Things Change

The environment of the fish factory is one hell of a hectic place. This is because the government of the day is always trying to intrude and introduce new regulations which must be followed. The fish are too big, the fish are too small, they are too ugly some are to beautiful. In which case off with their head says the secretary of state for work and pensions. Until it was his own head went rolling along the ground and it was a case of self decapitation rather than one of the close cabinet circle stabbing him in the back and kicking his body into the Thames, just so it could float on down and out to sea to become bird food, or possibly fish food. So it is at the factory things change. They change on a nearly daily basis and you can't help get a feeling the bosses think this department is like having an extra toe no one knows what to do with. The weather is hot, everyone has sandals on and all they are doing is fixating on this toe wondering if they could lop it off with a pair of pruners. Yet they know were such an event to happen there would be a lot of pain. So much there would be a lot of flak. The sky would light up.  So the factory is neglected and we all do our best to get along doing what we can. Running about with sticky tape and glue trying to keep things together. The thing is this glue and sticky tape is now being used to patch areas where glue and sticking tape was before, the scar tissue is getting bigger and bigger.

Whatever I say, I like to be busy. It is good to be busy because the time flies by, however there are moments more frequently when being busy is not the operative situation. Rather manic chicken with no head flapping about and trying to lay an egg at the same time. This is what it feels like. The people above who are part of an elite special forces team going by the initials of SMT (senior management team) have higher pay grades and tell us how to order our batches of fish, how to stick the sardines in cans and what to throw out. The thing is they don't actually spend any time on the coal face so their advise is to put it bluntly a load of codswallop. Their views of the factor are from the last time they walked around it. Which was probably on some induction tour fifty years ago. They have no idea what is going on. Further to this they have the inability to listen. It's just not getting through and it is going to get worse. The elite team have been in bed with each other for over 30 years and now some of their members are running for the hills. Running hard and fast because they have been and found the Willy Wonka golden ticket. Damn lucky for them, shame about the rest of us who have to stay behind and pick up the decaying rot of decisions made by people less qualified to lead the life of a mackerel than an actual mackerel is.  Of course I'm still here, the demands are made and I know I can't meet them so I then choose not to meet them and just get on with the best I can do. Which isn't to their liking, not at all because it is not giving the results they want. Results they can't even hope to get with their style of apocryphal management.  Not even the sprats have any belief this boat knows where it is going.

So the question is what do you do when the toad is running the rudder but is too short to see over the top of the railings. And on top of this is just sitting there flicking it's tongue out eating flies and getting fatter. As though it has no care in the world. The thing is all of the other ships in this sea only communicate through the toad so they only get a toads eye view of what is going on. Yet us sailors do all we can to guide and help the ship along. We can't trust the rudder so when it points the wrong direction we pull up the sails, we wave flags as ways of warning and those who are scared go and eat easter eggs in the bowels of the ship, in the dark.  It's all changing and we can see it changing and if we just dive off into the sea to get away it will not matter at all to the toad. This animal doesn't give a shit as long as it can swallow up the next fly within zapping sticky tongue distance. The toad keeps itself to itself, so we take no notice and hold it in contempt as in reality this toad is no more than just a fat cat and certainly isn't a leader of anything other than it's tongue, whether used for flies or taking the cream from the top of the milk. For like all fat cats it gets paid handsomely sitting happily on the catches of others, who are of course paid much less.