Do Nothing and Do it well....said the previous CEO - Technical Lead Waterways Ireland Employee Review

"Do nothing and do it well" a previous CEO said to a group of 30 new starts, "keep your head down and you will do well" he also said. My new staff were very confused when I told them the exact opposite when they arrived in my department. This is a broken organisation that can only be used to pad a CV out so that you can advance to a better position elsewhere. There is massive pay disparity between Ireland staff and N. Ireland staff whereby an mid/entry position in the south earns more than a management position in the north. There is very little room for advancement hence the recommendation to get out of dodge as quick as possible. The entire place is plagued by petty fiefdoms and internal politics without a true sense of collaboration and cooperation. There is mismanagement of budgets and small minded fear of actually handing money back to the sponsoring bodies for fear their budgets will be reduced next year. I was asked "due to other departments not spending their budgets can I spend £1.1 Million pounds", This was six weeks notice. The only thing this ridiculous exercise did was delay the rollout of these projects by 6 months as there were resource constraints. Petty corruption exists all over the place and a few examples are ; 1. There is a person who's nickname in the finance department is Jesus, the reason they are called Jesus is that they subvert the Travel and Subsistence rules and persuade some very confused hotelier to "convert" a half bottle of wine into a starter on the receipt. Doing this allows this person to consume a half bottle of wine permitted within the rules and another half bottle miraculously converted to a starter on the receipt. 2. A person will travel to Dublin and stay overnight but instead of staying within the Dublin area and stay in a 3 or 4 star hotel this person will stay overnight in the most expensive 5 star hotel outside the boundary as permitted within the Travel and Subsistence rules. 3.Recruitment practice; I was part of an interview panel for a number of administrative positions, As is good practice I asked at the beginning of the interview days what the minimum pass mark was which was documented and agreed. We interviewed the candidates and at the end of the process half of the candidates did not meet the minimum pass mark (it wasn't high). The two HR staff in the process stated that they have 6 positions to fill and 6 candidates and could we lower the pass mark??? The pass mark was lowered and we employed some of the most unqualified people I have ever seen. One candidate spent their time walking back and forth with a "really important" document, the same person spent more energy in the Christmas decorations and controlling the tea kitty like it was the East German Stasi. 4. A very talented person was hired in an administrative position in the Dublin office and due to mismanagement often had little to do so to save going mad they opted to read novels in the middle of the open office. This is not a reflection on the person but the mismanagement of not utilizing this person correctly. This petty corruption is just the tip of the iceberg but is our tax paying money that is being wasted. This is a true statement of fact that happened to me. I was never as glad to leave that place and the small minded petty politics.