TriumphAnt

Hallowe’en in the federal public service…

In the Government of Canada, every department has its Human Resource (HR, what we used to call “personnel” or in those even more distant, pre-politically-correct days, “manpower”) cheerleaders. By now, you’ve probably seen that TV commercial where the guy says good-night to a half dozen office “types”, including, “Good night overly cheerful HR lady…” That commercial is hilarious, because it’s bang on with its labels. [“Good night nobody-knows-what-you-do guy” gets the biggest laugh in our house. Because (a) my better half knows at least one in her workplace; and (b) I am one in mine.]

On Hallowe’en in the federal public service, you can pretty well identify who works in a unit with just such an overly cheerful HR person. They are the people walking through the common areas in the most outlandish costumes, usually with semi-sullen “Holy shit, I can’t believe I let myself get talked into this!” looks on their faces. But what makes it uniquely Public Service is that they also seem to have commanded themselves to be utterly oblivious to their often-bizarre external appearances and, in every other way, to act as though it’s just another day in the halls of Government.

On Hallowe’en, while returning from a meeting in another of my complex’s quartet of towers, I passed a fellow walking along with three other guys in suits. He, on the other hand, was decked out in a truly magnificent rendering of, as nearly as I could figure, the elder Pharaoh from the old Cecil B DeMille / Charlton Heston take on “The Ten Commandments” – Egyptian headdress, elaborate collar jewellery, flowing white robe, and sandals. As far as I could tell as we passed each other, he was participating in a walking meeting.

And I imagined that his three colleagues were managing only with great difficulty to sustain straight faces in the presence of someone who, really, they probably just wanted to grab, look full in the face and shout, “Let my people GO!” And I also wondered why this guy even bothered to go to all that trouble when it was clear that his day’s work schedule was proceeding unimpeded by any duly costumed acknowledgement to the last day of October’s marketing-bastardized pagan traditions.

Seconds later, several paces on, I passed a line of people waiting for the opportunity to stock themselves from the local Tim Horton’s coffee / donut shop. And amid the variations on standard business dress stood one person encased in a full-blown (literally, because I think it was inflatable) outfit that made her look like a giant cartoon sumo wrestler. At least she was laughing, but that might just as easily have been a function of the fact that, at that moment in time, she was in a coffee line-up rather than at her workspace. The rest of the people waiting in line, on the other hand, made no visible acknowledgement whatsoever of the presence in their midst of a pseudo sumo wrestler roughly three times the size of anyone else.

But to me, far and away the most pathetic (“pathetic” here to mean, “deserving of pathos”) example was a woman who works not too far away from where I do. She had gone to no small amount of trouble to stuff herself into a Winnie the Pooh costume of a quality on the order of a sports team mascot. But when I saw her, it was near the end of the day, when it was apparent that spending the day indoors while completely encased in a mountain of fake yellow fur had perhaps triggered episodes of overheating. Because when I saw her, she was in profile and had peeled the entire upper half of the costume away and rolled it down around her waist.

Now a large Pooh-bear head is not something that rolls, so from where I stood it appeared to protrude oddly from her midriff, looking for all the world as if it were erupting from her. In fact, it looked exactly like someone had poured an entire bottle of tequila into Hollywood Director Ridley Scott, pointed him in the direction of a word processor and issued to him the blunt direction, “Ridley old man, we love the ‘Alien’ idea, but you need to make it more kid-friendly.”

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“Head-scratch-o-the day – 1”:

One has to ask if the US Foreign Policy Association knows something the rest of the world – especially Canada – hasn’t cottoned onto yet…. Like, f’instance, the target of the next major US-led pacification incursion to share the American version of democracy with a world hungry for mid-term elections. The following ad was linked via a web log I read occasionally:

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“Project-Based Linguists
Organization:
Kwikpoint
Location:
United States (Alexandria, VA)
Website: http://www.kwikpoint.com
Contact Information:
Larry Golfer
Phone: etc
Email: etc
Description:
Immediate need for project-based native speaking linguists in Afghan Pashto, Farsi, Dari, and in Canadian French. No translation involved. Project involves creating phonetic pronunciations of translated phrases for military/intelligence use. Pashto, Dari and Farsi linguists selected must have current, colloquial, Afghan "street language" knowledge of their respective language. Canadian French must be Quebecois. The material is not formal or in a literary form of the language. Must be familiar with basic military/intelligence terminology. Compensation is hourly, to be negotiated. Professional references on linguistic ability required. Reply to email listed.”
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“Canadian French”? Specifically “Quebecois”? I’m thinking the Jean Charest government in Quebec might want to send off a quick memo to the Harper government in Ottawa… “Uh Stephen, d’ya think maybe you could put some accelerators on that program you announced to train and arm the guards at Canadian border entry points? And could you upgrade the training beyond ‘How to deal with a rumoured wingnut approaching with a pistol’ [“Run away!”] to ‘How to deal with a mechanized column of US Marines armed to the teeth and supported by Hellfire-missile-equipped Apache attack helicopters’. Like… NOW!!? Love ya. Cheers, Jean”

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“Head-scratch-o-the day – 2”. Here’s the start of a recent Government of Canada news release of the type that crosses my desk ten times a day. Once you get past the process of wondering just what sort of news organ in the entire country could possibly find even a shred of interest in the opening sentence, perhaps you will come to that place where, like me, you have more questions than answers, exactly the opposite of what a news release is supposed to do. (Recently I was asked, in my place of work, to undertake a review of departmental media coverage for the past few months and to include a comment or two about why certain program announcements received no pick-up whatsoever in the media. It’s too bad I didn’t have this news release available at the time. Because the stultifying dullness of its first breathless paragraph is also the answer to that question. But I digress.):

“OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Nov. 1, 2006) -- The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, announced today that the Agreements on Social Security between Canada and the Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will enter into force on November 1, 2006. The Agreements apply to Canada's Old Age Security program and the Canada Pension Plan, and to the comparable respective pension programs of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”

As the news release itself goes on to explain in the most ponderous language possible, the agreements on Social Security mentioned here are aimed at ensuring that Canadian workers will continue to receive their Canada Pension Plan if they’re sent to work in the Baltic republics, and also that they cannot be compelled to contribute to the Baltic countries’ pension plans while working there. So then I wondered if perhaps I was being overly glib in light of the possible extent of such circumstances.

(GoogleGoogleGoogle, “Canadian workers in Latvia”): From “latvians online”, February 7, 2006: “Small-town Canada man plays hockey in Latvia”…

So in response to the question immediately above (Am I being overly glib?), that’d be a nope. But wait a minute here… OMIGAWD!! “But 23-year-old Vilis Ābele from Perth, Ontario…”.

He’s from my hometown! (So obviously it’s a huge issue.)

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And finally, if you’re feeling at all anti-corporate as you read this update, well then you’ll appreciate this little zing from Maclean’s columnist and regular blogger Paul Wells who, in addition to all his other scribblings, has recently penned an insider’s look at Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s election win earlier this year, entitled “Right Side Up”. As he notes in a recent blog entry, it’s even findable in Ottawa, our nation’s bastion of conservatism, if you know where to look:

“My book is ‘now available in bookstores,’ if by ‘bookstores,’ you understand I mean ‘probably not the store you're looking in.’ Exceptions, in downtown Ottawa, include Nicholas Hoare on Sussex, which is not stocking it prominently but which seems able to cough up copies if you ask; and Smithbooks on Sparks St., which has been restocking its hardy little pile of Right Side Ups as customers have streamed in. Britton's on Bank St. in the Glebe is also selling Right Side Up, I'm told.

The Chapters cornerstone store on Rideau, on the other hand, seems genuinely not to have considered that a book about the Prime Minister of Canada might draw any interest, a block from where the Prime Minister of Canada works. Not a copy. Nary a one. But then, why should I expect better from a chain that has failed, completely, to update the cover art on their website, four weeks after my publisher asked them to?

This explains why my book launches — in Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Sarnia and London — will be staffed by independent booksellers, who will keep the profits, and my thanks, for showing slightly quicker wits than the Brezhnevian behemoth of Canadian bookselling.

‘The World Needs More Canada?’ Depends which parts.”

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And a peek head to our next entry… back to things musical and a review of a completely fantastic recent Ottawa concert… plus the second Perth citation in a row!

A la prochaine.