[BITList] the balloonist

[HUGH]

Frank,

I like it !  And it's certainly true nowadays. In the last few years of my service in various shipyards and engineering works, I started to see strange people coming into management, indeed, I started to see "management", where before there was just Willie, the machine shop manager, who started as a turner, and Jimmy so and so the director, who used to be the erecting shop manager, and so on.  In Kincaids, Greenock, when I returned to them in 1980, all of the board were in the DO when I went to sea in 1956, even Fergie the MD, and they all came through the shops, there being no other way into the DO.  Estimators, Buyers, etc, all were posts promoted from the DO.  In Scotts, the Scott son, heir to a firm of shipbuilders and marine engineers near 300 years old, started in the DO in the 70s (they did that in Scotts, strange place), having been sent down from Harrow.  Then he went to sea with Ben Line or Blue Flue, came back with his Chief''s ticket, and became a shop manager.  All of this changed when British Shipbuilders ceased to be, and the rot set in.  Lawn mower executives and the like moved into upper management (see remarks above) and worried about where to paint the lines in the shops.  The one I have in mind offered to bring a B&W crankshaft up from Tilbury (ex Japan) in his car. How we laughed, but the laugh was on us once the assets started to be stripped when these fools got bored playing at being marine engineers.  Now there are fancy housing development, many houses having river views, etc.  The malaise even came from within.  One gent, promoted from the plumbing dept to head of the engine DO, called a draughtsman in and asked him what a fitted bolt is. That was the mid 90s - from sources still in the industry I hear it hasn't improved.  Not only are there bosses lacking in anything approaching experience, they administer (for want of a better word) people at the coal face who came there via training courses in CAD, etc.  This is what is behind all the bullshit one reads.

Now I fel better.

Hugh.
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