Back!

Disappeared off the face of the blogosphere for a bit I know. And it was rude of me not to say I was going. May I apologise.

There was copious alcohol to be drunk and several GAA matches to be attended or watched on telly. And more alcohol to be drunk after the matches.

I've also passed the AO exam and am placed rather well on the order of merit. That was another reason to consume intoxicating liquor.

Anyway, t'was good, and now I'm back on form.

Form!

Ha ha!

Brian! You're a very naughty boy!

Cutbacks. Yawn.

Today the Government announced a reduction in public expenditure in order to meet the growing demands of the welfare system, due to falling employment levels. It means a 3% reduction in the payroll of Government departments, a recruitment freeze and puts the decentralisation programme on hold.

Yikes.

Looks like foie gras is off the menu in our subsidised canteen.

The Alternative Civil Service Job Simulation Test

Doing the AO exam recently got me thinking that some of the scenarios they give us in the job simulation are - although they are plausible - not wide ranging enough to encapsulate the full civil service experience.

So I’ve come up with my own, alternative job sims for an EO role. To do this test, you must pick what you think is the best course of action out of the five options for each scenario.

Ready?

Scenario 1:

You are an Executive Officer working in an incredibly boring Government Department. It is just approaching your tea break. The clerical staff you normally go on tea break with have signalled that it is time for tea, and just as you get up from your desk your HEO arrives down with a question. You know that your HEO was on the phone to her husband all morning, and you find it annoying that she has waited until now to talk to you.

What do you do?

(a) Make all the clerical staff wait for you until your HEO is finished with you.

(b) Tell everyone to go ahead and that you will join them later.

(c) Tell the HEO that you would like to go on your tea as your blood sugar levels are dropping and you may go into a coma at any minute due to hypoglycaemia.

(d) Run away.

(e) Grab the nearest letter opener and stab the HEO in the jugular while laughing maniacally. The HEO’s blood spatters you and all the clerical officers and you all walk calmly towards the canteen, ignoring the stares of passers-by.

Scenario 2:

You are an Executive Officer working in an incredibly boring Government Department. You have been asked by your HEO to give a talk on Health and Safety to the staff in your section. Your HEO has asked you to include a few specific Health and Safety infractions which he has seen in recent weeks. The issues he is raising relate to personal hygiene, incredibly untidy desks and swearing managers.

What do you do?

(a) Agree to do it and research the topic in full and present a draft of the talk to your HEO before giving the talk to ensure that the issues are covered in the correct manner.

(b) Book a conference room, so you can do a Powerpoint presentation with pictures you have taken on your mobile phone of smelly employees and messy desks. Give freebie deodorant samples to each participant along with diagrams of the parts of the body where the deodorant is to be used.

(c) Ask the HEO why can’t he do it himself because you don’t really care as long as you don’t have to sit next to the smelly bastards.

(d) Run away.

(e) Kick the HEO in the balls, shouting “You should have sorted out your own fucking health and safety before asking me anything!”

Scenario 3:

You are an Executive Officer working in an incredibly boring Government Department. It is coming up to the year end and you must conduct the end-of year PMDS reviews for all of your staff. There is also a deadline approaching for the preparation of a report on something so tedious you fall asleep every time you touch your notes. Your HEO has stressed that all PMDS interim reviews must be done by a certain date which coincides with the deadline for the report.

What do you do?

(a) Take all the clerical staff into a room where you have a bunch of numbers in a big hat. Ask them to take one number each. When they have all chosen, tell them that’s their PMDS rating for the year and walk out. Go back to the report.

(b) Work late for a few evenings (yes, later than 7pm so no flexitime) to do the report so that you can get the PMDS done during the day when everyone’s in.

(c) Prioritise the report and “forget” the deadline on PMDS. No-one ever gets them all done on time anyway.

(d) Run away.

(e) Take all the clerical staff into a room and kill them all with a big knife. When you are finished, come out and tell your HEO that all your staff are dead and there’s no need for PMDS. When the HEO tells you that the “P” can stand for “Posthumous” you stab him too. Go back to the report.

More to be posted later as I think of them.

Just an examination, just an examination

Well, I emerged unscathed from the AO exam on Saturday, despite my initial trepidation at having to spend three hours of my day off in a draughty hall in the company of civil servants, both existing and prospective.

I must say it went very well for me; I managed to tackle every question in verbal and numerical reasoning and the job simulation and even had some time left over at the end to make sure I'd filled in the right boxes on the answer form. Considering how I fared at the "examples" bit at the start, this was fortuitous.

I can never do the examples. I want to save my energy for the real thing. Three example questions which are of no consequence. I always get at least one wrong, even if it is:

"The ________ sat on the mat
(a) cat
(b) dog
(c) Taoiseach
(d) Hippy
(e) Adjustable Spanner"

or
"10% of 10 is
(a) 1
(b) 3
(c) half an ounce
(d) 2,086.987
(e) Hitler"

And of course, the folk administering the test will walk around and look over everyone's shoulder to see if they made the right marks. A gentle nudge from a civil servant in a very fancy shirt and a whisper in my ear, "Have another look at question two there, pet."

FUCK OFF! If I ace this exam, I will hunt you down, shiny shirted person, and I will rub my results all over your face. And I will stick your whiny feedback-y microphone where the sun doesn't shine.

Results by mid-July. I'm not going to buy the Vaseline just yet.

And in all probability, even if I do make it onto the panel, a recruitment freeze will probably put paid to my hopes of a job with no staff.

AO - let's go!

I can't go to the pub tonight. I have to do the Administrative Officer (AO) exam in the morning.

For feck's sake. A Saturday. I can't even claim a half day exam leave.

Boo.

I had better make it worth my while.

The Bore War

It has recently become a daily pastime for me and a colleague to see who will get caught for the longest with workplace bores. I usually win, because I use my iPod in the office as a defensive strategy, particularly when I'm busy (yes, that's right, busy) and don't want to be interrupted.

The office bore is a generally pleasant chap who can hold highly opinionated lectures about the relative merits of one national road over another, why MDF is better than chipboard or OSB, what angle should the windows be opened at for optimum ventilation of the office, and Wavin pipes. The lectures are usually punctuated with the occasional "Okay?" to make sure he still has the attention of his audience. I have learnt to never, NEVER let my eyes meet his as he walks into the room, otherwise I am a prime target for his next talk.

A new colleague is still perfecting her evasive technique, and so is the current favoured target. I couldn't keep a straight face today as she was on the receiving end of a five-minute description of some curtains. "Ha ha", I sent in an email as the lecture drew to its conclusion.

Later today, however, I lost the battle.

I received a phone call from a colleague in another office who is notorious, not for being boring, but for taking a quarter of an hour to get her point across when five minutes would suffice. I had already answered the phone before I looked at its incoming number display. The conversation lasted ten minutes, and could easily have taken two. I knew I was losing when my interjections of "Great, I'll sort that out for you and I'll have the forms to you early next week" went unheeded and the time online crept towards double digits.

A pop-up window on my computer screen caught my attention: "You have new mail".

"Double ha ha", it said. (Wouldn't that be "ha ha ha ha"?)

Feck.

I can't stand losing.

Que sommes nous? D’où venons-nous? Où allons-nous?

This is the most self-aware piece of masonry I've come across yet.



Apologies for the lazy post. I am exhausted from a hangover-hangover. Normal service will resume.