Posts by Bakker

Clarification?

There seems to be a couple of misunderstandings here.

BB has not just become deputy mayor, he has been for a long time. Indeed I think he is not councillor/deputy mayor for the district but is also elected at the next level up.

However, EPO staff are allowed to take up representative positions (whether this applies to contracted and senior staff I do not know) but in my day if elected a staff member could ask for (unpaid?) leave to perform elected duties.

Sense of proportion

Point of order. She wasn’t blocked from tweeting because of her slamming of W, but (according to your article) because of the actual content of her tweet(s). While Twitter’s info to her initially was less than useful in identifying the problem (other articles thought that it was a separate tweet of hers which told someone to F off in a more complete form of that profanity) it’s difficult to see that she was being silenced in order to somehow protect W which is the implication here.

The EPA did have (still does?) a quality audit department which were independent examiners who controlled the actual output for quality - should it really have been granted etc. The figures e're only for internal use and were disputed and massaged. But they weren't good. BB never talks about them.

Metrics

Minor correction about your comment on quality metrics - there are 2 metrics at EPO which give different figures. The "99%" is the the new one which is self-reckoned. The "85-88" figure comes from an internal auditing sample and is still being done in parallel. Neither are revealed externally or officially.

The 99% system had problems, as you say, with some departments having 100% quality (despite the 85-88 finding still existing) which made VP1 point out that it wasn't possible (in his opinion). Solution? Departments now aim to report an acceptable level of failure. Too little is suspicious, too much is bad. Simple. Set the target figure you want and staff will give you that figure. Because the 85-88 figure (and that is a generous figure I understand) is produced by semi-independent people it's less easy to game the system. Hence the difference in numbers. But both run in parallel

PS And maybe both figures are wrong??

Spoilsport

Sorry to spoil your fun, but did anyone actually read the patent rather than start a rant? In fact the patent doesn't protect "out off office emails". What it protects is a system which notes when a user says they will be away - start date, end date and a message. This is normally activated by the user in advance. Between that time and the start time, the system will send a message attached to any email giving this data. In fact the process is that the computer checks whether the current time is between activation time and absence start time (and not after start time!) and that the recipient had not already received such a message and then send out a message to say in advance that the writer will be absent in the future from x to y.

Out of office systems normally work while the first person is away. This is an automated advance warning system which attached the message to an email i. e. by the way the writer is going to be away for these days - useful if you plan to reply later rather than directly.

OK. And:

7. Staff are concerned that a suicide on-site could not be investigated by Dutch authorities (immunity!).

8. A member of the Boards of Appeal (a judge so to speak) has been suspended for 2 years (s/he is not allowed to say why but the top management have made particular negative statements to the press concerning the person which are not part of the case, it seems). Internal bodies have not supported the President's actions but the member is still suspended on reduced pay.

9. The Administrative Council have urged and "stressed" that the President should involve them or independent judges in disciplinary cases involving elected staff representatives. He has still dismissed one since that, without informing the AC in advance.

10. Public computers at the EPO were discovered to be being monitored by software, seemingly contrary to Bavarian law.

11. Staff's contracts of employment (and future pensions) have been unilaterally altered with no consultation.

12. In all disciplinary matters the committee recommends but the President decides irrespective. Under the committee formed by the EPO, judged deficient by the ILO, the proportion of successful appeals by staff has hit rock bottom.

Fehler

Minor correction - he isn't planning to limit his selection to staff committee members, he actually states that it will be from all eligible staff members (you seem to quote from an old document). So his scope for finding 'the right sort' is broader and almost limitless. No need to pick someone with general staff support.