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Many years ago, more than I care to think about, the company I was working for decided to produce a manual on how to answer the telephone. I remember well that it started out with the priceless words, ‘First pick up the handset’.
Of course the manual was treated with widespread derision and was quickly trashed, much to the surprise of the ‘expert’ who had somehow or other persuaded senior management that the staff were mostly idiots that needed basic education in communication skills and that such a manual was just the thing they needed.
Over the years I have seen many such manuals and it seemed to me that their wordy and largely useless contents were mainly designed to show off how good the experts were in compiling them. The vast majority of them ended up either in wastebaskets or on shelves gathering dust and never to be seen again.
So I read with some amusement in this morning’s newspaper that the Association of Chief Police Officers had produced a draft of a 93-page, two-volume booklet giving guidance to police officers on how to balance, brake and avoid obstacles in the road when riding their cycles.
Once the news of this tosh was released to the public, ACPO announced sniffily that the work was neither requested nor drawn up by them and that they were not proceeding with it.
What a surprise!
.
Many years ago, more than I care to think about, the company I was working for decided to produce a manual on how to answer the telephone. I remember well that it started out with the priceless words, ‘First pick up the handset’.
Of course the manual was treated with widespread derision and was quickly trashed, much to the surprise of the ‘expert’ who had somehow or other persuaded senior management that the staff were mostly idiots that needed basic education in communication skills and that such a manual was just the thing they needed.
Over the years I have seen many such manuals and it seemed to me that their wordy and largely useless contents were mainly designed to show off how good the experts were in compiling them. The vast majority of them ended up either in wastebaskets or on shelves gathering dust and never to be seen again.
So I read with some amusement in this morning’s newspaper that the Association of Chief Police Officers had produced a draft of a 93-page, two-volume booklet giving guidance to police officers on how to balance, brake and avoid obstacles in the road when riding their cycles.
Once the news of this tosh was released to the public, ACPO announced sniffily that the work was neither requested nor drawn up by them and that they were not proceeding with it.
What a surprise!
.
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