Hmm.

Right.

First off, I should say that we are talking rhetorically here. Theoretically. As the title suggests. So, you know, consider this one of those friend-of-a-friend-who-doesn’t-really-exist-type deals. No real people, no. None. None of those.

So here’s the question.

Imagine you knew someone who worked for a government department. Quite a large, and, in the right circles, high-profile department, which has been in the news regularly for various failings and shortcomings. Again, take ‘the news’ here to mean a certain area of the news, which isn’t necessarily front-page of the tabloids or whatever.

And then imagine that the person had had a series of really good ideas for ways in which various of the incredibly long-winded, long-drawn-out, time-inefficient processes which are central to this department’s work might be shortened, improved, automated.

And then imagine that this person not only had the ideas, but knew how to implement them, and had a good understanding of the various software packages needed to create such improvements. And a proven track record of doing Officially Clever Things, the sort of Things which resulted once in a temporary promotion for a certain project.

And then imagine that this person can’t get anyone to support the ideas, despite them being Really Good, and very much needed. That the department is so entrenched in its long-winded ways that it appears to see anything new as something of a threat, to be discouraged and put down as wayward thinking that dares to step outside of a job description. That that attitude has been encountered at manager level, and at higher manager level. Even though there is a team of people, an entire team, which has been working on a far shittier version of this idea for the last four months, so far without success, full-time. That the person is beginning to really despair, and to feel deeply under-valued. And that the person is currently spending literally all of their working day sitting at a computer with no work to do. And that despite having nothing to do, and despite having told their manager that they have nothing to do, and having asked for work, they are told they can’t work on any ideas to improve the business processes.

And I should stress once more that this is a government department. Funded by taxpayers. Which is regularly criticised for wasting funds. And that this person is not the only person who sits, day in, day out, with nothing to do. Literally nothing. And that this person is prevented from doing anything constructive at all, and has recently been told, at a performance review, that he must just ‘look busy’.

What would you do?