The big Coronavirus thread

rick_chasey

Sure. I do think in a high pressure scenario with heavy consequences regardless of the choices made, they should be able to throw around ideas freely in the knowledge they're all trying their best.

Whichever way they chose people would die, so whatever they say in private is going to sound callous and feeble given the gravity of the situation, but we all recognise the value in gallows humour in tough situations.

Now, I should add I am aware that this shower of utter shysters and incompetent narcissists is not really a good example to illustrate the point, god knows what was said confirms our own views that it really was the sh!tshow and the f*ck factory.

i dunno. I think looking into the casual conversations that are had during a super stressful situation aren't as enlightening as people really think and I worry this approach, rather than demonstrating to the world they were useless, disorganised and made the situation worse, which we all knew already, it instead just stops future civil servants and politicians, who are making the most important decisions, speaking freely about the job in hand, which I think is really important.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I get why we need to look at these, but people say all sorts of stuff internally that's never meant for public consumption so you need to take it in that context.

Some of us are bright enough to not write pages and pages of incriminating stuff on retrievable data storage.

glad to hear it is not just me who does not write incriminating stuff about his boss

rick_chasey

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I get why we need to look at these, but people say all sorts of stuff internally that's never meant for public consumption so you need to take it in that context.

Some of us are bright enough to not write pages and pages of incriminating stuff on retrievable data storage.

glad to hear it is not just me who does not write incriminating stuff about his boss

in an era of instant messaging and during literal social distancing, I am rather sympathetic to being able to share sh!t over text.

Jezyboy

I think with a little extra thought you can often say what you want to say without incriminating yourself.

I tend to agree that trawling over WhatsApp messages isn't really helpful.

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I get why we need to look at these, but people say all sorts of stuff internally that's never meant for public consumption so you need to take it in that context.

Some of us are bright enough to not write pages and pages of incriminating stuff on retrievable data storage.

glad to hear it is not just me who does not write incriminating stuff about his boss

in an era of instant messaging and during literal social distancing, I am rather sympathetic to being able to share sh!t over text.

I would stop doing that before it comes back to bite you

pangolin

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I get why we need to look at these, but people say all sorts of stuff internally that's never meant for public consumption so you need to take it in that context.

Some of us are bright enough to not write pages and pages of incriminating stuff on retrievable data storage.

glad to hear it is not just me who does not write incriminating stuff about his boss

in an era of instant messaging and during literal social distancing, I am rather sympathetic to being able to share sh!t over text.

I would stop doing that before it comes back to bite you

It's the sort of thing everyone is very blasé about until someone is looking for a way to throw them under the bus.

carbonclem

The Whatsapp messages are all easy to consume soundbites for the news sites which is why they are being so widely shared and consumed I think. On that basis the 'headline readers' can easily see what a nasty shower they were, and those who analyse the situation a little closer can also see what a nasty shower they were, so, I cant really see a downside?

pblakeney

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I get why we need to look at these, but people say all sorts of stuff internally that's never meant for public consumption so you need to take it in that context.

Some of us are bright enough to not write pages and pages of incriminating stuff on retrievable data storage.

glad to hear it is not just me who does not write incriminating stuff about his boss

in an era of instant messaging and during literal social distancing, I am rather sympathetic to being able to share sh!t over text.

I would stop doing that before it comes back to bite you

This.
Don't put anything on record that you don't want made public. Social media is on record.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I understand for things as serious and impactful as this it is important to understand the decision making process.

But I also understand that in order to make the right decisions as a team there needs to be a space where they can all speak freely and honestly in private, without the risk of it being taken out of context or misused.

We can almost be certain that is "Britain's greatest person" Churchill was around now he'd have been sunk multiple times for his behaviour behind the curtain. Is that an ideal outcome?

He was sunk on more than one occasion. He f***ed up very publicly. It's not about modern standards: it's never been a good idea to write down things that you would be embarrassed to read out loud.

Entirely depends on the audience, and making people self censure (when you can't always speak to each other) does not make for better decision making.

Think we'll have to disagree here. I think it's really important for teams to have a safe space to say sh!t that needs to be said that is not for external consumption.

Sure there are exceptions etc, but for people asking why they need to govern on whatsapp - this is why - everything else is subject to an FOI request.

I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to be involved in a legal claim, but it being on WhatsApp is not a defence.

briantrumpet

I was given the advice many years ago by a lawyer friend to imagine anything I've written down being read out in a court by a barrister or judge. That probably holds even truer today, when written words are so easily shared. The trouble is that we've got so used to communicating through 'written chat' that we've rather forgotten it's still written.

I think if I were in a critical job accountable to the public who would be affected by my decisions, I'd be even more circumspect about writing stuff down - if you want to ping controversial opinions about, have an in-person meeting with carefully worded minutes agreed by the group before publication. "A wide range of options and outcomes were discussed, and it was agreed that..."

rick_chasey

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I understand for things as serious and impactful as this it is important to understand the decision making process.

But I also understand that in order to make the right decisions as a team there needs to be a space where they can all speak freely and honestly in private, without the risk of it being taken out of context or misused.

We can almost be certain that is "Britain's greatest person" Churchill was around now he'd have been sunk multiple times for his behaviour behind the curtain. Is that an ideal outcome?

He was sunk on more than one occasion. He f***ed up very publicly. It's not about modern standards: it's never been a good idea to write down things that you would be embarrassed to read out loud.

Entirely depends on the audience, and making people self censure (when you can't always speak to each other) does not make for better decision making.

Think we'll have to disagree here. I think it's really important for teams to have a safe space to say sh!t that needs to be said that is not for external consumption.

Sure there are exceptions etc, but for people asking why they need to govern on whatsapp - this is why - everything else is subject to an FOI request.

I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to be involved in a legal claim, but it being on WhatsApp is not a defence.

If legal is involved, there are bigger issues than whether you left an evidence trail or not.

Obviously don't do anything illegal, but whining about your boss being useless is not that.

Jezyboy

There are bigger issues, OTOH it's still better to minimise the small ones!

rick_chasey

Yes on the dangers of leaving an 'evidence' trail, I would simply not do anything illegal to leave a trail to.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I understand for things as serious and impactful as this it is important to understand the decision making process.

But I also understand that in order to make the right decisions as a team there needs to be a space where they can all speak freely and honestly in private, without the risk of it being taken out of context or misused.

We can almost be certain that is "Britain's greatest person" Churchill was around now he'd have been sunk multiple times for his behaviour behind the curtain. Is that an ideal outcome?

He was sunk on more than one occasion. He f***ed up very publicly. It's not about modern standards: it's never been a good idea to write down things that you would be embarrassed to read out loud.

Entirely depends on the audience, and making people self censure (when you can't always speak to each other) does not make for better decision making.

Think we'll have to disagree here. I think it's really important for teams to have a safe space to say sh!t that needs to be said that is not for external consumption.

Sure there are exceptions etc, but for people asking why they need to govern on whatsapp - this is why - everything else is subject to an FOI request.

I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to be involved in a legal claim, but it being on WhatsApp is not a defence.

If legal is involved, there are bigger issues than whether you left an evidence trail or not.

Obviously don't do anything illegal, but whining about your boss being useless is not that.

I'm talking about civil claims not illegal activity.

rick_chasey

Sure. I don't think we're disagreeing. No-one in the covid enquiry is in a civil claims court either here.

Tangetially related; if anyone of you want, the entirety of all enron emails ever sent are available online. About 1.7GB's worth.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/

Pross

rick_chasey said:

Sure. I don't think we're disagreeing. No-one in the covid enquiry is in a civil claims court either here.

Tangetially related; if anyone of you want, the entirety of all enron emails ever sent are available online. About 1.7GB's worth.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/

There must be a risk of Civil claims if stuff comes out that shows they were negligent though?

Jezyboy

carbonclem said:

The Whatsapp messages are all easy to consume soundbites for the news sites which is why they are being so widely shared and consumed I think. On that basis the 'headline readers' can easily see what a nasty shower they were, and those who analyse the situation a little closer can also see what a nasty shower they were, so, I cant really see a downside?

I think the downside is that it's largely irrelevant. Equally, it's great gossip to find out that Cummins thinks he worked with a bunch of thundercnts, but I'm not sure it actually changes anything.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

Sure. I don't think we're disagreeing. No-one in the covid enquiry is in a civil claims court either here.

Tangetially related; if anyone of you want, the entirety of all enron emails ever sent are available online. About 1.7GB's worth.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~enron/

It doesn't need to be in court. Let's be clear, the stuff coming out of the WhatsApp conversations is not things that had to be transmitted confidentially, it's people slagging each other off in the most unprofessional manner possible.

That can't be all Enron's enails. An organisation like that would generate far more than 1.7GB.

rick_chasey

Doesn't include attachments, and yes, it's the "senior" 150 leaders.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

Doesn't include attachments, and yes, it's the "senior" 150 leaders.

I think my own work account is more than that. No attachments is pretty useless.

Pross

Quite bold for Johnson to apparently take the view that Covid was nature’s way of getting rid of old people and to sacrifice them for the good of the young and business. Leaving your core vote to die is an interesting tactic. It sounds more like a policy Rick would introduce.

pblakeney

Pross said:

Quite bold for Johnson to apparently take the view that Covid was nature’s way of getting rid of old people and to sacrifice them for the good of the young and business. Leaving your core vote to die is an interesting tactic. It sounds more like a policy Rick would introduce.

Ha! I hypothesised the cull theory in 2020 IIRC.
I was only using it as a dark humour coping mechanism though.

secretsqirrel

Pross said:

Quite bold for Johnson to apparently take the view that Covid was nature’s way of getting rid of old people and to sacrifice them for the good of the young and business. Leaving your core vote to die is an interesting tactic. It sounds more like a policy Rick would introduce.

He reportedly nearly died of it, but probably thinks he overcame it from being young and healthy. Like Trump.

briantrumpet

secretsqirrel said:

Pross said:

Quite bold for Johnson to apparently take the view that Covid was nature’s way of getting rid of old people and to sacrifice them for the good of the young and business. Leaving your core vote to die is an interesting tactic. It sounds more like a policy Rick would introduce.

He reportedly nearly died of it, but probably thinks he overcame it from being young and healthy. Like Trump.

Still some question marks about that. He'd pulled the 'hiding in a fridge' stunt already.

pblakeney

briantrumpet said:

secretsqirrel said:

Pross said:

Quite bold for Johnson to apparently take the view that Covid was nature’s way of getting rid of old people and to sacrifice them for the good of the young and business. Leaving your core vote to die is an interesting tactic. It sounds more like a policy Rick would introduce.

He reportedly nearly died of it, but probably thinks he overcame it from being young and healthy. Like Trump.

Still some question marks about that. He'd pulled the 'hiding in a fridge' stunt already.

My wife who is a nurse seriously doubts he was close to dying, his recovery was too quick. Also, nearly dying would have put him on a ventilator. It never got to that.

secretsqirrel

briantrumpet said:

secretsqirrel said:

Pross said:

Quite bold for Johnson to apparently take the view that Covid was nature’s way of getting rid of old people and to sacrifice them for the good of the young and business. Leaving your core vote to die is an interesting tactic. It sounds more like a policy Rick would introduce.

He reportedly nearly died of it, but probably thinks he overcame it from being young and healthy. Like Trump.

Still some question marks about that. He'd pulled the 'hiding in a fridge' stunt already.

Yeah, I wasn’t on firm footing with that hence the ‘reportedly’, being Bojo, you know.

Got a lot of mileage out of it with his tub thumping speeches to the party Bojo faithful tho’.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

rick_chasey said:

I get why we need to look at these, but people say all sorts of stuff internally that's never meant for public consumption so you need to take it in that context.

Some of us are bright enough to not write pages and pages of incriminating stuff on retrievable data storage.

Oh shit.

TheBigBean

Not sure I get the point of this enquiry.

pblakeney

TheBigBean said:

Not sure I get the point of this enquiry.

Point fingers. Lessons learned, which will be forgot. Ultimately nothing.

focuszing723

TheBigBean said:

Not sure I get the point of this enquiry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bZjKC0EaY0
Yeah it's b0ll0cks it will be just as chaotic the next time. At least it's making Johnson look even more of a complete tw@ though, and a nasty bloke at that.