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...

Fuckbook

I checked my email earlier. "You have 10 new messages", it said. "Yahoo" (or should that be Gmail?) , I thought, "lots of new stuff to read, maybe a couple of lolcats, who knows."

Wrong.

One email worth reading, from a friend.

Two emails from Blogspot saying that a Chinese spammer with links to adult sites had left a comment on my blog, do I want to publish or reject?

Seven from bloody Facebook:

Joe Blogs took the movie quiz. Can you beat his score?
Bloke you met on holidays sends you a million kisses.
Fanny O'Toole invites you to join the group "Women against Vicars who hop around on one leg"
Richard Cranium tagged you in a photo in the album "Seven drunken nights"

And so on...

Yaaaaaawn...

Does nobody want to communicate by proper email anymore?

Bloody Fuckbook.

Fun in the sun (or is it?)

I’ve been enjoying the weather for the past few days. I’ve managed to get rid of my usual deathly pallor and actually look healthy now. I’ve even managed to get loads of exercise. Outdoors. Usually I only do that in winter. My pineal gland was getting more sunlight than usual and so not even I could maintain my usual level of cynicism and rancour in order to maintain posting on the blog for the duration of the fine weather.

But – wait a minute! There has to be something for Govstooge to get fucked off about! For a civil servant who has made whingeing and moaning an art form it is inconceivable that the good humour should persist.

And yes, it’s true. I have found something new to mouth off about.

I have written previously about the summer fashions on display in the Department – fucking flip flops, fantastic for the beach but utterly annoying in an open-plan office (rhythmic whacking - making the entire place sound like a S&M festival), not to mention DANGEROUS!

Just to go further afield, I decided earlier in the week to avail myself of some flexible leave and visit my nearest urban centre to purchase some more suitable attire for this weather. I failed miserably. I returned home with €30 worth of books and some fancy naan breads and a new and interesting type of cheese.

Women’s summer fashions in high street shops make me despair. I look round at what other women are wearing and it’s either tight tops that accentuate all the wobbly bits or else it’s big tent-like kaftany things that hide all the wobbly bits yet leave you looking like a marquee. And then there are the ones that have no fabric whatsoever on the back. No thanks. I’m finding it absolutely impossible to find dignified summer wear this year.

I am not a large lady by any means. I’m a size 12 on my bottom half and slightly bigger on top. But I have some wobbly bits. I refuse to have my midriff on display. Anything tight is out, out, out, because I will be adjusting it all day. I wear full-length trousers or skirts, because I look like a knob in shorts with my knobbly knees. Pale, ghostly, knobbly knees. So, I’m stuck with cheap polo shirts from Penney’s, which usually shrink at the first wash. And their current ones have horizontal stripes, which make me look five feet wide. Where are all the bloody plain ones?

My large collection of t-shirts bought on holidays or received as gifts are my only recourse. Some of them are baggy and leave me with a lovely farmer’s tan which stops halfway up my upper arm. These, combined with baggy combat pants, make me look like I’m permanently a student or just back from a music festival. Timeless, yes, but boring. But it’ll have to do.

I needn’t have bothered trying to update my wardrobe. The weather’s to break today or tomorrow. In fact, as I write, the sun has disappeared and returned to its rightful home several hundred miles further south.

Certain dodgy items of clothing will hopefully be put away as the sun fades... I was horrified to see that every second young fella in town was wearing those “bloomers” or Bermuda short-type things. Often with floral patterns. Cool they may be to wear and obviously fashionable, but they are GAY. Especially when coupled with skinny white torsos and legs (or red peeling ones). Jesus, they’re rotten! How can they think they look good in them? Since when have pink floral patterns been in for guys anywhere other than San Francisco?

I did enjoy the sun while it lasted. But I missed my ranting. It’s good to be back.

The Great Defectors

My team of amiable and only occasionally annoying Clerical Officers have informed me that their Union, the Civil and Public Services Union are staging an embargo on co-operating with the PMDS system, as a protest against the various cuts that have been inflicted on us in recent months.

The Department of Finance has issued a warning in which salary increments may not be paid to members if they refuse to co-operate with the PMDS process. I'm glad that I agreed all role profile forms for 2009 long before all this with everyone, so that they won't lose out for this year. But there's very little else that I can do apart from that.

I mean, I can't start drafting any Interim Review Forms. Ah, Interim Review forms. My staff have been very clear on the matter.

"We're not doing PMDS anymore!" they jeered at me, with tongues extended, blowing raspberries.

"Oh yeah?" I retorted. "I'm really sorry to hear that. Do you realise how much I love writing up all those interim review forms? And Annual Review forms? I mean, my whole YEAR revolved around filling those things up. What is the purpose of my existence now? Was my existence not solely to fill out forms about key performance indicators and critical success factors? What do I do now? Am I adrift in a sea of blank forms?"

I've no doubt it will come back to haunt me and all the other EOs up and down the country who would normally be carrying out interim reviews in the coming weeks.

I'm just going to concentrate on my other work (for there is no shortage of that, either) and let the rest of them battle it out. I hope it all works out in the end.

Vanity Foul?

Red Leeroy’s recent post (the Borrowers) which begins with people brushing their teeth in an office toilet reminded me of yet another thing that gets right on my fucking tits.

I arrived at work yesterday to find much of the same sort of thing going on. I swiped in and went for a wee in the downstairs loo before going to the section. What greeted me was a scene very similar to a scene in any nightclub ladies' toilet on a Saturday night. No, there wasn't a girl being sick in a toilet while her friend held her hair away from the blue-tinged WKD vomit as it spewed forth. Nor was there the sound of drunken sex coming from one of the cubicles.

Nope. I am talking about the preening of the ladies before beginning work. There is usually one person touching up her hair in the bathrooms at any given moment, and rightly so, 'twas a windy morning yesterday.

However, yesterday, each sink in this particular ladies' room was occupied by a girl attending to not only her hair, but in many cases her eyeliner, mascara etc etc. I had to ask one to excuse me while I washed and dried my hands. It brought back memories of sticky carpets, the pong of Red Bull in the air and incredibly overpriced beers (for I have not darkened the door of such an establishment in several years, preferring instead to drink my pint in a traditional music pub where my companions and I can actually hear each other speak).

There is nothing inherently wrong with a person taking pride in their appearance. For lazy me, it just means making sure I've had a shower that morning, that my hair isn't standing on end like that of someone just out of Electro-Convulsive Therapy, that my top is clean and ironed and that I've not put it on inside out. Well, I’m not at my best in the mornings. I usually stumble around the kitchen moaning zombie-like into my breakfast - when I can be bothered to eat one. Applying maquillage so early would just be a disaster. I’d probably end up looking like Pauline from the League of Gentlemen (And she’s an evil civil servant too!) – viz:

(Just look at that lovely hair do[n't]!)

Fair play to the girls, I suppose. With several rather fit looking male temporary clerical officers around the building it's nice to look your best.

Conversations I had today

Exchange no. 1:

Govstooge (Grumpily, swiping ID badge on time clock at 8.00 am) : "Mornin'"
Clerical Officer (Too cheerily for this Godawful hour): "Ooh, hello, how are you this morning?
Govstooge (walking in the direction of the canteen): "I'll let you know once I have my coffee"
Clerical Officer: "Ok, we can't have you falling asleep in the office."
Govstooge: "Do you think anyone will notice the difference?"


Exchange no. 2:
(Following on from a discussion about Scientology and Tom Cruise)
Clerical Officer (a different one): "Isn't George Bush in some sort of cult as well?"
Govstooge: "Yes, you could say 'cult', but I think the actual word is spelt slightly differently."

Other Departments

I walked past another Department today. I had to smile at the effort put into their exterior Christmas decorations. In fact, I wish I'd taken a picture on my mobile phone and uploaded it here.
It was a many-hued, glittering festive delight.

It was the entire contents of someone's stomach, plastered (no - hurled!), Pollock-fashion, across their plate glass double front doors.

It summed up the true spirit of the Irish Christmas.