Welcome back, by the way. It's been two years and I've missed you. Three thought-ettes for you to consider and, if the mood takes you, to comment on.
Clap clap
People have been comparing NHS workers to superheroes. Even Banksy has got in on this game, drawing a child playing with a masked and caped nurse-doll, having thrown Batman and Spiderman in the bin.
But in what way are they comparable? And which superheroes?
Let's rule out Batman first. He's fabulously wealthy and has all the equipment he could possibly want or need, complete with a mask, albeit one that doesn't cover his nose or mouth. Iron Man is basically the same thing with a sense of humour - and a mask that does cover his nose and mouth. Superman is more or less indestructible and certainly wouldn't end up killed by a virus.
But the comparison to Ghostbusters is a much better fit. Ordinary people warning about a terrible threat, being ignored and undermined, building their own equipment to fight the threat, then facing the danger alone with no help from anyone else, other than a cheering crowd. (Were the crowd clapping? It's set in New York so probably more whooping and cheering than clapping.)
The twist being that the start of Ghostbusters 2 reveals that our heroes were sued by the city for not doing a better job (i.e. one involving less destruction) and had all the blame heaped on them for the considerable damage. Will that happen to health workers after the pandemic? Who can say...
Hedge
When there's a global pandemic, someone who runs a hedge fund will make a lot of money. And they appear on the news, looking just the way people expect hedge fund managers to look. And the opinion pieces imply (or state, or howl) that it's a disgrace that people are getting rich during the suffering.
But... if one fund goes up, it's only because another one went down. So who lost?
If it's another hedge fund, do you still care? I'm guessing probably not as much as you did. One hedge fund goes up by a billion, another goes down by a billion, that's just part of the game, right?
How about if it's your pension fund? (Or mine?) Bit more interesting now. And isn't the real story the one about the loser? About how that pension fund manager has managed to lose unspeakable sums. Why on earth was the pension fund on the duff side of the bet? For that matter, why were they even selling anything at a loss (or buying something at an inflated price)?
And how much management fee was collected by this hypothetical pension fund manager who has misjudged his gambling of your money (and mine?) and thereby handed part of your retirement to that smug bloke from the start of this story?
Nah - just concentrate on the guy who looks like he either just opened a bottle of champagne or is just about to.
Caps
The British government very kindly increased the benefits paid to some of the poorest in society to help them cope with the uncertainty of the global pandemic thingy.
Unfortunately, they have also instigated a 'benefit cap' - a maximum amount of money that anyone can receive. Which means some people don't, as it were, benefit from the increase because their income hits the cap. And, even worse, some of them then hypothetically go over a threshold with this money they're not receiving which means they have to start paying back a loan they got from (guess who?) the government so the increase makes them worse off.
Yes, really. The increase makes them worse off. These are some of the poorest in society.
The reporting of this state of affairs makes it sound like some terrible mistake but there appears to be no attempt to put it right. So presumably it was intentional. I mean, if it wasn't intentional, the government would fix it, right?
Maybe journalists are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps the real question is why does the government want to leave some people utterly destitute. Because they could fix it if they wanted to.
I don't have an answer to this one - except to repeat that if they didn't intend it, they would fix it.
First rule of change management is to realise that no matter how much modelling and testing you've carried out, reality will throw you a curveball that you didn't see coming. So you need a quick, simple and safe way to undo the change you just made. I don't see anyone undoing this one. Therefore it's not a mistake. Therefore it's intentional.
So why are they doing it? Answers on a postcard to Barnard Castle.
