Unbelieveable!

I am so cross! When Robbie rang me to ask how I was, he had to endure s tirade of fury about Network Rail or to be more precise about Iain Coucher CEO of Network Rail. I had just read an interview with him in Personnel Today and it made my blood boil, I'm sure my blood pressure must be sky high.

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/03/23/49963/view-from-the-top-network-rail-ceo-iain-coucher.html

The article started off by acknowledging that Iain Coucher is used to being on the receiving end of criticism but Coucher asserts that he can take it. Interestingly no observation was made on how justified the criticism is, but if it was a play for sympathy from the reader it failed miserably. I suspect his astronomical salary helps him to put up with his hurt feelings.

The article plodded on rather predictably; considering the interview was personnel focussed I didn't think he was very complementary towards his workforce. Clearly he saw this as an opportunity to tell the world how wonderful he is, unfortunately for him I don't think most of 'the world' reads Personnel Today! Then I came to a paragraph that left me speechless, I couldn't quite believe what I had read and I had to read it again, in fact I read it several times, how could anyone make such arrogant assumptions? The paragraph in question began with Iain Coucher being asked about his staff .....
he says there are three distinct cultural groups within Network Rail: "There are 17,000 or so maintenance staff in orange jackets who tend to read The Sun; 9,000 signal box and control room staff wearing Network Rail fleeces and jeans, who may be Telegraph readers; and the professional services people who wear business attire and may get their opinions from The Times."

How dare he make such assumptions about his staff! Even the interviewer used the term 'simplistic pigeon-holing', but Iain Coucher claimed it helped him to communicate with his staff. Unbelievably it gets worse, he went on.....
“I like to make sure we angle our recruitment campaigns for each of the three groups towards their interests, and I not only try and dress like them if we're going to meet up, but I read each of their newspapers, as well as the FT, every day."

I think that shows astounding arrogance, but I guess it explains a lot, if Network Rail target the majority of their recruitment at Sun readers!!

The article rumbled from one exaggeration to the next. When asked about his greatest achievement at Network Rail he cited bringing track maintenance in house. Surely that was forced upon him by the numerous episodes of engineering overruns and the ensuing travel chaos!! To put it kindly he was making a virtue out of necessity.

He danced around the issue of his very large and increasing salary with the skill of a politician and his ability to spin the facts made Tony Blair look like an amateur!
"In the five years since we took over from Railtrack, we have achieved the highest ever punctuality record.......”
Really? It certainly doesn't feel like that and I suspect it doesn't feel like that to the TOC's either!

"We have pushed passenger satisfaction to an all-time high.......”
I am certainly not convinced by this statement, maybe the TOC'c have improved passenger satisfaction, but that would be in spite of rather than because of Network Rail! What about Network Rail's customers, the TOC's, the freight companies etc - I seem to remember some eloquent expressions of dissatisfaction from Virgin and I think the freight operators were unhappy too.

Having stretched my credulity to the limit, he managed to save the best until last. Under the heading 'minorities' he said
"We try and recruit minorities at the same rate as they apply, so if 10% of applicants are women, we try and convert that same proportion into job offers.....”

Women are NOT a minority!! They may be under represented in the rail industry, but there are some very able women in the industry and with a little effort there could be more. Network Rail should be doing more to encourage women to apply for employment. Women have many strengths including built in 'lie detectors', maybe Network Rail should employ a lot more women – to help them think up more believable excuses!