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Tuesday 19 February 2019

Give The Job To Lisa

A couple of weeks ago, I joked that, in the absence of real leadership and decision-making by our politicians, that they should all stand aside, and let me have a go at running the country. I've never held any sort of management position in a large organisation, nor run a logistics company. I've never even run a ferry company, not even one with imaginary ships, but even so, I still reckon I could do a better job of running this shitshow better than Theresa May or anybody else.

Having said that, in the past few weeks things have progressed bewilderingly and upsettingly quickly, as they are wont to do in our Brexit-hurtling wasteland, so now, all things considered, I'd like to downgrade the offer of running the country myself, and instead propose that the job of running the country is given to Lisa, my old manager from when I used to work at the council.

Lisa was one of those all too common managers so beloved of local authorities, a person promoted just above their level of incompetence into a job they can't do. Lisa did not know how to calculate staff costs-per-hour, nor how to update the spreadsheet for the departmental annual budget. More than once she'd text me at 10 at night (me, a part-time member of staff on a zero hours contract!) to say "OMG hun quarterly stakeholders mtg at 8.30 AM tmrw, can u print spreadsheat from google docs link THNK U XXXX." Lisa frequently lost equipment and members of staff. Was known, in important indepartmental meetings, when time was short and business pressing, to jump up, mutter something like: "My God, this floor's filthy," and disappear for half an hour to go and find the building caretaker, to find the key to unlock the COSHH cupboard, then come back and sweep the floor, ludicrously, ineffectually, and at length, whilst other managers tried to get on with discussing the matter at hand.

Yet, despite Lisa's many and varied shortcomings, I now think of her with affection. Would she were to be Prime Minister, she could bring great colour and relative effectiveness to the whole Brexit situation. Or at least, those below her could "manage up" and do the job on her behalf.

If not Prime Minister, why not Leader of the Opposition, or if even that's beyond Lisa's capabilities, perhaps she could lead a breakaway party with six of her mates, where within hours of holding their press conference to announce their intentions, one of them goes off and says something racist on TV, where literally anybody could see it?

Whether giving contracts to companies where their T&Cs are cut and pasted off Just Eat, leading a party where there's an open goal that nobody seems to be shooting at, or starting a political party that offends everybody before the end of its first day: all of these and less seem to be well within my old council manager Lisa's gift. Please won't you accept my suggestion for the immediate political leadership of the country, and vote for Lisa?

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French Exit Patrick DeWitt

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