A Working Class Hero is something to be

This week I have made a first hand study of management styles and techniques adopted in British industry. It's not an exhaustive study, as I've only found time to research one business, a manufacturing company in the North East of England, but I think it offers a genuine insight into what made this country the envy of the industrial world ..... in the late 1860s.

For ease of reading, I will summarise my findings, in no particular order, in bullet-point form:

• If a member of staff is on long-term sick, recuperating from, say,  a serious hernia operation , it is acceptable to 'offer him some cash to leave'.
• When a properly negotiated reduction in working hours, to preserve jobs and to maintain a skilled workforce, is accepted by said workforce the phrase '4 days? You should have knocked them down to 3' is de riguer. This appears to be the correct conduct, despite the fact that the person that said it has been banging on about a 4-day week for two months.
• Never, ever praise a member of staff. Only ever find fault.
• Employ individuals to perform specific tasks/jobs and then be amazed when these people refuse to 'check what he's doing because I think he's sh*t'
• Never have the courage to actually tackle an issue head on. Always manage by innuendo and rumour and hope your point/gripe gets to the target via 'the water cooler method'.
• Be an Industrial Terrorist: come into the business for an hour a day, cause havoc by 'planting bombs', causing confusion and fear amongst the people that work for you. Then, two hours later, ring from the golf club and be amazed when you are told to f*ck off.
• Ask the same question over and over again. When you don't get the, incorrect, answer that you want, employ a consultant who will agree with every word you say, as long as you are paying 5 times the going rate.

These are my initial findings and are in no way indicative of British industry as a whole, but it would appear the certain members of senior management take their style and methods from the novels of Charles Dickens.

It also has to be said that it's not always doom and gloom because, as yet, Friday has not been abolished.

(If anyone works at the company I allude to, you know, of course, that I'm only joking. Everyone else: it's true.)

Please feel free to add your own research, a joint paper will be submitted to INSEAD, The London School of Economics, Harvard and The Cartoon Network.