Civil Servants

Mild-mannered fooling around: a pest spray bottle for irritating staff,
a gift from an irritating member of my staff. 

In another unusual turn for me, I quite like my boss at the Ministry of Energy Northern Development and Mines (hereafter Energy etc.). She was the director of legal services before becoming Assistant Deputy Minister. She's smart, dedicated to her team and fun to work with.

We're divided only by our perspective on the cause of chaos in our jobs. I tend to blame the politicians. She blames the bureaucrats.

We're both right.

This past week, my boss and I turned our different views of our world on what could well prove to be a classic in the annals of political/bureaucratic collaboration on gumming things up.

Twenty or so pages into the 55 page Fall Economic Statement, the government announced that it would start overseeing labour negotiations of all government agencies. 

This is part of the new crew's commitment to fiscal management and making sure the taxpayer is not being milked.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, but the government did forget to tell the agencies what they were planning to do.

So when I got on the phone with a couple of the agencies I deal with - one of which is in the middle of its labour negotiations - there were what I would describe as carefully contained reactions to my news.

To the element of surprise was added the extra fun that the internal department in charge of oversight had not figured out any part of the process. There were draft templates and vague notions about who should fill them out and who should sign them, but nothing had been approved....

Of course the deadline was three days before the release of the Fall Economic Statement. 

In chaos-rich situations like this, where everyone is stressed and angry, the bureaucracy erupts in a rash of civility, festooning the end of every e-mail with defusing bromides such as "should you have any other questions please do not hesitate to contact me" and "I can definitely make myself available if you require anything further."

I gave serious thought to asking the last guy to do my Christmas shopping for me, but decided not to break the mood.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen