip a new dental surgery even though I had the space for it - and that had to come out of a different budget anyway, for capital projects which meant competing with other departments.
All seemed ludicrous to me, common sense entirely lacking. And don’t get me started on the practice of giving the non clinical managers bonus pay for underspending their budgets, talk about perverse incentives! So thankful I am well out of it now.
Sorry, that was quite a rant!

 

@shiney We were told the 3Rs stood for Reading, wRiting and aRithmatic.

 

@Ergates the stupidity of being encouraged to spend the entire budget isn't restriced to the NHS, or even the public sector. I worked for a major bank (at least it was a major bank until the crash) and I was told to make sure I spend the vast majority of my budget or it would be cut the following year. When I a role which has occasional projects which do require big budgets, wasting money on non-essential items seems crazy.

 

Even working at a fairly large joinery company we had a big spend on tools before the new financial year to use up the budget.
If not the money would have been reallocated elsewhere in the following year.

 

Our reputation as "Polite" people is going down the tubes!

Last night: Hockey game - fans booed while the USA national anthem was being sung
Basketball game - fans booed and sang loudly to drown out their national anthem again
Ballet - yes, ballet - the audience jeered the moment a USA dancer came onstage.

I guess our reputation of being nice little milquetoasts has been suspended until further notice!

 

I’m trying to work out which orange juice manufacturer uses non-Florida oranges. My very own attempt to hit President Turnip where it hurts. Tropicana is definitely Floridian, but the others seem very coy only saying that the juice is British made. I’m sure that once I find a non-Florida orange juice to buy President Turnip will come to his senses.

 

I squeeze my own and on checking my oranges here in my basket they come from Spain.

 

Oops, auto correct snuck in there jeered not cheered.

 

Maybe cheering could become a secret code for jeering. Turnip would think that everybody loved him.

 

@Tidemark Much like a southern belle's, "Bless You" ..

 

My section boss was tight fisted with our budget. Come the new financial year all section budgets were cut by 20%. Our new section budget was 20% less based on what was spent NOT what was allocated the previous year.