The Job Description Poem

Today is my second day of Job Evaluation training. It's nice to be dealing with the Hay charts again, at least I  don't need to learn anything new, like Paterson - apparently, it's quite a nuisance. In the training pack I've discovered a poem about Job Description, and I just cannot help myself sharing it with you!

Bertie Ramsbottom

The Job Description

I trod, where fools alone may tread,

To speak what’s better left unsaid,

The day I asked my boss his view

On what I was supposed to do;

For, after two years in the task,

I thought it only right to ask,

In case I’d got it badly wrong,

Ad-hoc’ing as I went along.

He raised his desultory eyes,

And made no effort to disguise

That, what had caused my sudden whim,

Had equally occurred to him;

And thus did we embark upon

Our classic corporate contretemps,

To separate the fact from fiction,

Bedevilling my job description.

For first he asked me to construe

A list of things I really do;

While he – he promised – would prepare

A note of what he thought they were;

And, with the two, we’d take as well

The expert view from personnel,

And thus eliminate the doubt

On what my job was all about.

But when the boss and I conflated

The tasks we’d separately stated,

The evidence became abundant

That one of us must be redundant;

For what I stated I was doing

He claimed, himself, to be pursuing,

While my role, on his definition,

Was way outside my recognition.

He called in personnel to give

A somewhat more definitive

Reply, – but they, by way of answer,

Produced some vague extravaganza,

Depicting, in a web of charts,

Descriptive and prescriptive parts

Of tasks, the boss and I agree,

Can’t possibly refer to me.

So, hanging limply as I am,

In limbo on the diagram,

Suspended by a dotted line

From functions that I thought were mine,

I feel its maybe for the best

I made my innocent request;

And hopefully await their view

On which job of the three I do!