Journalism fail

I was listening to the news this morning as they broke news of a ferry disaster in Indonesia.

A ferry with 240 people on board had capsized in rough seas, with confirmed 29 dead and another 17 missing. Amidst the confusion they crossed to the correspondent on the scene who reported:

"the situation here is still quite fluid".

Glug glug glug

Man status: revoked

What kind of grown man, when talking about a mischievious puppy befouling the rug, says "the puppy had a whoopsie on the carpet". And this is in the midst of an expletive-filled conversation with a bunch of other men. So, for clarification:

• Man points are awarded for use of terms like: crap, dump, turd. Extra points for particularly colourful descriptors such as "steaming pile" thereof.
• Points deducted for saying: doo-doo, poop, whoopsie or naughty.

Please hand in your man card on the way out.

How to get laid in the public service

Marital relations – expressions of interest

1. This document seeks expressions of interest from suitable parties for the provision of marital relations. This includes, but is not limited to: kissing, light petting, heavy petting and intercourse.

Services

2. The services requested shall be for a minimum of 2 minutes, but no more than 15 minutes, in recognition of the government’c current commitments to the Rugby World Cup.

Expressions of Interest

3. All of expressions of interest must itemise the services that will be provided, along with expected costs and disbursements (such as post-coital spooning, conversation, affirmations of affection)

Evaluation criteria

4. All expressions of interest shall be evaluated by a panel consisting of representatives from tangate whenua, environmental organisations and industry. The department will oversee this evaluation of all applications, and may record these evaluations if the standard is high enough.
5. Expressions of interest will be scored to an overall net national benefits model, which seeks to maximise benefits while minimising transaction costs for the department (value for money)

Preferred supplier

6. The department has an ongoing relationship with a preferred service provider in this area. However, in recognition of the government’s market development agenda, expressions of interest from alternatives providers are welcome. The department especially welcomes new entrants to the market, in the interests of building capacity in this area.

The arms race escalates

The escalating madness that is intra-office gift giving for every conceivable occasion just got even lamer.

In a style truly befitting an office of paper-shufflers, the card-signing process has been "made more robust" by the addition of some unnecessary layers of bureaucracy.

See, you silly private citizens would probably just pass a card around, sign it, and pass it on to the next person. Here's how the bureaucracy does it:

1. draft of list of recipients who should be invited to sign the card. This probably involved setting up a steering group to list the names, before consulting on this proposal for 4-6 weeks.
2. the list of recipients is typed up into a checklist, which is placed in a plastic sleeve and attached to the card.
3. the card is then circulated among this select group. Each person should write a personal message in the card, preferably with some work-related reference included- because that's what people care about when they're off to get married.
4. the signatory should then tick off their name from the tracking sheet, before passing on to the next designated well-wisher.
5. The card must not be signed by anyone outside the approved list. To do so would violate the gift-giving terms of reference, and earn a firm rebuke from the auditors.

Stay tuned for the 16-step process required for a bureaucrat to seek in-principle agreement for some action from his wife.

The office farewell

There are few things more naff than the office farewell. Although, any sort of function with the prefix 'office' is bound to be naff. Friday night office drinkies? Office xmas party? Office machine gun rampage.

Generally it consists of 'farewelling' some boring as hell accountant from the 7th floor, who you have never talked to, apart from the time he said "gee it's wet out" one morning in the elevator after a torrential downpour. You get to stand round munching on some sub-standard sausage rolls and club sandwiches (who orders these?), and listen to a by-the-numbers speech about what a great job he's done, we're all going to miss you and all the best for your new endeavours. Tedious.

Even worse however, is being forced to 'chip in' to buy them a present. And even worse than that, is this sort of gift-giving arms raise which seems to be escalating round the office, where we need a morning tea, card and present for anyone who has a birthday, anniversary, return from maternity leave or finally passed that turd that's been blocking them up for a while.

Gifts, by definition, are a voluntary token of affection from one person to another. I'm happy to cough up a few bucks for someone I genuinely like, but I'm not gonna pay towards a gift for some schmoe I couldn't care less about. But of course if I don't, I'll be forever marked out as the office asshole for not ponying up the dough.

Not quite sustainable tourism

As I delve into researching my travel plans for next year, I’ve taken a look at few organised tours. (hey, I don’t really fancy sub-Saharan Africa on my own).

For some reason, the tours have the worst names. It’s normally some sort of banal pun and/or mildly patronising reference to the country, like Turkish Delights, Jewels of South East Asia or Colours of Morocco.

However, I came across one title that was a little more, er, colourful, which is a tour of South America called ‘the Conquistador’.

Excuse me? The Conquistadors were a bunch or imperialist religious zealots, who mercilessly colonised South America in the 16th century, wiping out up to 95% of native populations through a combination of guns, germs and steel. They systematically attempted to wipe out civilisations like the Aztecs, trying to remove all traces of the indigenous religion and language. The Aztecs weren’t exactly loveable good guys either, but I would have though that calling a tour ‘the Conqueror’ might send the wrong message.

What’s next? A 2 week fast paced ‘Blitzkrieg’ tour of central Europe?

A ‘Spanish Inquisition’ exploring Spain and Portugal?

How about a lovely sailing tour of coastal Africa, on board the Amistad?

Girl logic

I was having a conversation with a female colleague, who was upset that her partner had suggested that they hire a cleaner for their one-bedroom flat. She felt this was an extravagance, and they'd be better off using the $50 a fortnight cost for something else.

I suggested that lots of couples fight about the housework, and it wouldn't be a waste if it resolved some of that tension. So I asked "do you fight over the cleaning a lot?"

Answer "not if he does what I tell him"

Please, sir, you buy? One dollar?

A friend from my recent trip sent me a few of his photos. And there a few gems of things that I missed. Like this one. A little girl selling bracelets out near Ta Prom. It started off at 3 for a dollar, and I heard it get up to ten for one stoney faced tourist.

Normally the urchins are more a nuisance than anything and you get pretty blase about brushing them aside. But this girl, well, I don't think I've used the phrase 'cute as a button' before, but that about covers it. Add in a dirt covered tshirt, and a wavering voice -how could you not give her a dollar?

And boy was she glad to get it. I think she made 3 bucks out of my group, got this excited grin on her face, and bolted.

The subtle art of hyperbole

Everyone loves a good burst of gross overstatement. Everything from being “absolutely gutted” that the dairy ran out of trim milk, to counting that gentle reminder from your boss counts as a “complete bollocking”.

Yep we all do it, and there’s nothing like a overstating the case to illicit the required sympathy or humour.

But it’s a fine line. Often people end up sounding ridiculously precious and out of touch with their use of hyperbole. Take this example:

Fairfax Media’s new chairman Roger Corbett, today faced shareholder accusation a board row had made the company a laughing stock.
A shareholder, former federal Labor small business minister Chris Schacht, received applause at the annual general meeting after he criticised the stoush that ousted former chairman Ron Walker.
''The governance of this board has been appalling,'' Mr Schacht said, describing the board row as a ''killing field''.

I think that might be over-egging the pudding somewhat. Comparing a board room squabble to the genocide of 3 million people? Is some bickering about whether the company is pro-active enough going forward the same as the systematic extermination of your countrymen? You might as well call it a Holocaust.

What happened to the feta and spinach muffins I ordered for morning tea? I can't eat these blueberry ones! This is ethnic cleansing of the worst kind!

Mind you, these are the same people who give themselves bonuses when the company's performance tanks, so it's probably perfectly logical from that perspective.

Another U2 irony

This week marks the 20 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While this was not really the most significant moment in the fall of communism, it is probably the most symbolic. It represents the unification of Europe, the development of the European community, and the liberation of millions who lived under oppressive regimes.

With a well-trained eye for any opportunity to get into the limelight, especially where trendy global political causes are involved, U2 seized the initiative and magnanimously offered a free concert for the people. That’s right, a free concert to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ten thousand lucky locals were given free tickets to attend.

But in a delicious irony, which underlines U2’s supposed-humanitarian-but-actually-merciless-capitalist status, concert organisers (MTV) built a 6-foot high wall around the stage, to prevent non-ticket holders from viewing the performance. Irony much?

Way to celebrate the wall coming down, douche bags.

Office maladies- it gets worse

Apropos my previous post about spurious sick days, comes this gem.

The Department of Labour decides to have their end of year function with a carnival theme, and have advertised this with some clown photos. Apparently this was too much for one poor woman, who is scared of clowns, and insisted on having the posters taken down. Talk about your pseudo-illness.

Note also that another woman was allowed to set up a creche in the office, often resulting in her co-workers having to look after the brat.

Our work christmas party is going to be a "Hawaiian luau" theme- it's already making me feel nauseated and anxious. Reckon I could get it cancelled?

Lameopartiphobia-morbid fear of forced socialising with public servants wearing Hawaiian shirts.

Sorry, I'm sick today *kaf* *kaf*

Something that continues to amaze me at my current job is the number of people taking sick leave for absolutely inane reasons. Now, I’m not adverse to the occasional ‘mental health day’, and I absolutely do take time off when I’m not feeling well.

There are 3 basic classes of office sick leaver taker-

The hypochondriac- there’s one of these in every office. The permanently sick and afflicted, the hypochondriac is constantly getting colds (although it’s always referred to as the flu) and other intermittent illnesses. And there is usually some form of ongoing quasi-illness such as a gluten intolerance and/or chronic fatigue thrown in for good measure. This allows a sicky to be taken at any time, even without any obvious symptoms of being unwell. These are the people who get sick because they “sit next to an airconditioner”.

The shameless slacker- this is the person who is always calling sick on Mondays and Fridays, even with the obvious dodgy implications of doing so. In rare cases, the shameless slacker can be so brazen as to call in sick the days preceding or following a long holiday weekend. Although the giant balls award goes to a colleague of mine who called in sick on the Monday following her 2 week holiday to a Pacific Island. The shameless slacker relies on the laziness and lack of accountability in public sector managers to never get called out for their behaviour. Good luck trying that shtick at the factory.

The family man- this is the guy who is constantly taking leave because a member of their family is sick, and they have to stay home to look after them. And typically, it turns into an ongoing cycle of sickness within the family, where as soon as the child is well, one of the parents has picked up the same bug and they need to stay home. And children being the little petrie dishes that they are, no sooner is the adult recovered than the kids down with something again. Throw in all the times you have to leave work early or come in late to take the kid to pre-school/pick them up/take them to the doctor and so forth, and you probably only need to work about 7 hours a week. This cycle breeds a sense of entitlement to near-unlimited sick leave, as shown in a guy I know who, on a scheduled day of annual leave, called in to say that he was instead looking after a sick child so would take the annual leave the following day.

However, just because you don’t fit into any of these archetypal sick day categories, don’t let that stop you from having a breather at home. I worked with a guy who called in sick one day via a message on the bosses phone. The reason given was, and I shit you not, this was the actual message:

Sorry I can’t come in today as my cat has had an epileptic fit and bit me on the finger.