Dinosaurs are always wrong

During those last months a major event took place and nobody noticed it, not even the media or the UN administration. One of our colleagues retired from the organization. He was not only a colleague he was a symbol. This man, whose name I will not mention, just by sheer modesty, was the leech by excellence, useless for the organization and even using it for his own purpose. UN Special has on various occasions mentioned his misbehaving in its column without any results.

In brief, this man joined the UN thanks to well placed friends in the early 70’s. At that time he had a small technical knowledge, which he immediately forgot. In 1975, he started his business, which had nothing to do with the UN. First, he speculated on gold, then he bought flats all over Switzerland, which he thereafter rented. At one point he started to sell outdated foodstuff that was manufactured by member of his family. He even went to the point to bilk his chief … but all of this would be nothing if he hadn’t used his office in the UN as his private business office.

Why didn’t his chief react? In fact, they did react! At the beginning of his career his supervisor found out that he was working for a company outside the UN. He documented his findings and brought the whole thing to the administration. The result was that he – the chief – got almost kicked out for discrimination and harassment. And the guy because of administrative changes got a promotion.

There after some of his supervisors tried hard to give him some bad marks but each attempt was mainly a waste of time because the man went through so many recourses, he had nothing better to do. After a while the supervisors decided to loose a post and leave things as they were. A few years ago his administration offered the man a golden hand shake just for him to vacate the post. He refused, because he didn’t want to loose all the goodies the UN was offering him as an international civil servant.

This person has cost between 4 and 5 millions dollars to the UN, furthermore he has used the physical, financial and fiscal facilities of the organization without offering anything in return. He has now retired and opened a business. The only thing I can do is to wish him and his clients good luck.

The question which arises from this story is what is the use of all our beautiful evaluation systems if they do not allow supervisors to get rid of such type of persons, who are not that many, but still exist?

Now, when I heard certain dinosaurs say: «In our times .. young people were more …» I can’t help smiling. Between the civil servant who came as spies, or counterintelligence and the friends of friends, the rate of inefficiency, even though not higher than in national administrations was far higher than it is right now. Since the end of the 80’s we witness a complete change in the secretariat. Let us hope that with the departure of the old guard – whom I belong to—the UN will again win in efficiency.

Editor-in-Chief, Jean Michel Jakobowicz