Now retired after more than 40 years in full-time journalism, Alan takes a wry look at life in the 21st Century. You can also read Alan's column every Monday in The Bolton News . . .
EDITOR'S CHOICE
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ONCE upon a time administrative workers were disparagingly known as "pen-pushers".
In the computer-strewn modern world they should perhaps now be described as "mouse-draggers".
Whatever the terminology, I think the time has come for the system to employ more of them in order to allow trained professionals to do their jobs properly.
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Cost-cutting managements have spent recent decades systematically chopping out support staff and piling their work on to those workers they still employ, no matter how reluctantly.
You do not have to be a genius to see that core targets in public and private organisations must be affected to some degree if key individuals are given additional, non-productive tasks that eat in to their working day.
We have heard this, particularly, from the police service and now the Royal College of Nursing claims that NHS nurses spend more than a million hours a week on paperwork, leaving too little time to care for patients.
The RCN is calling for more ward clerks and other support staff to deal with the necessary bureaucracy.
What a great idea!
Maybe somebody will recognise one day that the country needs more mouse-draggers to make things work better.
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