Chocgate: The fallout. Partially taxpayer-funded £6k+ staff luxury treats land ICO in lukewarm water "Sorry", much like a tooth-loosening toffee, can be one of the hardest words. That didn't stop the Information Commissioner’s Office from sentencing itself to saying it in the wake of the findings of an internal probe that confirm a rogue employee went a bit trigger happy with the corporate credit card in a luxury chocolate …
They have to tick all the boxes. In this case, the selection boxes.
Or, as the "independent" investigation was internal, should that be self-selection boxes?
(Paris, because Ms Hilton knows all about hotels and probably quite a bit about chocolate.)
Sadly I read that as lick all the boxes [of chocolates]....
Anyway, glad that I as one of the 1 million businesses that are registered, for at least £40 I recall, helped them enjoy Christmas.
Their website has always sounded threatening, there is a box saying 'Pay your data protection fee' [or else da boyz are comin' round?]
And an issue that isn't mentioned; preventing staff from getting bonuses is not actually beneficial.
The way almost everywhere works is the carrot and the stick. Carrots follow many forms, financial bonuses for good work or working hard, or even boxes of chocolates. The stick is beating somebody with HR or firing them.
In Government they don't allow you to have carrots because that looks bad in the media, and the stick is wrapped with a meter of feathers by forcing punishments through a byzantine system that makes it impossible to meaningfully discipline people that kill people, let alone those who are just lazy or inept.
With no rewards for good performance and no punishment for bad performance the level of productivity in the civil service is quite a long way below the minimum tolerated in the business world.
With no rewards for good performance and no punishment for bad performance the level of productivity in the civil service is quite a long way below the minimum tolerated in the business world. ......... Peter2
That's a major crushing performance failing directly attributable to those who are expected and helped to command that which is in full and absolute remote control of them.
However, now the heads of that peculiarly strategic Hydra are all certifiably brain dead. And the gross rot which emanates at/from/to the very top of the traditional conventional hierarchical tree there, is dying to try and spread it around with putrid infections and worthy afflictions further on down throughout its systems, right on down to its very kernels providing prior supporting foundational roots.
Do you wanna mess with ITs Replacement Assets and Universal Virtual Forces ‽ . Take care now ..... Who Dares Win Wins is Definitely Definitively Not Really Just a Greater IntelAIgent Game to Work, REST and Play With/In.
What's especially annoying is how small the amount of money is. It's the classic "is this actually a big number". If their salaries had all been £25 higher absolutely no-one would have noticed or cared because it's such a miniscule amount compared to even a pretty minimal salary.
This is the kind of shit that makes people leave the public sector.
are you sure it's a non-carrot gov v. carrot biz? My (not first hand) impression is that biz, being biz, gives a flying fuck about carrots, in search of looking for short-term gain, use more and more, non-feathered sticks (or clubs), and who cares about the [long-term] biz loss, stick is working NOW!
Demonstrating to tge staff that they are appreciated, probably pays dividends that are worth more than the 6K that the choccies cost.
Spending a little of tax payers cash for Christmas is not remotely like flogging off bits of the NHS or giving multimillion pound contracts to mates who have no history with or knowledge of the purpose of the contract.
I was thinking something along those lines. Our company generally treats the staff pretty well. Easter eggs at Easter, Christmas do at Christmas (with a few drinks paid for), ice-creams on hot days, a few other dos throughout the year... HR has a budget for this kind of thing.
Do ICO not have a budget for general employee well-being? Or is the issue just that this particular company card holder bought said gifts outside of the allotted budget?
"is the issue just that this particular company card holder bought said gifts outside of the allotted budget?"
Well, yeah. If an employee can go off and spend a few grand on something that is obviously not an incidental business expense at the worst possible value and no-one hits the brakes and no-one had to repay the money...what other financial shenanigans could have happened?
I expect the cost of the investigation and the salary rise of the new finance director will dwarf £6k. If everyone's knickers are in a twist about taxpayer money buying chocolate, how about diverting 1% of the ICO fines to the staff party?
Thorntons have really gone down hill, high sugar taste, low chocolate flavour these days.
Shame, as it employs UK workers.
Though, there's a sad trend for much mainstream chocolate on sale in the UK to be high sugar & low cocoa.
Get my choccy treats mainly at a local indy choc specialist shop (not hotel chocolat), or for bog standard high cocoa content bars I go to Lidl (they do a 95% cocoa bar & lower % bars too if 95 is too high)
I have been given hotel chocolat stuff as a gift by people in the past & it was considerably better than Thorntons (low bar though)
Thorntons is definitely made to a price. The giveaway: every box contains twice as many Turkish Delight as any other selection.
Is this because Turkish Delight is the runaway number one favourite of their customers? Nope. I hardly met anyone who likes it. It's because it's the cheapest one to make, being nothing more than a lump of sugary gelatine with a tiny coating of chocolate.
The Art Of The Chocolatier is making tasty confections using as little chocolate as possible.
think billions spent on nhs apps. think millions (possibly) billions spent on dodgy deals made with / through Johnson and his pals on covid-related gear - none of which will EVER be punished. Instead, we can rave and rage on 24K splashed on office choc run...
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