Re: The Decline Of Moral Within The Rail Systems

[BEE EFF <mcreely@pnc.com.au>]

Only one problem John, obviously you would have heard of people being promoted
to their level of incompetence, ie: promoted to get them out of the road

John Kerley wrote:

> Mal Bigg <parkdrive@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> 94ak5i$dr2$1@nnrp1.deja.com">news:94ak5i$dr2$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > State Rail, like many other government utilities is only now paying the
> > price for adopting the promotion by merit system.
>
> The trouble is "merit" is a very subjective concept and does not equate with
> being competent.  In reality "merit" is usually interpreted as being a
> silver tongue, or a brown tongue or having the right handshake or knowing
> the right people.  It very rarely means being competent although
> occasionally people promoted on "merit" do coincidently turn out to be also
> competent.
>
> Indeed the old public service ethic of promotion by seniority after you had
> qualified by an objective test of competence such as an exam together with a
> certain number of years of experience meant that the corruption endemic in
> today's "merit" system was avoided.  In other words the public was served
> well.
>
> Another element in the modern corrupt way of appointing people to higher
> paid positions is the notion of limited tenure.  No only does one have to
> silver tongue, brown nose etc. your way to promotion, but to keep the job
> your have to keep your nose brown. i.e. once again it is not competence that
> is the determining factor.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John Kerley