Weblog Entry - 04/17/2003: "Fish Philosophy"

04/17/2003 Entry: "Fish Philosophy"

My friend Pat works for a bank, and like me you might have thought that banks were fairly, well, staid places to earn a crust. But apparently not. The bank Pat works for has tried to liven things up a bit by importing a scheme from America. It's called "fish", because it was first used on Seattle Fish Market where, says Pat, "the employees felt they had such a mundane rotten job, that they needed to introduce an element of fun into their day." Here's what Pat says now happens in the bank:

...each member of our staff (about 250 in all) has been given a multi-coloured soft toy fish which we are encouraged to throw, to be caught by work colleagues, at least five times a day. (in Seattle they throw real fish!) We've been subjected to two lengthy videos made by the fishmongers and several presentations. Under the fish philosophy you Play, Choose your attitude, Be there, Commit (yourself to the philosophy) Be it etc. All our departments have to have fish related names,(prawn stars, loan sharks etc) fish jokes abound, and whilst joining in is not compulsory, if you don't it's bound to go against you.

There's the rub, isn't it? "You'll have fun, or else!" I understand where all this is coming from. A happy office has a good chance of being an efficient office. A place where people actually want to work will get stuff done. But management techniques imported from outside with even a hint of compulsion are bound to breed resentment and, ultimately, prove counterproductive. It would surely be much better to allow members of a particular office to "customise" their own workspace and, to an extent, working practices.But even then, as long as the company reserves the right to make large scale redundancies in favour of cheaper employees elsewhere, it is nonsense to expect a workforce to be completely committed. In these days of "competitive tendering" and "contracting out", it is easy to forget that loyalty cuts both ways.

Replies:

What I notice most at banks is that the employees who come in contact with customers have to dress so awfully "professionally". Giving them the option of dressing normally may loosen them up a bit!!!

Posted by Swan @ 04/21/2003 01:29 PM CST

"Who was the best Doctor?" is one of those questions which keeps coming up, and I think the answers we give are not irrelevant to some of the discussions we have as Christians seperated by geography and culture.I'm too tired now, but I think there's a blog entry in it somewhere...

Posted by Richard @ 04/20/2003 06:36 PM CST

Yeah, the Sylvester McCoy series was getting pretty weird. I liked him a lot better than the previous Doctor, Collin Davis, I think, but no one was as good as Tom Baker. And no companion was ever as good as Leela.

Happy Easter, Wood, and Richard! Good talking to you guys.

Posted by Joel Fuhrmann @ 04/19/2003 10:09 PM CST

I remember that one. Except it was called "the Happiness Patrol". They were all women with pink hair and they had this psycho robot called the Candyman which looked like an evil robot Bertie Bassett, and which killed people who weren't cheerful in horrible ways. It was one of the better Sylvester McCoy ones... but, if I remember right, that wasn't saying much. I fancied Ace when I was 12.

Funny. I saw it about fifteen years ago and not thought about it since. Amazing what you remember.

Speaking of evil "fun" business practices, I well remember the "fun" days they had when I worked at Evil and Wireless Ltd.

The one that annoyed me was the one where we had to take calls from cable customers while wearing silly hats...

Posted by Wood @ 04/19/2003 07:39 PM CST

It was the last Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, I believe was his name. If my memory serves me right, this was getting pretty close to the end of the series. He had a traveling companion named Ace at this time, a very spunky girl who liked to carry nitro glycerine around (pretty unrealistic, but then Doctor Who never was, was it?). The Doctor never approved of her throwing that nitro around, except when they were facing the Daleks. Pretty useful then.

Posted by Joel Fuhrmann @ 04/19/2003 01:55 PM CST

I don't remember that one Joel. Which Doctor was it?

Posted by Richard Hall @ 04/18/2003 11:47 PM CST

Reminds me of a Doctor Who episode: "Happiness shall prevail". A planet had a law that everyone had to be happy. It was actually very tyrannical.

Posted by Joel Fuhrmann @ 04/18/2003 11:11 PM CST

Forgive me, but - that is so weird!! LOL

Posted by irene @ 04/18/2003 05:16 AM CST

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