From Dr P. Muscat

May I share this “joke” with your readers?

The United States were competing against China in a boat race and, to the Americans’ dismay, the Chinese team won by a mile. Determined to ensure that there would be no repetition of the national humiliation the following year, the Americans hired a firm of consultants to discover the reason for the defeat and to recommend corrective action! The consultants found that whereas the Chinese crew had seven people rowing and one steering, the Americans had one rowing and seven steering. After a year of intensive study and millions of dollars spent analysing the problem, the firm of consultants cautiously concluded that too many people on the US team were steering and not enough were rowing.

So as race day approached the following year, the US team’s management structure (for which read: restructuring like at Air Malta, banks, Enemalta and Maltacom as in Malta), was completely reorganised. The new structure was four (4) steering managers, three (3) area steering managers and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive. This time the Chinese team won by two (2) miles! The US corporate management promptly laid off the rower for poor performance, but gave the managers a bonus for discovering where the problem lay!

In the above paragraph one can also substitute Maltapost and Maltacom! The last was taken over by the so-called “Tecom of Smart City” which promises to employ 5,600 workers in the unknown future, but first started to get rid of 750 workers now employed with Maltacom. The same company, going by its previous name of Telemalta, used to employ 3,000 workers up to the 1980s, making an annual profit that averaged three to four million Malta liri (Lm4,000,000). They were smart indeed!

Philip Muscat

ZEBBUG