No one makes any bloody decisions around here!

Everything is talked about – endlessly.  V is currently very frustrated by the fact that he can sit in a meeting (or many meetings) where people can say ‘yes, I agree with that action, in principle’ but nobody actually says ‘yes, I agree.  Do it’.

Or everyone agrees to an action but then, after the meeting, when asked why the action is not being performed it is said ‘ah, but so-and-so was not at the meeting and they have to agree it too before we can act’.

Performing acts, such as on the football field or if you should get run over is something that Italians are quite brilliant at.  But performing actions is an entirely different thing.  No one is prepared to put their head above the parapet in case they should be shot at.  No one wants someone from above saying later ‘oh no, you should not have done that’.

I know it can be like that in the UK, but here, it seems they take it to extremes.

And V is right – it is very frustrating.

There’s also no impetus with anything.  OK so we need a new process.  Let’s talk about it, argue a lot about it and how it couldn’t possibly work and how it will be a complete waste of time anyway and then ……. let’s not do it if we can help it.  Ways round this would be to say that ‘of course, I can do it, but only with Mr X’s help and you need to talk to Mr X first’.  So off you trot to Mr X, who has a different take on all of it.  At the end, ‘yes, of course I can help Mr Y do it’.  So, you ‘leave it with them’.  Six weeks later, and they both will say that they were waiting for the other and, worse, by then will have a whole list of new reasons (because they’ve had time to think about it) as to why it shouldn’t be done/can’t be done/won’t work anyway, etc.’

‘And so, on it goes, this never-ending circle with nothing happening and no one really wanting to do it in the first place.’

‘However, they are great at designing things – it’s just getting them out on time or having to do something outside the ordinary that is the problem.  Bless them.