Bring it on!

Lower ranking civil servants to take on extra duties:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/lowerrank-civil-servants-must-take-on-new-duties-2511019.html

Well, hahahahahahahaha!

We do most of the work anyway!

What additional duties will we be taking on? Tea-drinking? Brown-nosing? Black Ops on PS3 in the conference room?

I'm sure I could make time for such activities in my busy day.

Should have been done years ago...

In other news, Langer replaces Biffo as head of Zanu FF.

Yawn.

I still won't vote for the pricks...

Blaaaaaaart!

Morticia approached me yet again today. She toddled right up alongside me and said:

"I have an Orts degree, you know."

Now, in my present Department, there are a great many people with Arts degrees. And Business degrees, computer science, even electronic engineering graduates. It's not unusual to have a degree in the civil service. I myself am the holder of an Arts degree, along with a Master's in a humanities discipline. This I reveal to my colleague.

"Ooh", she replies,"but you're not using it." This, said with a smug little smirk and a victory wiggle, which make me furrow my brow and retort curtly:

"Yes I am. A large proportion of what I studied is relevant for what I'm doing right now." (This is actually true, even on EO pay!)

"I'm not using mine at the moment", Morticia confides in me. I'm half expecting her to offer to sell it to me for an aloe vera plant and the chain of paper clips I had in my old Department for whipping clerical officers with.

"I wouldn't have thought so," I reply "as a lot of your generation (ha! Age dig!) doing Arts would have become teachers, or would be higher up in the civil service."

Morticia looks dejected, as her attempt to make herself feel superior to me has backfired in her face.

I smirk and turn back to my work. Morticia returns to hers without saying another word. I did a little victory dance in my swivel chair. I'm a really crap dancer, so I nearly fell off and had to make it look like I was picking up a biro I'd dropped.

The virtual Vuvuzela of victory in my head was going "Blaaaaaart!" for the best part of the next hour.

L'enfer...

...c'est les autres. At least, that's what Jean-Paul Sartre once said.

And I'm inclined to agree. Hell truly is other people.

Take one of my colleagues for instance. Let's call this colleague "Calamity" for illustrative purposes. I don't work directly with Calamity as he is in a different office, but I speak regularly with him on the phone. I shouldn't, but I invariably do, ask, "How are you today, Calamity?" Because this invariably leads onto a litany of the latest woes to befall this misfortunate functionary.

So far, I've been told:
"My arse exploded last night."
"My wife's arse exploded last night."
"I was off last week. Spent the whole time in bed with a bucket by my side."
"I was on holidays in Darfur. Stupid time to go, really."
"There was a dead sheep with an upside down crucifix stuck in it nailed to my front gate this morning".
"Hitler's ghost woke me up last night."
"Bertie Ahern is my best friend."
"The hubcap came off my X5. I have an X5 you know. It's shiny."

For several months now, I have been a shoulder to cry on for Calamity. I have been a sounding board for all his problems. I have been Marjorie Proops, Doctor Phil, Joe Duffy, all rolled into one. I have interjected his lament with "ooh you poor thing" on innumerable occasions, so much so that when my nearby colleagues hear this phrase they have to snigger and say to each other "Uh-oh, Govstooge's onto Calamity again."

I bet you are thinking, "Aaw, Govstooge's really nice after all." No? Oh well.

Anyway, Calamity, if you happen to be reading this in between your bouts of vomiting and missing hubcaps, please take note that I am no longer a free counselling service. Find a properly qualified therapist and pay them whatever they ask, you earn more than me anyway, you tight fucking bastard.

And next time a piece of information goes astray between my department and yours, complain to me directly. Don't ring up my managers denouncing me and making out I don't know what I'm doing, even though it was the first time something went wrong.

Because, if I knew where you lived, I'd be round there to give you something new to complain about.

Hell is Govstooge with a pointy stick.

Johnny Come Lately

I see our good friends at Tesco are marketing extra large condoms.

For the big prick in your life.

I'm going to buy a trolley load of them and sell them as disposable scented sleeping bags at Electric Picnic.

I'll invent a new award for underperformance at work called "Dickhead of the week" where the offending CO has to wear one on his/ her head for a full week.

I'll seek out Assumpta the most pious civil servant the Department has ever employed and fill her desk drawers with them when she isn't looking. And stick one over the mini statue of the Virgin Mary on her desk to really set the whole thing off.

I may even put them to use in their intended purpose. Flattery will get me everywhere.

Wah! The scissors is coming!

Tremble with fear!

The report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes (or Bord Snip Nua) is to be presented to our interestingly-coiffed Minister for Finance tomorrow.

Expect lightning bolts to come out of the Department of Finance striking random public servants and erasing them from the payroll. Expect poison in the water coolers. Expect much noise from the CPSU. Expect the cheerful face of Turlough O'Sullivan of IBEC grinning as he rubs his hands with glee as yet another axe is taken to public-sector pay. Expect confirmation of the hideous rumours circulating on the news. Possibly two thousand less Gardai on the streets? Never mind, we'll send Turlough et al. into Limerick and watch gurriers and gang members flee as they suck the life out of them, too. Muahhahhahaa. Problem solved.

As far as I know, the report won't be released into the public domain. I'm wondering if any recommendations will be made on TD pay, expenses and numbers. Or will the Brians do some convenient "snipping" of their own, to limit the damage?

Biffo: OK Lenno, let's go over this report.
Lenno: Oops! Butterfingers! Gosh this scissors is sharp.
Biffo: Try not to get blood on it, will you. We don't want the civil service to get suspicious.
Lenno: Sorry, Boss. Anyway, that bit about reducing TD and Ministers' pay by 50% is gone.
Biffo: Good work, Brian. Give yourself a pay rise.

Oh to be a fly on the wall.

Normal Service Resumed

Ah-ha! I just knew it!

I couldn't possibly have been full of the joys of life forever more and have nothing to rant about!

And no, it's not the fact that those nudie paintings of our revered (ha!)yet corpulent Taoiseach put me off my breakfast this morning. That, I have to say, was pretty fecking disgusting in itself.

What really put a dampener on the recent bonhomie in the Department this morning was one of my louder colleagues coming to work in a bad humour. Now I am not judging anyone for being in bad humour. I am prone to moodiness and downright gloominess myself at times. I keep it to myself, and the only discernible difference obvious to those who work with me is that I'm quieter than normal.

Well, just think of the opposite of that. A person who is loud to begin with, coming to work with a foul temper, ranting about everything in sight- sometimes unintelligibly - and turning the volume up a few notches. I can't help but have an adverse reaction to it. Especially when it coincides with some very important work that I am engaged on.

First it starts off:
Colleague: Rant rant rant blah blah
Govstooge: Jesus. I can tell it's going to be a long day.

A few minutes later:

Colleague: Rant rant rant rant
Govstooge: I don't agree with that.
Colleague: Well I do. Rant rant rant rant rant rant.

Half an hour later:
Colleague: Rant rant rant rant
Govstooge: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! WOULD YOU EVER SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE THE REST OF US WHO HAVE A JOB TO DO IN PEACE!!!!!!!!!
Colleague: Oops someone got on the wrong side of the bed this morning!
Govstooge: !!!?????

A short time later, my colleague's temper has moderated and it's time to offer the olive branch.

Colleague: Govstooge, want to see something funny?....Govstooge? Can you hear me? Look at this, it's funny. You'll like it.
Govstooge (not looking up): I have absolutely zero interest in what you've got on your head or shoved up your left nostril. If you've got nothing better to do I can find you some work. Lots ot it.
Colleague: Humph.

The upshot of this is that my colleague now knows that a line has been crossed by pissing the EO off to the point of shouting, and they say no more.

And I could get on with my work, silently chuckling to myself. Nothing my colleague could have done could have amused me more than scaring them into silence. And this in itself is enough to diffuse any irritation that I might have been feeling up to then.

And tomorrow, I will keep up the affronted act for a little while longer. It might just get me a cake.

Revenge is sweet.

The Hate Issue...

As is my wont on this suppurating-pustule-on-a-greeting-card-company-marketing-executive's-arse of a day, I dedicate this post to the things I truly hate. Allow me to vent my spleen in the most bilious manner.

In no particular order, I bring you...

1. Hallmark holidays. I have been, for the greater part of my life, a singleton, and proud of it. I refuse to engage in any activity in pubs or restaurants on this date. I could have conformed and accepted the invitation to go out from an ex-boyfriend who has been getting back in touch, but instead I slagged him for being corny and made arrangements for next week instead. And to bring flowers if he wanted. Flowers that aren't marked up by 100% for the day that's in it. There's a recession on don't ya know. Oh, and Halloween is shite as well. They'll be exchanging cards for that next.

2. Our Government. They're completely shit. I don't blame Brian Cowen. I blame Bertie for dumping him in the shite. 1% income levy, stupid pension levy, soon I'll be paying the Department for the privilege of working there. And this is just the beginning. The Government have plans to cut spending right up to 2013.

As hundreds of people are made redundant every week, I am grateful for merely having a job, and acknowledge that we should make sacrifices (like the 3.5% pay increase on September 1st under the National Pay Agreement which has now been axed). What's pissing off many of us lower and middle-income public servants, however, is how we are being villified by the media, (did you know that as a post-1995 recruit, I was paying my own pension all along?) and also the fucking disgusting incompetence of senior bank executives, who have gotten away with murder!

No-one's going to have much sympathy for us paper-pushers if we go on strike, but why take it lying down? Steeeee-RIKE!

3. The bloke with a chocolate addiction who sits at the opposite end of the section to me. His man-boobs have increased from a B-cup to a C-cup since last summer, and worst of all, I can hear every bite. Even at that distance. Bleurgh. You disgusting noisy-eating bastard.

4. The wet patch in my back garden. It makes noise when I walk on it.

5. The voice of a worker in a neighbouring section that can be heard over a considerable distance. I'm sure she is a very nice person, but her voice could cut sheet metal!

6. The fact that the neighbour who backs onto me STILL hasn't taken down his outdoor Christmas decorations. I can see Santa on his roof as I type. Lazy twat.

Ummm.... that's about it. Must be losing my touch.

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.

The Eve of the Drawer

I derive a lot of amusement from my day-to-day work and interaction with my colleagues. It's hard not to, considering that there's fuck all on the telly and I've just finished reading the Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy and can't decide what to read next. (Maybe something by Terry Pratchett, or the biography of Mao by Jung Chang.)

For instance, playing pedantic civil service letter tennis is a particular joy of mine. I will happily return letters on lovely headed Department paper to anyone who cares enough to write to me in an official capacity. I especially like it when my civil service jargon is interpreted as "obfuscatory" (and no, I'm not in correspondence with any Ministers of State. At least, not that I know of).

Colleagues are great too. It takes all sorts to make up the Department and there's always something slightly mental going on. But sometimes thing can get too intense even for my liking. And that's saying a lot.

Sometimes I'm engaged on work that requires a fair bit of concentration (yes I do work! To tight deadlines no less!). I have to get my head down and hope I'm not disturbed. This isn't easy, given the shitty office layout we've been placed in. The last thing I need is being earwigged by the office bore, who works in my general vicinity, but who is not a member of the growing club that is known as Govstooge's Clerical Officers (catchy, eh?).

The office bore knows well enough to stay away from me. I will either ignore them or look up at them with murder in my eyes.

Recently, I have almost committed murder. Or, at least, a crude meniscectomy. Which isn't really the same thing, but I imagine it's painful. Our boring colleague decided to strike up a conversation with another colleague whose desk directly faces mine. Instead of walking around to their desk, the office bore decided to stand behind my desk, as I was sitting there, to conduct what could loosely be termed as "a conversation".

I, up to my elbows in forms, was not impressed. I reacted in the only way I knew how. I grabbed the handle of my top desk drawer and yanked it open with fury. Images of the bore limping back to their seat following a knee injury caused by high-velocity plywood filled my head.

I had underestimated my tedious colleague. I had expected them not to notice anything, immersed as they were in their own soliloquy of things that no-one else could possibly care about. I was wrong. The office bore lithely sidestepped my speeding drawer and skipped across to their audience to continue their droning monologue, as I sat there seething.

This is not the end. There will be other onslaughts. And I need to be prepared. My next DIY shopping trip will be for wires, pulleys, and maybe a little motor so I can operate the whole thing discreetly.

I could just be more assertive and say, "Sorry, ______ (insert colleague's name), I can't concentrate with you hovering over me, would you mind moving away from here please?" but that's just silly talk.

Assertiveness would just get in the way of my ambition to become the first non-surgeon to perform a delicate knee operation without anaesthetic in a non-sterile environment.

The Decline of English

New statistics from the Department of Education show conclusively that skangers are getting thicker. A spokesperson yesterday said that "95% of all knackery scobey chavs can't spell their favourite words, let alone their own names".

An exclusive picture follows.
(Warning, may cause distress to sweary civil servants.)

Jesus.

Feckin' rain...

The rain today got me thinking. Of emigration to warmer climes, yes, but also the different types of people you see out on the streets in different types of weather. I go walking in all sorts of conditions, owning rain gear (NOT yellow!) means I never miss out. A woman for all seasons, if you will.

For instance on a warm sunny day you will see mums and kids out walking, joggers, runners, rollerbladers cyclists and people with their dogs. And you think to yourself only nutjobs and people who have to spend seven or eight hours in a stuffy office would not be out in it.

Then on a wet shitty day, just like today, a casual stroll around the area where I work reveals another subclass. Trolls under bridges. Yes, beneath an underpass there was a group of hooded chav teenagers in their shiny tracksuits, huddled together and smoking a special type of herbal cigarette and roaring and shouting gibberish. There was also a lot of poo. In the absence of dogs, I can only imagine where that came from. I have never seen these troglodytes on a fine day.

Nobody else around, just me and these fucking chavs.

Thankfully they were too stoned and their nylon attire wasn't really meant for downpours of this magnitude, so they didn't chase me.

Fuck them! A REAL rant!!

Govstooge is one angry bitch today. Between people pissing me off and having a nasty respiratory tract infection that keeps me awake at night with a racking cough, there are many things getting right on my tits at the moment.

Property ownership is a great thing, and I am happily ensconced in my half-furnished brand new house. I still need work done, though and have enlisted the help of various tradesmen in recent weeks. Took the day off work today (leave, not sickie - that can wait till tomorrow) to admit the latest one, who was to come at 10. Maybe there was a Swiss person in my ancestry, but if I say I'm going to be there at 10, I'll fucking be there at 10. This twat turned up at 2.00, four fucking hours late. At which time I was out, having other things to do, and having already waited 2 and a half hours for the bastard to show up. And when he phoned me when I was fifteen miles away, I explained how I had taken a day off work especially, phoned at 11 and got no reply, the bastard didn't even have the grace to apologise, or even offer some pathetic excuse as to why he didn't turn up at the stated time. I'm glad I didn't hand over any cash, as I was able to tell him to shove it up his shitty arsehole, and that I hoped he and his family would drown in a torrent of cats' piss (well, maybe not the second bit). So back to square one looking for some other bloke to do the same job. Hopefully I haven't been black listed for being an utter bitch.

Back to work tomorrow (or maybe not - considering the state of my trachea right now), back to doing the shit the HEO and AP don't want to do, including the thankless task of organising the staff Christmas "do". The HEO and AP are full of suggestions, all of which make more work and hassle for me. This I can do without, and it makes me think "Why the fuck don't you organise it instead?" I hope they get the squits. In fact, I might be able to engineer that with my contact at the venue (adds syrup of figs to shopping list, and makes mental note to ask chef how it can be incorporated into turkey and ham).

I might call in sick tomorrow. I have an important deadline next week, but it's nothing my bosses aren't able to take over, so letting them do some work for a change while I stay in bed with a decent book and a warm alcoholic drink might be a good thing.

Fuck, yeah!

----------------
Now playing: Tom Waits - Come on up to the house
via FoxyTunes

Being an EO sucks.

It fucking does you know.

And here are some reasons.

You do all the shit the HEO doesn't want to do. Then they can be left in peace to do their fucking online shopping and enter loads of competitions on the internet. HEOs, as section managers, have a lot of responsibility, which they are more than willing to delegate downwards so they can do all that non work related stuff, as well as arse kissing the Assistant Principal.

You have to listen to all the Clerical Officers' petty gripes. And act on them. And then listen to the HEO shoot them down. And then, go back to the COs and tell them the bad news. It's EO tennis! No love there... (sorry). COs are devious buggers, especially when they get together. They get something to moan about, and they'll harp on about it for ages until they wear you down and then you have to go higher to get something done about it. I had to approach my HEO today on behalf of a CO, regarding certain IT privileges, which I myself have. The bottom line is, "The Assistant Principal won't authorise access for everyone. If the CO needs to use that particular application, they need to ask you, or any of the other EOs, to use your computers." Fucking nice. I can see the fucking COs milking this one so that I don't get a moment to myself. Going forward (ha!), I need to remember to shut down my email, delete my internet history and password protect my personal files before I let one of the COs even near my computer. God only knows what they'd get on me if they clicked the wrong thing.

Managers like to mark their territory too. Like dogs, they can piss all over you without a moment's notice. My HEO has developed a nasty little trick of scheduling impromptu meetings immediately prior to my tea breaks. It's basically to put me in my place, showing me who the real boss is and all that. I have my priorities right though. I usually make some food or caffeine related excuse which works almost all of the time: "Err... sorry, I can't deal with this now. I have a severe caffeine addiction, also if I don't get a croissant intravenously STAT, I'm afraid I might fart on you..." It's true though, I am not lying. I like my coffee. A lot. And I usually leave the house without breakfast, so the noises my stomach is capable of making by the time these "meetings" arise are pretty convincing.

It really, really fucking sucks at the moment. Having a huge debt is great for motivating myself to go in every morning. That, and the echoing of my sentiments by other EOs in the very same situations.

And, most importantly of all, what the fuck would I write about in this rant if I didn't have all that shitty stuff to deal with?

There, I've cheered myself up now. Cathartic, that was.

You utter bollox.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1025/politics.html

Bertie getting a pay rise that's quite a bit more than what I earn in a year??
It could have been even more had the review body not discounted it??

Fine Gael calling it "disgusting"? (Yeah, as if they'd turn their noses up at it.)

Jesus, the rest of us have to suffer PMDS with our bosses before we get our rises. And that's every year, not every five years!

For feck's sake, he's only going to lose it, or roll around naked in it. The gobshite doesn't even have a bloody bank account!

Knob of the week...

Oh, God, as if civil servants needed more bad publicity... this week it emerged that a civil servant in the Department of Social and Family Affairs supplied his criminal brother with confidential data so that he could extort money etc. This gobshite deserves to be prosecuted along with his brother.

Not only that, but it has also emerged, as a consequence, that it is "common practice" among civil servants to check the financial status of people they know.

This gives an image of civil servants as being the electronic equivalents of "curtain twitchers". In last night's Questions and Answers, the phrase "Valley of the Squinting Windows" came up. Would you give your local nosey old biddy behind her nets your confidential financial information? I think not.

I have access to sensitive information. I have seen stuff in files that would make great tabloid headlines. I'm not putting my job at risk by breaching the Official Secrets Act, though. I have to pay for my house somehow. So there will be no leaks here, apart from random rantings about people pooing at work (haven't even had one of those rants in ages) and general office bullshit. That's plenty to be going on with.

People distrust the government enough already as it is. If the remaining trust in the civil service goes, who will fill out the forms? Are we to fill them out ourselves using silly names in order to have something to do? Or will we just go to the canteen and have another nice cup of tea, leaving the forms to gather dust, unloved, in a corner of the office? Or can we stay in bed and call it "teleworking"?

Actually, I quite like the last one. It might save me from being lynched on my way to work.

My Evil Plans

I don't do mornings. In fact, I absolutely detest the fuckers. Particularly at this time of the year when it's dark and shitty outside. However, I have no option other than to get up early in the mornings because of (a) fairly long commute to work and (b) bloody traffic. Of course, (a) is added to even more if I get stuck in (b). On the rare occasions when I don't leave the house at an ungodly hour, I know I have to face into at least one one-kilometre stretch of road which it will take me twenty minutes or so to traverse. This causes me even more stress and strain than even getting up at 6.30 in the morning does. I find myself cursing everything - including my inability to buy a property closer to work, and I sometimes get this horrible image of myself turning into the Michael Douglas character in that film from a few years back, the one he goes mental in with a baseball bat. "Falling Down", it's bloody excellent. And it's how I feel.

To avoid actually acting on these feelings, and getting into trouble, I decided to find some way of amusing myself on the way to work in the mornings. My new entertainment is excellent fun and simple to do. I call it "Pissing off Jeeps". It's basically a tactical driving game in which I give as little lee-way to jeep drivers on the road as possible, by not letting them join the flow of traffic when entering from a minor road, or to change lanes on a dual carriage way. I score bonus points if they get pissed off and show it, either by honking at me or giving me the fingers (which is a gesture I return, by the way). I lose points if there is evidence that the jeep has been in a field or on a country road (i.e. used properly), so I try to ensure that the ones that I piss off are shiny and driven by either a woman or a man wearing a suit. It's ace.

One of them knows where I work now though...

Still though, mornings are a lot more fun.

Executive Relief

My job title is crap. Executive Officer - for fuck's sake it sounds ten times better than it actually is. The uninitiated confuse it with CEO... for instance Michael O'Leary is the Chief Executive Officer in Ryanair. There is a big difference between his €1 million a year and my paltry salary which equates to about a thirtieth of what he earns.

I have fuck all "Executive" powers. Most of the time it's the HEO and the AP working through me.

Today I would have loved to "Execute" someone. One of the COs spoke openly in the section about a private conversation I'd had with them about a minor issue (at the behest of the HEO and AP, I hasten to add - I didn't even notice, and if I had, I wouldn't have cared).

That's the problem. The CO sees me as someone hung up on minor details, maybe even as someone with a grudge against them. But I am merely following orders, in the finest Nazi tradition. I couldn't give a flying fuck if the CO picks their nose at work. I would only notice it if they flicked the snot at me. I'm so caught up in my own work that I barely have time to notice these little things, unlike my superiors, whose work I am invariably doing.

I will probably have to have another private conversation about this soon. Just to reaffirm my role as the manager, marking my territory and all that rubbish. That's all I can do, which means waiting for a meeting room or a private office to become free.

That's if I don't go mental first, breaking out the fire axes and running maniacally through the corridors swiping at everything and "executing" everybody who dares to get in my way, screaming swear words and foaming at the mouth. Or I could strangle them with their lanyards, which would make a lot less mess.

Grey Anatomy (Special Edition)

I turned 30 today. And I found a grey hair.

I'm getting old.

Which means I can bitch and moan even more than usual.

So I went to work today, took an extra long tea break, sat in the sun at lunchtime, then did another little bit of work in the afternoon before going to tea yet again.

Didn't advertise the fact at work. Too fucking embarrassing. Nothing worse than co-workers coming up to you with cheesy greetings. Or buying cakes. Any excuse to buy cakes. Civil servants love cakes. Big feckin' chocolate cakes. With double cream.

And then going home some cunt in a jeep turning right at a "Yield" sign cuts right across me (when I had right of way), at which point I live up to my blog title by honking my horn and extending my middle finger and swearing a lot. Cunt. Jeeps should be banned. In fact, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to get all the jeeps (except the ones that actually go in fields, like farmers' or builders' ones) in the world, put them on an island somewhere, then nuke the fuck out of them all. Then become ruler of the world and make everyone drive non-intimidating cars that don't belch out so much carbon monoxide (It being Ireland, public transport isn't really a viable option for most of us). Al Gore would be proud of me.

Hope I make the grade as an old person.

Upward Feedback

Dear Boss,

When I am on the phone, please do not stand directly behind me eavesdropping on the conversation, and, when I hang up, stand there criticising my phone technique.

Unlike you, I don't suffer from paranoia, thinking that every single external phone call is a threat to the integrity of the Department. Nor do I have your ability to turn a simple statement into a sewer full of verbal diarrhoea (which is a wonderful strategy for deterring people from ringing government departments, by the way).

What I mean to say is...

FUCK OFF
FUCK OFF
FUCK OFF!


You bollocks.

Supervising the Union Man

I have a Union Man on my staff. Before I go any further I want to explain... I am in a union myself, but I'm only in it for the group schemes and the bland bi-monthly magazine with pictures of vacuous executive grade civil servants on the front. I am not motivated by any left-wing ideology (I am a lefty, but far too lazy to be an activist). The Union Man is different. He attends meetings/ conferences and distributes ballot papers. He also adopts aspects of the "Union Man" stance towards management - i.e. never gives us a straight answer on anything.

The guy should be a politician. He is wasted as a civil servant. For instance, when I ask him a question, he manages to - albeit politely - not answer it at all. I can almost hear the tiny cogs in his brain whirring and clunking as he tries to remember the official union "line" on the exact matter I am asking him about, no matter how mundane and trivial - and we get a lot of mundane and trivial in the Civil Service, mark my words. I could ask something completely boring like, "How is that new filing system working out for you? Is it easier to find things now?" and get the response, "Eeeeeeh, weeeell, ummmm, sometimes it is, and, ahmmmmmmm, sometimes it isn't." On these occasions, I have to turn around very quickly to hide the broad grin that begins to spread across my face like the acne on his.

Specifics are not his forte and, once I get my face straight, I don't approach him for further details as I believe he is just trying to be awkward and piss me off. If he knew that I was actually crossing my legs to avoid pissing myself laughing, I might earn a representation on his behalf from a very irate shop steward.

A minor annoyance, which I can exploit anonymously for the purpose of comedy. The faint smell of cheese and the fact that there should be a "BIOHAZARD" sign on his desk are also funny, but I have other plans for this material.

Sometimes I think it's a shame that my boss and I belong to the same union.