Dropping the Pilot...

...You remember that great cartoon by Sir John Tenniel - he indeed of the 'Alice' drawings - entitled 'Dropping the Pilot' to mark the deposition of Bismarck by Kaiser Wilhelm II? Well, no of course you don't strictly 'remember' the event itself, as it took place in 1890, though you would recall the cartoon had you done modern history at a date when significant historical moments were actually a part of the curriculum. Sadly no longer the case, it would seem, to judge by E's textbooks on the subject, which merely ask her to 'imagine' she was a Native American squaw and to say how she would have 'felt' when General Custer hove into view.

As best one can recall oneself - the teaching of history to self being some decades gone - the Iron Chancellor had done little to deserve his fate other than to have the temerity to be old whilst the new Kaiser was very much on the young side. In these more modern and enlightened times, the I.C. would no doubt haul his erstwhile boss before a self-important Employment Tribunal and urge the case for his reinstatement on the grounds of improper 'ageism'.

The defence of the right of absolute monarchs to sack whomsoever they chose whensoever they chose to would, of course, cut no proper and lawful procedural ice with those fierce advocates of universal love and justice for all it must be added, though the argumentation back and forth across the Tribunal table would be fascinating to observe.

But howsoever sympathetic to Bismarck one may tend to be in having been so rudely 'dropped' this way, on the whole one is thoroughly in favour of dropping pilots of any description - 'pilots' that is as in 'pilot projects'.

Bro. George and I are as one on this, both of us abhorring the lazy launch of 'pilot projects' as an excuse to let slip half-baked, half-considered if not darn right ill-conceived ideas on the public simply because 'project designers' can't be bothered to come up with a rock-solid design empirically evidenced and soundly based in theory, lacking all but the most rudimentary methodology of enactment or method of testing through analysis of outputs and outcomes.

Forgive the managerialist language - one so easily lapses into Bro. George speak - but if one were to recast the contention into one's own sphere of influence it would be a bit like Christ saying "Well, let's give these Beatitudes a go guys. You've given me some good ideas and though I've not yet worked them through entirely let's pilot them on this mob of folk and see what happens. We can always amend them later depending on the feedback we get."

Well no. Our Saviour said what he meant and he meant what he said. No dithering with 'Beatitudes; draft 7 for internal distribution only' for Him.

So that being so, when one reads on bottles of carpet cleaning fluid that one should test an unobtrusive bit of the material first lest something dire occur, one spurns this as being awfully 'pilot projectish'.

Empty the room and lash away is the order of the day. 'This is your Captain speaking. All decks cleared and ready for action. All pilots dropped and here we go.'

Worked a treat. Carpets near enough pristine and all visitors to the office now required to de-boot or de-shoe on entry. (If it weren't Lent it would be time for a large celebratory malt. But it is, so it isn't.)