Office Work

Quite often I find litter on Blacka. Irritating but not altogether surprising and if it's manageable I usually shove it in my pocket or rucksack and take it home. There is one kind of litter I find every so often that puts my usually tolerant nature under more strain: Lying among the bilberry and heather looking the worse for wear as if it's been there for some months you may see an old A4 laminated sheet - the remains of yet another of SWT's notices. What does this tell us about SWT and its staff?

SWT are predominantly an office outfit. It's in their office that most of their time is spent and when they try to manage things they do so as they would in an office. So just as you communicate to colleagues in an office - pinning up or bluetacking notices reminding colleagues about the latest First Aid course or to wash up their own cups after coffee - that's the way they go about managing Blacka. And they know that after a while someone else will take down a notice when it's no longer relevant or is getting tatty. The idea that different approaches might be relevant out here does not seem to have occurred, but then there are a lot of things that don't occur to the minds and mindsets of some groups. Of course when you only come to a place fairly infrequently you may not notice the fact that notices have fallen down or are looking grotty or are no longer relevant, but then no opportunity is missed for pinning up more and more of these A4 sheets.

So should rumours prove true that the job of a new Nature Reserve Manager will be advertised soon, expect to see a job description circulating prioritising familiarity with the photocopier and staple-gun.