This job is great!

I'm starting, for the first time in 3 years, to enjoy this EO role. The managerial stuff is coming far more easily for me now.

I told a clerical officer today that "I'm allowed to slag you off. I'm an EO and you are here for my amusement and diversion."

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to bollocking another CO for disappearing for ages when they're clocked in. I've got one of those leg tags the police use for criminals under house arrest, and I'm going to clamp it to their ankle. Or I could just staple the CO to the chair. I haven't decided yet. Maybe the leg tag thing. If the CO had to use the toilet while stapled to their chair, there could be an almighty mess.


Heh heh heh.

Arsehammers!

Ah yes, our friends in IBEC got their pound of flesh. Happy now lads? What a lovely pension levy. Thanks to the recent debacle, I'm now down 20 quid a week. Well, shite. I'm going to have to sell the Damien Hirst now to make up for that.

Ah well, sure don't we all have to do our bit? All of us PAYE workers? Public and private alike? I mean, something has to be done on behalf of the incompetent top brass, in the banks, FAS, etc etc. It must be lonely for them now that they've gone, with only enormous golden handshakes to keep them company?

In the next election, I will be voting for the garden gnome in my next door neighbour's garden. It has more charisma, ability and intelligence than any of the current muppets, be they in government or opposition.

Nixer!

So I was in one of those bloody enormous retail park stores this afternoon after work. I was wandering around the big DIY outlet to see if I could pick up a bargain on housey stuff, like energy saving lightbulbs and shit.

A man walked up to me and asked me, "S'cuse me love, could you tell me where I can get two inch socket screws?"

I did a fairly reasonable "Uhuurgh?" grunt in the style of Tim the Tool Man from that dodgy 90s sitcom Home Improvement. This didn't confer any sense of authority on me at all whatsoever.

"Sorry, I thought you worked here!", said the man.

"Whut?" Ok, maybe if I was wearing bright coloured overalls, yes, that's a plausible mistake to make.

"Well, you've got a badge on," he continued, pointing to where it was, indeed, still hanging off my waistband. And went to search for a real member of staff.

Fucksticks. I've got to stop doing that, wandering out of work on autopilot, clocking out and then going about my business. It's not so bad being mistaken for an employee. But because it says the name of the Department I work for on it, it's obvious that I'm a civil servant. A civil servant with an evil grin, captured forever on a piece of rectangular plastic.

And the media / employers' groups haven't been kind to us of late. IBEC and their likes portray us as fat leeches, sucking all the good out of the public finances. Similarities have been drawn in recent weeks between us and the Jews in Weimar Germany.

So imagine, an identifiable civil servant, wandering around a DIY store unawares. There's chainsaws in there, you know. And axes. And pointy things.

Arse.

Think I'd better remember to remove it in future.

The Great Paper Chase

Christ, what a week it's been. It's been one long marathon of alternate annual review forms and meetings and drafting new role profile forms for 2009. I have been buried in paper. The paperwork with these things is UNREAL. The clerical officers were grand though, none of them made any additional work for me. Bless them all.

The meetings varied in length from ten minutes to half an hour, depending on how the private audience with the manager was valued by the clerical officer, or how scared they were that the EO might swear at them.

I had to schedule a lot of meetings for early in the morning, a time when I'm not at my best (see OED definition for Uncaffeinated Troglodyte), however several other EOs and HEOs beat me to the meeting rooms for the afternoon slots.

I even had some bastard nick the room which I had legitimately booked at one stage. I didn't protest, because I thought this might happen:

Govstooge: Here, I had this room booked for 3.30!
Other EO: Whoops, sorry Govstooge, but we won't be long. Can you give us half an hour?
Govstooge: For fuck's sake, I go for my COFFEE at four!

So I ended up having to do the review in a quiet-ish corner of the canteen. Over coffee, naturellement. Still not ideal when the canteen staff were dropping things that go CLANG and the HEO with the incredibly evil laugh kept overshadowing the proceedings. And other members of my staff, seated a safe distance away, kept glancing over to look at our facial expressions, to gauge where on the five point scale their colleague was going to come.

Sometimes I think what it must be like for the clerical officers. Most of them are older than me. Some of them even have adult children older than me. And, to make matters worse, I am one of those people who still occasionally gets asked for ID when doing a beer run. Some of them don't give a shite and happily sign the forms. The others think it's all bullshit, but sign the forms anyway, anything to get them out of the way. And I don't even have to bring in a gun.

My own review, now that's a story for another day.

I'm glad it's all over now though. Did I mention I had several other shitty things to be getting on with?

Is this us now?

Stolen from the World Wide Weird Web:

Civil Servants


• Ten civil servants standing in a line, One of them was downsized - then there were nine.
• Nine civil servants who must negotiate, One joined the union - then there were eight.
• Eight civil servants thought they were in heaven, 'Til one of them was redeployed - then there were seven.
• Seven civil servants, their jobs as safe as bricks, But one was reclassified - then there were six.
• Six civil servants trying to survive, One of them was privatized - then there were five.
• Five civil servants ready to give more, But one golden handshake reduced them to four.
• Four civil servants full of loyalty, Their jobs were all advertised - then there were three.
• Three civil servants under review, One left on secondment - then there were two.
• Two civil servants coping on the run, One went on stress leave - then there was one.
• The last civil servant agreed to relocate, Replaced by 10 contract workers at twice the hourly rate.

Obama Day!

Great day today, with the inauguration of Barack Obama and all.

Before he even sets to work in the Oval Office, some of the commentary is bordering on hagiography. His task will not be easy, considering the astronomical expectations placed on him. (But he's got to be better than the last guy, though, eh? Even his embarrasing bodily noises would be more articulate than Bush.)

I wish him the best of luck. Having to clean up the mess the last guy left can't be easy. Why is it always the guys from Offaly who get the shit?

Snow

Lots of it fell from the sky today. It brought dozens of civil servants to the windows, where we gazed out, rapt and speculating - will it stick or won't it?

It didn't. It turned into brown slushy mush within an hour.

But most folk were sensible enough to have dressed for the weather. I myself was attired in a warmly lined leather jacket coupled with an enormous scarf and a big wooly hat. I look like someone about to go a-burgling when I'm in that gear. But it's comfortable! (I am one of these people who choose function over style at all times.)

And so, too, was the anorak type coat favoured by one of our more corpulent colleagues. Putting it on to go home, she moaned, "Why do we have to wear all these clothes"?

I squirmed, picturing the alternative, and retorted, "Well, just think of what would happen if you didn't wear any. You would end up in prison."

My colleague looked around her and said, "I thought this was it?"

This was the highlight of what was otherwise a very shitty day during which I was for the most part in bad humour.

Coming home through areas where snow did lodge - before dark, I was able to enjoy white fields and conifers sprinkled with delicate frosting.

Shame it doesn't last. It gives us something new to talk about.