✉️ Received Dispatch:

Hi Polly,

My working hours are between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday.

On occasion, I have graciously offered a later visit to accommodate particular circumstances; however, I am not able to accommodate 5:30 p.m. as a consistent arrangement.

We currently have the set plan of visiting every other Tuesday, which I am happy to maintain.

However, owing to this week’s visit not going ahead, while the children remain subject to a child protection plan, I will be obliged to reorganise the missed visit in adherence to statutory guidelines.

If this week is inconvenient, might you propose an alternative time next week for my attendance?

Kind Regards,
Ernie Wallace
Senior Practitioner
North West Social Work Team
4 Frampton Street, NW8 8LF

🎩 SWANK Commentary: A Gloss on Bureaucratic Rigidity

Observe, if you will, the gentle tyranny of schedule presented as magnanimity. We are informed, with solemn predictability, that:

Flexibility is not a right, but a rare indulgence.

The immutable hours of 9 to 5 are to be revered as gospel.

Missed appointments, however caused, are not lamented, but wielded as statutory obligations to reassert access.

At no point is the practicality for the family’s health, safety, or educational routines considered. No acknowledgment of medical accommodations is even hinted at. Only the machinery of procedure is honoured.

🎩 On the Theatre of Incompetence: A Dispatch to Westminster’s Social Services

Date: 30 June 2024
Recipient: Mr Ernie, Senior Practitioner
Institution: Westminster Children’s Services

📜 Dear Ernie,

As you are undoubtedly aware, we fulfilled — promptly, precisely, and without issue — the three requests you made prior to our last meeting. Regrettably, it appears that the only party unable to meet their obligations was, predictably, yourself. Specifically:

You failed to access the documents in question, and more egregiously, you neglected to inform me of this failure for several months;
Despite being provided with the children’s father’s contact details — and despite my generous offer to facilitate a call in your presence — you have made no meaningful effort to engage. Your sporadic ten-minute visits, during which you barely lift the phone, speak more eloquently than any report.

🩺 Institutional Harassment by Misdirection

Further compounding your catalogue of errors, I attended a psychological consultation to address the cumulative toll of what can only be described as institutional harassment.

Imagine my astonishment to discover that you had misrepresented the purpose of this consultation, falsely framing it to the psychologist as pertaining to domestic violence — a topic never raised, referenced, or even remotely implied in any of our meetings.

This is not merely misleading. It is professionally indefensible.

🎭 The Erratic Art of Non-Execution

Your method, Ernie, can best be described as erratic performance. You make proposals during meetings — plans, in theory — only to consistently fail in their execution.
The absence of consistency has become your most dependable trait.

Moreover, you have brought two unknown social workers into my home — unannounced, unexplained, and without the basic courtesy of introduction, as if procedural etiquette were merely optional.

Instead of forethought, you offer fragmented, post-factum email explanations, treating disruption as an afterthought.

🎪 On the Illusion of Curiosity

At one meeting, someone asked — rather performatively — what our day looks like.
A charming question, no doubt rehearsed for the record.
And yet, you have never, not once, inquired into the true substance of our daily lives.

What you seek is not understanding — it is documentation. A performance of concern rather than the practice of care.

📢 Closing Reflection: The Decorum You Forgot

In closing, I urge you, Ernie, to reflect on:

The true purpose of your role;
The standards to which you are ostensibly bound;
And the basic human dignity with which families — especially those under sustained institutional scrutiny — deserve to be treated.

Yours, without expectation of improvement,
Polly

Standards & Whinges Against Negligent Kingdoms (SWANK London Ltd.)

Rigid hours, fluid responsibility — the art of statutory obligation with selective flexibility.

🪶 On the Bureaucratic Impossibility of Flexibility: A Curious Dispatch from Westminster’s North West Team