Wednesday 21 August 2013

Civic Centre shenanigans

Shanice the £12,000 hologram assistant installed at the new Civic Centre has received widespread publicity and not a little controversy. Some have hailed it as a 21st century innovation while others said if Brent Council was really concerned about local unemployment rates they should have employed a real person - and not on a zero hours contract.

Others have been scathing about the basic lack of signs at the Centre. On Monday evening strategically placed security men had to guide us to the boardroom where the Executive meeting was being held. There are no signs to these rooms where meetings, ostensibly opn to the public to ensure transparent democracy, are held.

Every new building has its teething problems and the  Brent Civic Centre is no exception.

Unusually you are instructed to keep your finger pressed on the button to summon the lift and once inside you must kept your finger pressed on the button to ensure you stop at the requested floor. I am not sure what happens if you lift your finger off - perhaps the lift stops between floors or whizzes back down again.

Staff have complained of feeling hot and cold due to what appears erratic climate controls and the automatic  ambient light sensors don't always give enough light to enable comfortable reading.

The one fault that has resulted in farcical scenes is the poor mobile phone signal (staff are equipped with mobiles for their hot-desking). This has resulted in the open plan offices in a cacophony of shouted telephone conversations reverberating around the room leaving staff with splitting headaches at the end of the day.

Not to mention the IT...

But the restaurant does now serve tap water, albeit slightly warm if they don't run the tap first.

4 comments:

L Green said...

Another problem apparently is that the civic centre is the place for weddings, but there is no parking, so brides & grooms and the wedding parties can only get there on the bus - if there is a bus fro where you start from, that is.

Martin Francis said...

There is a paying car park next door with 1,300 spaces but there has been even more confusion over that with people finding it hard to find a way to pay or even where to pay.

Reminds me that I was the witness for a friend's wedding back in the 60s at Streatham Registry Office and bought the bus tickers as a wedding present.

Trevor said...

sadly the civic center reflects the borough perfectly in that it is not organized properly.
but I think when you have a society in which it is lead astray by greed motivated people
this is exactly what you end up with...chaos.
and as wrong as it sounds, that is actually a good thing
so that the rulers are forced to accept learn that they cannot do as they have done and continue to do and think that they can reap good fruit in abundance.

Anonymous said...

Sadly now in 2017 many of these teething problems persist. Staff are often left for weeks to work in bitterly cold conditions. Complaints to Facilities Managers are ignored or worse you are told that you're making it up because the computer says it's a balmy 20C on the office floor! Ive never come across such blatant disregard for staff welfare. It truly frightens me.