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 70s. 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to sell outdated foodstuff that was manufactured by member of his family.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 hadnt used his office in the UN as his private
business office.
Why didnt 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 didnt
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 cant 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 80s we witness a complete change in the secretariat.
Let us hope that with the departure of the old guard whom I belong
tothe UN will again win in efficiency.
Editor-in-Chief, Jean Michel Jakobowicz